His Cat, Her Major ~ Jasper Hale

Explaining the Family

Maya was once again over at Emily's helping her cook and laughing at the boys that were gathered around the kitchen.

"God, you guys fight just as bad as my brothers do" Maya told them with a laugh.

"Well they are boys" Emily told her, laughing as she continued to mix her batter.

"Are they bothering you two?" Sam asked as he came into the house with Embry. The two just getting back from their patrol.

"Oh Sam, they know better than to do that. After all, they may be mutts but not even they are dumb enough to annoy the hand that feeds them" Maya teased. Emily nodded along with her in agreement even as Sam pulled her close to press a kiss to her lips.

"Isn't the phrase 'bite the hand that feeds them'? You're mixing up your metaphors KitKat" Jared teased.

Maya let out an annoyed huff. She had told them to not call her "kitty", that being Emmet's nickname for her, which had led to them attempting to shortening it. The end result had been "KitKat". Which Maya was only okay with when she was not hungry as otherwise it just made her crave chocolate. "Well Jared, I was rather hoping that Sam had his pack housebroken enough to not bite at all."

"Don't worry Maya. I guarantee that if I bite you, you'll enjoy it" Paul said with a wink.

Maya rolled her eyes at him. "Thanks for the offer Paul, but I could do without the trip to the hospital for Rabies shots."

They all laughed at that. As they quieted down, Jacob finally asked about what she had meant by "her brothers". As far as he knew, Maya only had Bella.

"Ah, yes. My darling brothers. They live in Italy and though we are not related, they claimed that title years ago and take it very seriously."

Maya honestly was not thrilled to be having this conversation with them as she knew how they would react. However, she also figured it would probably be best to explain now that they brought it up then have them find out if her family came to visit. Knowing their 2-dimensional views of vampires, they would probably accuse her of hiding it from them and plotting against them or something equally ridiculous.

So, with a sigh, Maya prepared herself to tell them all about her time living with the most feared and powerful vampire coven in the world. "How much have I told you guys about my time in Italy?"

"Not much, just that you went to a boarding school there" Jacob told her.

"Yeah, well, that was not exactly the truth. More of the ... lie I tell the humans. In truth, I lived in a castle with my lovely vampire family, where I had a dozen private tutors to educate me."

Immediately after her confession there was yelling as all the boys either shouted in disbelief or anger. Maya just stood there listening to them and waiting for them to stop so that she could talk without yelling.

After a few minutes, they were finally calm enough for her to continue her explanation without the immediate risk of giant wolves appearing in Emily's kitchen. She began with how she had met them when she was five and they had realized that she was a shifter living with humans. They had feared what would happen if Maya had been discovered and sought to take her with them to avoid it. She also explained to them how the "boarding school" lie had been how they convinced Renee to allow her daughter to move out. "Not that it took much effort anyways" Maya muttered bitterly as she finished.

She didn't miss Renee at all and honestly the two vampire queens were amazing mothers, but the fact that she could be given up and forgotten so easily still stung.

The boys sat there in silence, taking in what she had said. Eventually though Sam asked the question that was on all the boys minds, "didn't you ever try to leave? You couldn't have possibly wanted to live with a bunch of leeches."

"Nope. You forget Sam, I was five and the first ever supernatural person I met was them. I had no idea our two species were not supposed to get along. And as for leaving, I came home every summer and for the holidays so it's not like I was a prisoner."

"So ... you're trying to tell us that you liked living with a bunch of leeches?" Paul asked unbelieving.

"Yeah" Maya said with shrug. "Honestly, to you guys they're leeches, but to me they're just family. My two mothers who were always available to play with me and were always there to comfort me when I crawled into bed with them in the middle of the night because I had a nightmare. My uncle Aro who would spend hours watching me play in the garden and teaching me the names of all the flowers. My uncle Caius who taught me to paint and who, even when I proved to not be very good at it, still hung my paintings up next to his on the wall proudly. My uncle Marcus who told me the best stories about brave warriors who went on adventures, or lovers who beat all the odds. My brothers who taught me how to pull pranks and who were the first to jump to my defence when others picked on me. And my sister, who became my first friend and someone I could be a normal little girl with."

As she finished, everyone just sat there staring at her as they took in what she was saying. Finally, Jared opened his mouth to speak. Maya could tell that it was not going to be positive based on the look on his face and cut him off.

"Look, I'm not asking to rethink your beliefs or whatever. I'm just telling you that I grew up with a group of them and they were the best family I could ask for. And I would be really grateful if you didn't judge me for it."

Sam let out a sigh. "We won't judge you for it. It's not your fault you were raised by Leeches. You were young when they took you and obviously by the time that you were old enough to understand what they were you already considered them family. However, I will ask that if any of them come to visit that you let us know beforehand and that they not hunt on our land."

"That I can do" Maya agreed with a nod. "It should be easy since they already agreed to not hunt in the area when I told them I was friends with you guys."

"You told them about us?" Embry asked warily.

"Yeah, they've been helping me with my prank ideas. It was actually my brother Demetri who helped me figure out how to cover Paul in sparkles."

"They've been helping you plan pranks?" Jared asked unbelieving. Paul just growled in annoyance. Bad enough it had taken two days to finally get most of the glitter out, now he learns he had a leech to thank for it.

"Well, they do have going on two thousand years of experience" Maya told them in a tone that suggested it was obvious that she would enlist their help.

To Maya's surprise however, this bit of information sparked a whole new conversation about how old her family actually was. The only vampires the wolves had actually had a chance to learn about were the Cullens. As such given that Carlisle, as the oldest, was only three and a half centuries old the fact that there were people out there who had seen the rise and fall of Rome or the Pyramids being built boggled their minds.