Brooke

We wove through the trees in silence under the light of the moon, painfully aware of the feeling of anticipation that was almost palpable in the surrounding air. I couldn't stand it for another moment.

"Alright, Luke, I'm all ears," I said, eager to hear an explanation for the uncanny mind connection between us. "Why can I hear your thoughts? More importantly, how in the world are you hearing mine?" I noted, however, that are minds were once again closed to each other.

He abruptly paused mid-stride, pale eyes nervously flickering to mine. "It's a werewolf thing," he stated simply. My brow furrowed in confusion.

"Mind-reading is a werewolf thing? Since when?" I demanded. Luke's hands went up in his defense.

"Woah hold on, Brooke. Don't jump to conclusions. If you let me finish—without interrupting," he shot me a look, "then you'll understand…I hope." Lucas appeared anxious once more; he shifted his weight from foot to foot. He ceased doing so when he caught me observing. I eyed him warily and sighed.

"Then get on with it. Please. I don't think I can stand this anticipation for one more second," I replied. I was being snippy, I knew. But what could be so damn hard to say? He looked at the ground, again beginning to shift uneasily.

"Well…I guess I can explain it like this. Have you ever seen ducklings follow their mother?" He began. I arched one eyebrow at him.

"Is this relevant?" I asked. He looked mildly stung. "Sorry. I won't interrupt anymore. Yes, I've seen them. Continue."

"Ok, so ducklings follow their mothers around because when they hatch, she's the first animal they see, and until they are old enough to live on their own, she is the most important thing in their lives. The word for it is imprinting. Werewolves use that word to describe something similar…but instead of our mothers, we imprint on our mates." His eyes caught mine for a split second, gauging my reaction.

"So you've been following me around because you imprinted on me, which is your way of saying you have an absurd werewolf crush? I like you, Luke, but you're taking this a little far when you say that we're mates. And I find it extremely hard to believe that you're blaming this on some instinct found in juvenile birds—"

"It's more complicated than that, Brooke," he jumped in. I looked at his face, noticing that his mouth was set in a firm line. He was serious, and I had a sinking feeling that what he was trying to explain to me was something more than adolescent infatuation.

"This isn't a crush," Lucas continued. "When I first laid eyes on you sitting at the edge of that cliff, and you looked back at us, that did it. I imprinted, and thanks to my mental connection to the Pack in wolf form they all knew it. It's a bizarre thing that happens to all of the werewolves. At some point, we all imprint on someone to be our mate. Ever since I saw you I've been hooked, and I can't get you out of my thoughts. You're always there, somewhere in the back of my mind, and I feel this constant urge to protect you, to follow you and make sure you're safe." It took me a moment to take it all in. Did he really expect me to be his mate? I looked at the ground, trying to phrase my question correctly.

"Can't you just…I don't know unimprint? I mean you barely know me, Luke." He shook his head vigorously.

"You're not getting it. Do you think I want this? Do you think I want to be obsessively attracted to someone I hardly know a thing about, someone who I know realistically cannot be my mate?" A wave of pity washed over me for Luke, who was now leaning against the nearest tree, his face in his overgrown hands. It made sense now. Edward's words rung clear in my head: 'You wolves do make a mess of things with that.' By 'that' he could have only been referring to this…this imprinting. An uncontrollable fixation compelled by some strange force stemming from the werewolves' mutant abilities. Our encounter in the woods also became clear. He had been so keen on determining if I hated him for being a werewolf, and intent on giving me a positive experience with a wolf. I understood now. I couldn't imagine how unbearable it would be for your chosen mate to hate you for what you were.

Luke didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to be left heart-broken by a woman who not only must leave him, never to be seen again, but also had a deathly fear of wolves. I longed to grasp this invisible magnetic force pulling him to me and shatter it. I wished to set him free. But I knew Luke's wolf could care less about my thoughts on the matter. The animal mind could be so infuriatingly unyielding.

One question still lingered. "And the mind connection? Is that part of imprinting, too?" I said gently, not wanting to upset him further. Luke stood up straight, composing himself.

