North Star
A Twilight Fan Fiction

Loressar

Usually, walking around Bloodsucker Palace in my human form was the last thing I wanted to do, right after walking around Bloodsucker Palace, period. Since Jacob, Seth, and I had formed our pack of three, I'd hardly phased out of wolf form at all if I could help it. Life had actually gotten close to decent. I was Jacob's second-in-command. He and I were getting along pretty well. Seth accepted my leadership with as much annoying cheerfulness as he accepted everything else in life. Even Quil and Embry…I wouldn't say we were friends, but we had a good working relationship. I wasn't the girl who ruined their lives by crashing their precious boy's club anymore.

And then the Leech Convention came to town. Jacob abruptly abandoned his post as Alpha of our pack to be full-time nanny to his little mutant imprintee. He tried to leave the pack under my command; I'll give him credit for that much. But whether it was a matter of genetics or my own lack of confidence or who knows what, I couldn't function as Alpha. I couldn't compel my pack to do a damn thing. They were obeying me, but because Jacob had ordered it, not because I had. Jacob and I held a conference, just the two of us in human form, to work out a solution. There were no good ones, so we picked the least bad one.

Seth, Quil, Embry, and I were assigned to Sam's pack until further notice.

Thankfully, it wasn't quite as bad as the last time. I was finally starting to get over Sam, or at least I was starting to want to get over him. Still, hearing your ex-boyfriend remembering a warm, fuzzy Hallmark moment with his new bride who happens to be your best friend isn't the most fun thing in the world. I was fine, though. I could deal with it. Sam and I were ancient history. I was Beta of my own pack. I…

In a corner of a stray image of Sam's happy home, I heard the thought in his mind, So much better for me than Leah after all.

I phased before I could think. I had to be alone with my thoughts. Running blindly, I pulled on the cargo shorts and jogging bra I always wore strapped to my wolf leg. Better for me than Leah. Of course Emily was better for him than me. Emily was on cloud nine keeping her little fairy tale cabin while her knight in shaggy armor was off doing his thing. I'd visited her there a few times with the rest of the pack. Every time it was like a scene out of a freaking Disney movie. I'd keep waiting for bluebirds to land on her shoulder while she set a pie (the tenth she'd baked that day) in the window to cool or something. And then I'd wonder what bluebird tasted like to a wolf.

Before I knew it, I was in front of Bloodsucker Palace. I must have been awfully distracted not to have been repelled by the scent sooner. However, the fact that I hadn't eaten all day made the smell of food even more powerful to me than the vampire stench. I heard Rosalie in the kitchen muttering something to herself about having to feed the dog, and how if she'd wanted a pet she would have gone to the pound. So Rosalie was surely the only one in the kitchen, which was a good thing for me at the moment. I'd rather deal with her than Esme or Alice, or most definitely Bella. I didn't like Rosalie and she didn't like me, but we had a comfortable acceptance of our enmity.

I slipped in the back and slinked into the kitchen as quietly as possible. Didn't want to alarm the houseful of leeches, even though they knew the place was crawling with werewolves.

"Hey, bitch," said Rosalie, her voice unaffected by the clothespin theatrically perched on her nose.

"That was so funny the first ten times," I said sarcastically. "I hope you made enough for two."

"What do I look like, a maid at a pet hotel?" she shrugged. "Get your own lunch. Esme has made it abundantly clear that all our facilities are at your disposal – fridge, stove, oven," she looked me up and down disdainfully, "clothing, showers, bathtubs, soap."

"I might just take you up on that," I said as I raided the refrigerator, mentally blocking out the neat stack of blood bags as I pulled out the makings of a monster sub sandwich. "I can't come within a hundred feet of this house without getting your vampire stink all over me. Last time I was here, it took me an hour to wash the smell out of my hair."

"That's saying a lot," Rosalie said with mock sympathy as she flipped her long, golden curls behind her shoulder.

"A pixie cut is considered very chic and feminine by people native to this century," I retorted, right before taking a huge bite out of my sub.

"Well, women in this century are embracing all kinds of things that my generation never dreamed of," Rosalie sighed in resignation. "In my world, we knew a woman was a woman and a man was a man."

"Well, in my world, a woman is a bitch and a man is a dog," I growled. Unceremoniously, I took my sandwich and left the kitchen. I started to head outside, but then it occurred to me that someone from the pack might come looking for me. I stayed against the wall avoiding the crowd of vampires as best as I could, making my way toward the stairs. Not the grand staircase that Bella, Vampire Princess had descended at her wedding. There were vampires standing around all over that one. Instead I found a smaller, less conspicuous staircase that I'd seen in Jacob's memory. It was vampire-free, though the smell was as pungent (or should I say repugnant?) here as in the rest of the house. On the second floor, I could still hear and smell vampires all over the place, so I followed more stairs to an attic.

I opened a door in the ceiling at the top of the staircase, revealing a dark windowless room that could easily have been a small museum. There was a string hanging above me that would have turned on a light bulb, but I didn't bother pulling it. Even in my human form, I had awesome night vision. Satisfied that I was alone, I closed the trapdoor behind me, hoping to block out the vampire smell. No such luck. Oh well.

"What are you and why are you in the attic?" A deep, irritated voice in a British accent sent me high enough in the air to hit my head on the ceiling. The fact that my sandwich remained intact in my hand was a testament to how famished I was.

"What are you doing in the attic, you stupid, sneaking vampire bat?" I groaned as I turned to face my intruder. He looked like any other leech boy – tall, pale, red eyes, disgustingly good hair. He looked young, too, about the same age as Carlisle. What was with all these vampires not looking a day over thirty? Did teens and twenty-somethings taste better than old people, or what?

