Ban Together Chapter 16

Bella really should have called her dad first; even if it was smarter to call the wolves before talking with her dad. It made sense that she spoke with the wolves first in case word got to them before she could talk with the pack and things escalate further; the wolves tempers were definitely working against her. If they weren’t talked with first, they may start to assume the worst since she couldn’t very well tell Charlie the full story; but the wolves wouldn’t think of that. The wolves were likely to take everything she told Charlie at face value and that wouldn’t be good. And that was why she called the wolves first.

Kate was lounging on the couch of a sitting room that was attached to her own room; the blonde had her arms stretched across the back of the couch and wasn’t doing a very good job at hiding the smirk she had on her face. Kate was very amused with not only the assumptions the wolves had started to make right at the start of the conversation but of also Jane’s reactions to the call. Truthfully, and she would never tell the other blonde, she wanted to be just as upset as the twin was. The accusations the wolves were making about what the vampires were doing to Bella was really just pissing her off. But since Jane seemed to have a handle of the piss offed vampire vibe and Bella was clearly already handling a lot, Kate opted to just go with being the amused bystander as she listened to everything.

Jane was pissed though and everything she could hear the wolves saying, things that her human wasn’t able to hear, was only pissing her off more. She would be hard pressed to convince someone that she didn’t have anger issues, not that she would ever try to admit otherwise; but it seemed every idea these wolves put forth was purposefully said to piss her off.

Jane was proud that her mate opted to not have her parents present while she called the dogs and her father; she was sure her mate just didn’t want to feel the pressure from her parents wanting to take over to ensure the plan went as expected. She was also proud, more thankful really than anything, that her mate allowed both she and Kate into the room with her. She had feared that her mate would want to be alone and was afraid of what the dogs may say that may hurt her mate to pressure her to leave Italy.

The wolves had increasingly argued that Bella had been forced to go to Italy, that the vampires that had been at the Cullen’s house and kidnapped her and all the wolves were concerned that they were going to hurt her if they hadn’t already. Bella had almost agreed with them that she had been kidnapped by at least Kate, a smirk shared by the women let Bella know the blonde had the same idea, but Bella knew that would be a very bad idea. So instead, she was arguing with Sam and the rest of the pack on speaker phone, trying to convince that she was safer in Voltera and couldn’t go back to Forks until the Cullen’s and Victoria were dealt with.

“Listen, I know you don’t trust the vampires,” Bella said and quickly continued talking, ignoring the eruption of agreement she could hear over the phone, “That’s why they said if it would make you guys feel better, they would be willing to pay for several of you guys to come over and verify that I’m safe.”

For just a few seconds, the wolves were actually quiet and Bella had to turn away from Kate and started pacing again because she knew there was a sarcastic comment about to come from the blondes mouth. To be fair though, the wolves had done more talking amongst themselves about what had happened to Bella that Bella had talked about what had actually happened.

“They want to have just a couple us go over so they can split us up and kill us?” A voice she had easily recognized to be Paul angrily asked. “I say we all go there and just kill them.” He said with growl that was too low for Bella to hear, causing Jane to growl back, Kate to roll her eyes and Bella to give Jane a curious look as to why the shorter blonde had growled.

“They aren’t going to do anything to you; if they did, Charlie would know where you guys were and would immediately call the Italian police or whoever about an international crime. Do you really think the vampires, much less your pack, want that kind of attention?” Bella asked, sounding tired of the conversation.

Part of Bella understood where the hesitancy was coming from; they were raised to hate vampires after all. So she understood there would be some hate and hesitancy when it came to going to the vampire strong hold. On the other hand though, wasn’t there the whole ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ thing? They had the great power part down, but the responsibility part, wouldn’t that include thinking about all angles including angles they may not like that proved the vampires weren’t trying to pull a fast one? They may not agree with the vampire diet, but that wasn’t what Bella was asking them to do; she just wanted them to know she was safe, mostly safe if you didn’t think about Victoria or the Cullen’s, and that Charlie didn’t have to worry about anything.

Perhaps they were still in the shifter equivalent of the vampire newborn phase where they didn’t have much control over their emotions and the shifters lack of control mostly just lead to anger issues. They weren’t really hearing what she was saying; they were too focused on the fact she wanted them to go visit and play nice with a ton of vampires.

