Chapter 1

Seth was fidgeting restlessly in his seat when Quil got back, balancing a tub of popcorn and some pink feathery baton toy that Claire had really wanted. "Relax, dude, it's just the circus," Quil said, throwing some popcorn at his anxious friend.

"Too many people," Seth muttered to him. Too many unfamiliar scents, unfamiliar faces; their voices were assaulting his sensitive hearing. There were too many unknown threats and variables to contend with. Then Seth saw what his friend was holding and broke into his characteristic grin. "Did you get me a wand too?" he joked.

"Shut up," Quil said good-naturedly.

Claire came bouncing over and plopped onto the seat between them. "Quil! Where are the clowns?"

"They're coming, Claire-bear." He ruffled her hair and passed her the toy. "You're going to have to protect Seth, though. He's scared of them," he stage-whispered to the girl.

"Save me, Claire!" Seth mock-yelled as two clowns came out, nearly thirty feet away. He grabbed the four year old and hauled her in front of him, using her as a human shield. "The terror!"

She giggled loudly. "Seth!"

The show started not too long after, a long and, to a supernatural wolf, somewhat boring litany of routines. Once you saw your best friends transform into huge, crazy strong wolves, seeing a lion tamer just didn't have the same effect. Claire was bouncing in her seat, though, squealing as the clowns came out on unicycles and the trapeze artists soared high above. Seth spent most of his time discreetly throwing popcorn at Quil over Claire's head.

Until the acrobats came out. Something about them made Seth sit up, made him pay attention to the lithe forms springing across the stage. The men formed a pyramid while the women were spinning and flipping around them. And then a group formed in front of the pyramid, and they hoisted one of the women up. She was tiny, but smiled brilliantly at the crowd, her eyes sweeping the audience quickly.

For the briefest second, her gaze connected with Seth's, and he gasped, nearly doubling over as he felt all of his ties to earth being abruptly ruptured and reattached to this petite girl that was, in the next instant, hurtling upwards, her body cartwheeling through the air. A second later, the top two acrobats on the pyramid caught her, and Seth felt the air rush back into his lungs in a ridiculously loud gasp.

He was vaguely aware of Claire giggling at him, of the people around them shooting him dirty looks, but he couldn't look away from the girl. She was completely recovered, and took a deep breath before catapulting off the shoulders of the men under her, flipping twenty feet back down to the stage.

The crazy accordion music roared back to life, and the acrobats did a few more stunts before bowing to the next act, another group of clowns. Seth leaned forward in his seat, trying to follow that girl's exit. Where was she going?

Quil's hand slammed down on his shoulder. "Easy, brother," he murmured. "Did you…?"

Seth couldn't look away from where she had disappeared. His friend's hand tightened on his shoulder. He reluctantly nodded, his hands grasping desperately onto the chair arms. His world had just vanished past a few curtains. What the heck was he supposed to do now?

"Claire, I think maybe it's time to leave," Quil said tactfully. He hauled the little girl onto his shoulder and dragged Seth from his chair.

"But Quil, what about the tight rope walkers?" his tiny imprint wailed.

"I'll get Seth to walk a tight rope for you later," he promised. Seth, as far as he was following this conversation, wasn't sure if it was a joking promise or a serious threat. Instead, he allowed himself to be trailed along behind his pack mate.

Quil took them all the way back to his truck, where he buckled Claire in. Then he turned around and looked at Seth, who was staring back at the big tent. He could feel his center of gravity still back there. "Do you want us to wait for you? It's an hour run back to La Push."

Seth seemed to have a hard time thinking, like his brain was encased in jello. "Back to La Push? But she's here."

Quil grabbed his arm. "But you're coming back to La Push, right, man?" He shut the car door quickly so Claire wouldn't overhear too much. "You have to come back home. Think of your mom, Leah. Think of the pack."

Seth shook his head, trying to clear it. "Of course, dude." How had he forgotten his family? Just because he had seen a girl—his soulmate, he corrected mentally—did not mean he could just forget everything that was important to him. "Yeah, I'll just go…introduce myself or something." He gave Quil a look of pure panic. "What do I say?"

Quil grinned. "Say, hi, my name is Seth, and I'd liked to take you on an awesome, completely unsupernatural date."

"Yeah, that sounds good, man," he said, nodding enthusiastically. He was so nervous. More nervous than when he had to make a speech in front of his entire grade at school, more nervous than when he tried to kiss Trisha Beckett in fifth grade for the first time, more nervous than he had ever felt. He wiped his palms on his pants quickly. "How do I look?"

