I stared into his blue eyes, wide with worry and anxiety, and something inside of me shifted while his words ran through my head.

Kristin... I imprinted on you.

I didn't know what to think. I had known him for only a few days, the first time I had heard his voice was only a few moments ago, with Paul...

There was no way someone like him could possibly be meant to be with someone like me. He was beautiful, strong, supernatural, and absolutely amazing. I was average, a huge book nerd, not much to look at, and human. We were like fire and ice. We didn't work together. I tried to sort this out while escaping the burning gaze of his eyes, looking into my heart, my soul. My body ached, and I drew my knees up and wrapped my arms around me. The movement hurt my stomach.

His eyes twisted with fear for me, but he made no move to comfort me. I lowered my head between my knees and tried to escape the pain, and tried to fight in impulse to crawl into his arms. He waited, a foot of tension between us, as strong as a brick wall.

He waited, but what was I supposed to say?

I looked into his eyes, filled with nothing but fear that I was in pain and then again, the total adoration and commitment that I had seen the first time. Like he would be willing to give everything up for me. It was a look that was so different than the look Jared gave Kim or the look Sam gave Emily. It was the look that Edward gave Bella.

I inhaled in shock and lowered my head. It was true.

I raised my head again, looking back into his eyes, and I felt again what had shifted inside of me.

The feeling that ached when I read books or saw movies, that felt empty and loveless, had changed. I no longer ached when I looked at him, instead I felt the same adoration and commitment that I saw in his eyes inside of me. I knew what it was, and I made my decision.

I looked at him and I saw something other than the teenage boy that sat there. I saw someone who would follow me anywhere, who would encourage me to follow my heart and who would love me in the way I needed most. I saw someone supportive and caring. I saw someone who would be with me for the rest of my life.

I didn't say anything in response to his statement, I just slid next to him, into the safety of his arms. He stiffened with surprise, then slid his arms around me and was careful of where I was hurting. I felt something brush through my hair and I leaned back into him, trying to figure out if this was a dream.

"Is this a dream?" I whispered to him, trying to memorize the feeling of his warm arms around me. I looked up into the perfection of his face and mentally congratulated my imagination for coming up with that level of beauty.

His arms tightened. "If it is... then I never want to wake up." he murmured, his voice low against my ear. I shivered with the sound of his voice, and he impulsively tightened his arms, ready to protect me from any danger.

I tried to find the words to say how I felt, but I didn't get that chance. Suddenly, his body changed, rising in front of me, becoming protective, but I saw nothing to be afraid of. I tugged on the bottom of his shirt, trying to pull him back down, but he pulled me up instead. He backed into a tree, holding me behind him and growled toward the trees.

My pulse quickened as I saw what he had sensed. We gasped.

Sixteen lumbering wolf silhouettes in the trees, circling us. They were on all sides, each wolf almost striking. I shrank against the tree, afraid not for me, but for him, afraid knowing that he could fight off sixteen wolves who wanted to hurt me. He kept snarling, circling, but it was a lost cause. Suddenly, one of my attackers phased. I watched with wide eyes as the giant, vibrating wolf shimmered down into a boy, a boy I knew all too well.

"Guy..." Jared said, "I don't know about this. This is Skylaar's best friend."

Despite these encouraging words of advice, Griffin did not relax his position and I tried very hard to focus on Jared's face. So far it was working. Griffin seemed to notice that Jared was now standing in front of his imprint naked and he shifted his position to do - what? Shield the innocence of my eyes? Whatever.

Jared continued talking. "I mean, she's only like thirteen-"

"Fourteen and a half-"

He rolled his eyes. "You know I don't really care. My point is, she young and she's his imrint. I thought that the most sacred law of the pack was never to kill the object of another wolves imprinting." Griffin growled at the word kill and I shrank away from the wolves. "Besides, I don't care if she's ripping us apart. She's just a girl."

I wrapped my arms around Griffin's waist to hold him back at that. Since he didn't want to hurt me by lunging, he settled on yelling.

"She's not just a girl, okay? I've seen, I've heard what you think of Kim - would you like it if I said Kim was just a girl? No. So just - can you leave her alone?"

The words didn't match the volume, to say the least. He was yelling, and let me tell you - that boy has a set of lungs. Suddenly, Griffin stiffened at some thought running through Jared's head. He ripped my arms off of him, pushed me into the tree and ran toward Jared. In a few seconds, he phased into a huge, dark brown wolf and was lunging at Jared's throat. Jared phased in defense, and suddenly they were fighting. Two other wolves followed him into the woods and suddenly I was left facing fourteen angry werewolves.