“And what guarantee do we have that they won’t kill us?” Sam asked in a gruff voice; Bella was starting to think he was almost done with the conversation.

“Why don’t you send Jacob, he would be the last person to say I was safe with a bunch of vampires.” Bella asked, “Then you can have Seth go, which of course means Leah would go and you all know that if she even senses a threat to Seth she would get them out of here, Jake and I be damned.” Bella offered, Jake’s crush on her and Leah’s overprotectiveness would benefit her if she played her cards right.

“I’ll go.” Jake quickly offered, only thinking about being Bella’s knight in shining armor and saving her from the vampires that he was sure was hurting her somehow. All he had to do was pretend to be nice, play the nice wolf and then the second they let their guard down, which they would because all vampires were cocky assholes, he would save Bella.

“Of course you would.” Jarrod said and added, “You just want a chance to jump her.” He said with a loud laugh, causing others to start to jeering and laughing Jacob and for Bella to go bright red.

Bella had barely noticed a quick twitch in Jane’s face, her annoyance turning to anger, and Bella quickly turned her back to Jane and curled over to try and protect her phone from being taken away by Jane. Kate quickly moved to help Bella keep Jane from taking her phone by pressing herself to Bella from the front and pressing her hand against Bella’s hand that was holding the phone and pressing into Bella’s head. Kate was sure the only reason she had been able to get to Bella’s phone hand so quickly was because Jane had paused for just a second as she realized she was pressed to Bella’s ass as Jane had leaned into her to get the phone. Kate would have been jealous if it wasn’t for Bella being pushed into her. Kate had to bite her lip from commenting about the delicious Bella sandwich she and Jane made with their human.

“Stop.” Sam growled with a very audible alpha command in his tone that had all the wolves immediately silent. “Listen Bella, we want you home and safe from the vampires.” He said after pausing for just a few seconds to make sure his pack stayed quiet. “We will talk about it; what you said could be an option but we need to talk things over with the council first before we make any decisions. Is there a number we can call you at when we decide?”

Jane’s hands moved from trying to get the phone away to wrapping around Bella’s waste and gently pulling her away from Kate. This was the part of the conversation her parents had wanted to be there for as they predicted the wolves may take their time in deciding to go over and verify Bella was safe. They were working on time constraints as there was an unknown timeframe as to when Victoria would attack and what the Cullen’s would do. The sooner they got the wolves involved and possibly added to their numbers if only to help protect Bella, the better.

Kate easily slipped the phone from a distracted Bella as Jane nuzzled Bella’s neck. Kate was sure no one besides Alec, and that was iffy, had seen Jane so affectionate. “Actually, we need to talk about something a bit more pressing that Bella apparently was having problems talking with you about.” Kate said as she started to walk backwards from Bella. Kate held her finger up to her lips in the universal be quiet sign so Bella wouldn’t say anything that would instantly set the wolves off.

“What are you talking about?” Sam demanded with a growl making Kate think the only way he knew how to talk was via growling.

Jane started to pull Bella out of the room, confident that if the wolves needed a last word from Bella, Kate could easily find them; plus, the rest of the conversation Kate was best to handle as Jane was very likely to get into a growling contest with the alpha and likely starting another war. Kate knew more than enough about war to stress the importance of what was happening and how quickly things needed to take place while being able to keep her cool and not try to tear the wolf’s head off over the phone.

“Let’s get you some food, your mother’s want to know what happened on the call and you need to eat.” Jane said as she grabbed Bella’s hand to start leading her towards the kitchen where Bella could pick out food and Jane would have the cook make it for her. By the time the food was ready and Bella was in her parents room to tell them about her side of the conversation, Kate would be back to tell them her part of the conversation.

Then hopefully, with the wolves on their way to them, Jane would enlist her fellow guards to help make sure there were as many windows open and fans going as possible so the stench of the wolves out of the building.

Well, Jane wouldn’t so much as enlist help as she would command others to do the work and then expect it to be done in a timely manner. That was what leaders did right? Tell others what to do and have high expectations of them right? Keeping the dogs stench to a minimum while they were in the castle was something Jane was very committed to and having the other guards see to it would help her accomplish that goal. She would just make sure to not tell her mate that had unfortunate attachments to the wolves, how off putting all of the wolves were; Jane was sure that wouldn’t help her stay in her mates good graces.