Belle Âme ~ Seth Clearwater

47|K-i-s-s-i-n-g

"So, is nobody going to ask who the girl is," Embry said, waving a half eaten chicken drumstick in the general direction of Ayita. Everyone else at the table, who'd been making their way steadily through the large spread of food prepared by Emily and therefore uncharacteristically quiet, paused and looked up. Sam froze with his spoon almost at his mouth, and settled his heavy gaze on Embry with sigh.

"Embry, don't be rude!" Emily scolded. The wolf immediately put his hands in the air in a 'don't shoot gesture', making a defensive face.

"I'm just asking!"

"The girl has a name, and it's Ayita," Ayita said, and Embry had the decency to look deepish.

"Sorry. It's just we don't normally have strangers in our pack h—I mean, Sam and Emily's house," Embry said, stumbling over his words in a very unsubtle way.

"She knows, Embry," Seth said with a role of his eyes.

"A good job, too, because you basically just exposed us," Quil complained, earning an elbow in the ribs from Embry that would've descended into a scuffle at the dinner table of it wasn't for Sam clearing his throat in warning.

"Ayita is here because she's a shifter, like us," Sam said, and everyone's head immediately swing round to face her. If she wasn't far too old to be made uncomfortable by having attention on her, it would be quite intimated.

"I thought Leah was the only female shifter, like, ever?" Embry cried out.

"There are shifters in other tribes?" Quil asked.

"No she's not, and yes there is," Ayita answered, somewhat enjoying the gobsmacked looks of everyone around the table. The only person not looking at her was Leah, who had her eyes fixed on her plate in front of her.

"I wonder how common it is," Emily said from her seat next to Sam, a thoughtful youth to her head. "How many wolves are there? How many female ones?"

"I couldn't tell you. I was removed from my parents adopted as a baby so I have no idea how many other wolves there were on the reservation my parents were from," Ayita's said, her voice serious as she recalled the parents, the home, she would never know because she'd been forcibly taken by the state. They'd taken her, taken her name, taken much of who she was when she'd been placed in the home of a white couple who'd only taken in children for labour in the farm they'd owned. Ayita could never have those things back. But once she'd gained her wolf and consequently left home, once she'd taken a Cherokee name, she'd felt somewhat closer to them.  "I only now what tribe I came from because the couple who got me knew."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Emily said, reaching out to briefly squeeze Ayita's hand. She nodded her head, accepting the sympathy because silently because she never knew what to say in response, even before she moved herself into a house in the middle of the forest for the last thirty years.

"How do you know Leah is the only female shifter? That there have been no others?" Ayita asked, eyes scanning round the table. Leah was still keeping her gaze firmly on her plate.

"Well there are no other female shifters in our pack and—"

"And how many women who both carry the wolf gene and where of age to shift when the Cullens first arrived are there on your reservation?"

"Well, apart from Leah, none," Jacob said after a moment of hesitation. "My family is the only family that has the gene and have women born in this generation, but my older sisters moved away for college before the Cullens came."

"Right, so Leah is the only girl who changed because she was the only one here too. And when was the last time  there where wolves on your reservation?"