My Strength Chapter 25

After the third day of not going to school, Bella was going out of her mind. The talk with Leah hadn’t gone over as well as she had hoped. Leah did what Leah did best: she was angry. Leah had never appreciated being forced to turn into a giant wolf, the very same ‘gift’ that had taken her fiancée from her. Leah yelled a lot, Bella soothed a lot, and in the end, they went their separate ways with Leah promising nothing was going to change between them. The wolf really didn’t handle change well. But Leah would be able to figure it, it wasn’t up to Bella to do that for her.

But after that day, and then taking the next few days off as well as she continued to worry over the coming fight, Bella was going stir crazy. She didn’t want to go to school from fear of the wolves opting to attack and she would have no way of knowing what was happening. She had to keep herself available to keep updated when the fight finally happens. She knew she wasn’t going to be anywhere near where the fight would happen, she would even have Victoria and Felix with her to protect her in case any of the wolves slipped past the vampires. Her vampire parents were very sure they would be able to subdue the wolves and with a guard member’s help, Chelsea was her name, Sam would likely no longer be the alpha. The plan was to have Jacob and Chelsea together to force Sam to submit and allow Jacob to take the position and then to banish Sam from the pack and forbid him to shift.

All in all, everything was going to happen when Bella wasn’t there. She was waiting for Felix to randomly show up in her room and tell Zafrina she needed to leave. Bella felt like she was constantly on edge since not even Alice’s visions could give an accurate time frame. Bella needed to get out and do something instead of just waiting around for everyone to leave her to fight and possible not be seen alive again. The thought was a bit on the dramatic side, but Bella couldn’t help it.

“You are thinking quite loudly.” Zafrina mumbled from her side of the couch.

Bella was situated between Zafrina and Victoria on the couch with all three of them watching a movie. Caius and Athenodora had gone off to meet with the Cullen’s to discuss the training results of their family and the wolves helping them. She wanted some alone time with her vampires. But she couldn’t even focus on them long enough to enjoy her time.

“I’m just thinking about the fight.” Bella answered with a sigh. It was the same old conversation they had been having for days now.

“Why waste time overthinking everything, we will all be fine and none of your friends will die.” Victoria said without taking her attention away from the television. She was very much invested in the movie and wanted to see it, but her mate was clearly struggling with her inability to help. With a deep, very much internal sigh, Victoria paused the movie and turned the television off. She knew if she were in her mate’s position with wanting to help everyone, she would be going crazy herself. Personally, Victoria was fine with the plan since she would be with her mate keeping Bella safe. Her mate couldn’t help them, she was a human and Victoria knew Bella really needed to stop holding that against herself. “What would you say to taking a walk through town?” Victoria asked, giving her full attention to her mate and the Amazon. “You can show me any hot spots in town and Zafrine can try to get used to wearing real clothes.” Victoria said with a smirk, knowing it amused her mate greatly to watch the Amazon struggle to fit in when she really had no desire to.

Zafrina frowned as she thought about having to put those clothes on again. It had quickly become clear that no matter how strong Heidi was with her gift, her clothes stood out far too much to get away with it. Her sisters were lucky enough to not need to go into to town but she wasn’t. Her mate sometimes had to go there and she wasn’t about to be left behind just because of some pieces of cloth on her body. It was just very unfortunate that she felt so confined in the clothes.

“It does take some getting used to.” Zafrina said with a frown.

Bella knew Victoria was only trying to distract her and to get her mind focused on something else besides the fight to come. Honestly, Bella was grateful. She didn’t want to be overthinking everything to do with the coming fight, she just wanted to ignore it all and have faith her new friends and family would be fine. They were all confident they would be fine; and they had even admitted they had all been in fights with real werewolves that were ten times stronger than shifters and they had survived. Bella had to have faith, if she didn’t, she would probably drive herself crazy.

“Yeah, that sounds like fun.” Bella said with a smile, already picturing Zafrina in some clothes Alice had purchased for her.

An hour later, all three women were in town, slowly walking past the different shops and talking. Victoria had already made sure the Volturi royals knew where they were going to be, had promised to have Bella home in time for Caius to try his hand at trying to further soothe his daughter. Caius was planning on going over the wolves weak points and how they would use those to their advantage to subdue the wolves long enough for Jacob to do what he needed to.

Bella was telling them a story about when she had first arrived in Forks and was trying to not seem like the weird new kid, so had accepted an invitation to go shopping. What Bella hadn’t realized was that the shopping really entailed one of the girls practically interrogating her about her life while the other girls played interference so the interrogator didn’t get too aggressive and make Bella leave. Jessica could sure as hell be nosy when she was after information.

Victoria was chuckling at her mate’s inherent desire to be a wall flower when her phone vibrated with a text message.

“You should have made up an entire story that was entirely made up, keep telling different versions of yourself and see how long it would take for these humans to figure out you were lying.” Victoria said as she fished her phone out of her pocket.

“Yeah, and be pegged as the psychopath? No thank you, my goal was to survive high school, not become a bully’s target.” Bella said with a roll of her eyes.

“I doubt any harm would have been done.” Zafrina comforted her mate. She truly didn’t understand what a bully was and how they affected a young human’s life, but she was sure no matter what it was her mate would have been fine.

Victoria re-read the words for the hundredth time and before she could even think of words to tell her mate with the softest words she could think of, a hulking shadow over takes them.

“You’re up Zafrina.” A deep voice said from behind them.

“It’s time?” Bella asked, going just a little pale. She knew she would be fine, she knew her new family would be fine, but she wanted to make sure her friends, several of whom she was confident was only fighting because their alpha was commanding them to, were going to be okay. It had been very clear that if they needed to, a wolf may very well be killed. That was what she was actually worried about.

Zafrina turned to her mate and cupped Bella’s face with her hands to make sure her mate gave her, her full and undivided attention.

“It will be okay, I will keep you safe.” Zafrina said in a firm tone, “Your heart is safe with me.” She said before quickly pulling her mate in for a kiss as if to seal her promise. Before her mate could respond with any doubt of her promise, Zafrina started to speed walk away towards the forest where she could already sense one of her sisters waiting for her.

Victoria put her hand on Bella’s shoulder as they watched Zafrina walk away.

“Have faith love, outside of the Cullen’s, they are all strong fighters and even the Cullen’s all have gifts to make them strong.” Victoria promised her mate. “Come, we will go to your house and within the hour, we will drive to the Cullen’s house as planned.”

Bella nodded and started to walk home with Victoria next to her and Felix behind them. She knew the fight wouldn’t last long. Everyone had agreed to get Jacob to overpower Sam as quickly as possible and to take ownership of the pack as his birthright dictated. It shouldn’t last long since the vampires were planning on cheating. Probably within the next hour or two, Bella would know exactly what happened and would be told if there were any injuries on either side.