"Like you should probably think of a good reason to have come to the circus by yourself." Quil laughed. "I'm kidding! Dude, she's your imprint. I'm sure she'll be happy to meet you."

Seth straightened up, grinning. "Yeah, yeah, you're right. We're like, meant to be. How could she resist me?"

Quil clapped him on the back and left him marching off down the parking lot, to a probable demise. Luckily Claire wasn't too upset about the tightrope walkers, because she thought seeing Seth do it would be more fun anyways.

Seth paused behind the back entrance to the circus tent. Was this legal? Could he be back here? A couple of burly-looking guys were giving him weird looks, so he quietly tucked the bouquet of flowers he held behind his back with a sheepish look. He could feel the imprint bond in the back of his head, like how he knew where his hand was, he could just sense that she was still in the big tent. In a sudden moment of panic, he wondered how he would recognize her if she came out. Would she still be wearing stage make up and a costume?

He forced down that panic when a couple of the other performers came out. He recognized a few of the trapeze artists, still in their maroon costumes. A few of them gave him suspicious looks, but most continued on to the trailers parked behind the tent.

Seth took a deep breath. The pull was coming closer. She was almost here.

A group of girls came out of the tent, and he knew instinctively that she was among them. One of them was laughing, and came running out holding a pair of shoes above another's head. She almost ran into Seth, and they all abruptly stopped laughing and gave him a communal weird look.

He shifted nervously and cleared his throat. "That was a great show," he tried hesitantly, his eyes desperately searching their faces. He would know her when he saw her, but there were too many, all giggling behind their hands. There! Her! The serious one in back, the only one not laughing. He looked into her eyes and knew, in a gut-dropping, world-spinning type of way, that she was it.

Without really seeing the others, he waded slowly between them, holding out his flowers. What had Quil told him to say? Finally, he stood in front of her, and instead of saying anything at all, just held out the flowers.

She was short, he realized, her head barely reaching his shoulder. And she was tiny, thin, but in a lean, muscled way. Her hair was dark, but it was still pulled back into a side bun from the performance, although her face was free of the crazy stage make up, and he could tell that she was some type of Native American. And she looked…not as overjoyed to see him as he was to see her. In fact, he could feel her nervousness and squeamishness in the back of his gut, and it was making him more nervous.

This was only his first encounter with his soulmate. No big deal.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" she asked, not taking the bouquet. Her voice was beautiful, clear and light, with the slightest southern accent. He felt it cut straight through him.

Seth tried to smile encouraging, but it might have come out looking overly pained. "No, but I'm totally normal. Do you want to go out?" He winced when he heard himself say that. "No, that's not what I meant!"

She raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, I don't date random creeps."

"I'm not a creep!" Seth said immediately, his voice a bit too high. He wanted to tell her he was his soulmate, but he stopped himself.

"Yeah, you're totally normal," one of the other girls said sarcastically.

One of the male performers came swaggering over and tried to fold his arms intimidatingly. "This guy bothering you, Hannah?"

Part of Seth was happy that his imprint clearly had friends and coworkers who would watch out for her. But part of him was pissed that they would keep her from him. He watched helplessly as she shook her head. "No, he was just leaving," Hannah said with a pointed look.

"I could show you around Seattle!" he offered desperately.

His imprint shook her head decisively. "Sorry, we're leaving tomorrow night, and I don't have time to date. Not that I would," she added.

Seth felt crushed. His whole world was now embodied in this girl, and she had rejected him. "Oh, ok," he said, trying to hide his disappointment. "Here, I got these for you," he said, thrusting the flowers at her again, but she shook her head. "Right then," he muttered, turning and trudging away.

"Wait!" one of the girls shouted before he had made it twenty feet. He turned around hopefully, even though he knew that it wasn't her.

She jogged over to him quickly, giving him a sly look. "I'm not rehearsing tonight," she said, throwing the group a look over her shoulder as she sidled up to him. "Is that tour option still open?"

Seth looked from her to Hannah, who was pretending not to listen. Not to you, he wanted to say, but couldn't find it in himself to be that rude to a stranger. Instead he shook his head silently at her, willing her to go away.

She clearly didn't get the message and pressed a piece of paper into his hand. "If you get bored later," she said with a wink. Seth tried to contain his wince as he gave it back, before walking away without a word. It was unusual for him to be that abrupt, but in his defense his reason for living had just crushed all of his hopes.

"Who the heck was that?" he heard one of the girls whisper behind him.

"Doesn't matter, now," his imprint answered, and Seth barely contained his need to phase right there in the middle of Seattle. What was he supposed to do now?