"Trying to get a moment's privacy in this madhouse," he grumbled.

"Well, that's all I'm trying to do too, and I think I have more of a claim to the place than you do since my brother practically lives here." I was thinking of Jacob, not Seth. "Brother" was as good a word as any to describe our relationship to an outsider.

"The Indian werewolf," he acknowledged, unimpressed.

"Do you know any other kind?" I snarked.

"I'm English," he replied, as though that should explain everything even to an idiot like me.

"And I'm hungry," I answered in kind, taking a seat on Rosalie's hope chest.

"As if you would shift in a space like this," he scoffed.

"I meant this," I waved my sandwich at him right before I took a small bite. I always ate in small, dainty bites these days. Overcompensating for the wolf thing, I guess. As soon as I swallowed, I continued, "Besides, we don't eat vampires. We just execute them."

"In other words, unlike ours, your hunting has no utilitarian purpose," he replied. He obviously wasn't trying to engage me in conversation; he just couldn't resist the urge to point out his supposed superiority. "We hunt to nourish ourselves. You hunt merely for sport."

"We hunt your kind to protect human lives," I snarled.

"Which has all the morality of a true wolf killing a human to protect his fellow wolves," he argued. "Whereas, whatever Carlisle and his 'family' might tell you, my kind killing a human for food is no less moral than a human killing whatever beasts you're currently stuffing down your throat."

"This was a turkey," I said before continuing said stuffing. "You can't compare it to a human life. Trust me, my mom tried raising turkeys once. Those things were so stupid, by the time we butchered them we felt like we were doing them and the rest of the world a favor."

"And you can't see how a member of a superior sentient race could possibly feel the same way about humans?" he rolled his eyes disdainfully.

"What I can't see it why you're still here," I muttered, this time not even waiting to swallow.

"I have no need to leave. You eventually will. And then I will have my solitude back."

"Eventually," I agreed, now nibbling with exaggerated slowness.

"Don't you have a counterpart somewhere to occupy your every spare moment, like your brother and the reason for my summoning?" he asked impatiently.

"No," I said indifferently.

"Really?" he said snidely. "I would think imprinting would be even more pronounced in a female werewolf, given the natural tendencies of your sex even in mere humans. The oak and the vine, as the poets say."

"I don't read poetry. It's not my taste."

"I had quite a taste for poets once," he sighed fondly. "Ah, Keats!" I felt sick to my stomach as I realized that was the same sigh my dad used to make after an exceptionally satisfying batch of fried fish.

"Stupid treaty," I muttered. "I wish you knew how lucky you were that I wasn't biting your head off."

"First you invade my refuge, then you refuse to leave, then you insult me, and now you threaten my life. My luck continues to grow by leaps and bounds."

"You and the rest of your bloodsucking friends are the invaders," I argued.

"They are anything but my friends," he said disdainfully. "To Carlisle I would extend such a title, but the rest I could do without. Even the mongrel child everyone is so enthralled with, I will consider defending only because I owe Carlisle back for a century-old favor."

"So you think Nessie's little freak, too?" I smirked.

"I take it you don't share your brother's infatuation."

"No, but I care about her because Jacob cares about her," I clarified. "That's how it works in a pack. And I won't hesitate to kill any bloodsucker who poses a threat to her. Even the Volturi."

"You might feel differently if you'd seen them."

"Their guard came to our land once before," I said carelessly. "If they'd hurt the Cullens, we would've taken them out."

"If such a thing is truly within your power, I wish they had harmed the Cullens," he laughed. His laugh wasn't condescending at all. It was the way I laughed when I thought about Jacob defying Sam.

"Then you're not a fan of the Volturi?" I asked, a little surprised and very intrigued by his attitude. I'd heard Jacob's memories of the others talking about the Volturi, and they all seemed to regard them with a kind of reverence. The policeman is our friend and all that.

"They're no more or less qualified to rule than any others of our kind," he shrugged. "Age and power do not equal wisdom and competency. That's why I choose the life of a nomad. My life is my own, ruled by no other."

"Must be nice," I shrugged. "Being alone for real has to be better than being alone in a pack."

"It is nice," he agreed. "I can go decades without speaking to another being."

"I can go days without having a thought to myself." I had finished the sandwich by now. I dropped the cloth napkin on the floor. Rosalie wouldn't miss it, and if the crumbs attracted mice, maybe Nessie could have one for a snack. "Speaking of which, I've got to get back to my pack before they send out a search party. Good luck keeping to yourself in this leech hotel."

"Luck has little to do with it," he said. "I find what I want, even if I'm not sure what that is. I wanted solitude, and I found this attic. If the attic becomes overrun, I'll find another sanctuary," he explained, annoyed by the very thought of this potential inconvenience.

"Try the bottom of the Pacific," I suggested.

"Don't think I haven't."

I opened the hatch to the stairway, preparing to leave. "By the way, what's your name?" I asked impulsively.

"Why?"

"I'll need it to find out if you've gone back to whatever bat cave you came from."

"You couldn't simply describe me?"

"You all look alike to me." Except for the Cullens, this was fairly accurate. Even them, I could only tell apart because they were so distinct in Jacob and Seth's minds.

"Alistair," he said with a surprising lack of reluctance. "And if I want to make sure you aren't around to invade my sanctuary and permeate it with that singularly repulsive scent?"

"Ask if Leah's around," I replied with a sardonic grin just before closing the hatch behind me.