"From what I gather, yes and no. Most of the wolves imprint on humans, but never before have their minds connected. I'm guessing that because your abilities are so similar to ours, that imprinting on you automatically united you into the Pack, and so when you change into an animal, your thoughts intermingle with any of us that happen to be in wolf form," he stated, clearly drained from trying to convey all of this to me properly.

"And this…this is permanent?" I didn't like the idea of forever having my thoughts privy to the werewolves for the rest of my natural life. My reaction clearly upset him further. He looked pained.

"As far as I know…yes. He laid a large palm on my shoulder. I-I'm sorry, Brooke. I knew this would never work, and I wanted to tell you sooner." I saw the beginnings of tears at the corners of his eyes. "I didn't ask for this anymore than you did. But you needed to understand."

"I appreciate it, Luke. Really, I do. Before I leave, we'll figure something out. We have to," I paused, realizing Lucas was no longer paying attention to me. His ice-blue eyes seemed very far away. His nostrils flared.

His grip tightened on my shoulder, uncomfortably so. "Do you smell that?" he asked, a hint of panic in his voice. I sniffed briefly, and nearly gagged as an overwhelming sweet scent assaulted my nostrils. Silence had fallen over the normally active forest. Christ, not again.

I watched as white fur began to force its way through the pores of Luke's hands. He released me and doubled over, unable to resist the transformation any longer. I forced myself to look away as the object of my nightmares consumed the human Luke. Vampires. But where?

And then I saw her. The lean figure, her skin a pearly white, sidled out from behind a conifer. Her straggly, brown hair hung limply over her shoulders, and only tatters of her clothing still remained. But her face was flawless, as all the vampires were. Her lips peeled back in a self-satisfied smile, baring her needle sharp canines. I found myself unable to look away from her penetrating eyes, which glowed hellfire red.

Luke snarled, a deep canine growl that could only be achieved by an animal of his size. Pairs of scarlet eyes appeared behind the first woman, as one by one more vampires emerged from their hiding places. My eyes widened, horror-struck, as I observed them slinking toward me. They eyed me hungrily, as a lion would a zebra, every trace of their former humanity washed from their features. These were not the Cullens; these were the vampires I had always seen in my nightmares. And I knew for a fact that there were far too many of them for Luke and I to handle alone. The wolf beside me snarled viciously and dove at the lead female as the rest of the vampires sprinted toward us with blinding speed.

Jesse

I'm never going to find her like this, I thought as I scanned the dense treetops. Not only was the forest enormous, but the tree cover was impenetrable. I squinted at the black forest below me. Despite the dim glow my flames cast on the black foliage, there was no way I'd see anything through it. I had a number of useful talents; night vision was not one of them. I dived toward the forest floor, contracting the fire to the outline of my body as well as I could. As Brooke had said, the last thing I needed was to start a forest fire.

I landed lightly on the pine needle bed, quickly extinguishing my feet when I saw the unfortunate plant life beneath me smolder instantaneously. I relaxed the mental hold on my flames otherwise, allowing the fire to bloom around me, flicking irritably as a reflection of my current state of mind. The fire was part of me, an inseparable extension of myself.

I groaned when I realized that I was worse off down here. I illuminated an area about twenty feet in diameter. Beyond that, I was greeted by a wall of inky blackness, the ominous shadows of conifers looming just at the edge of my ring of light. Christ, Brooke. Where are you? I moved forward on foot, in no particular direction. It felt good to keep moving, to do something.

Despite the apparent uselessness of my eyes, I scanned the area around me warily. I was hyper aware. I couldn't quite pinpoint it, but there was something wrong here. I could hear the dull roar of my fire and branches snapping beneath my feet. But other than that? Nothing. Absolute silence. Uneasiness crept into my subconscious. I gritted my teeth. I never felt so on edge.

A shiver went down my spine when I heard a light giggle from somewhere in the shadowy forest. I tensed, doing a full one eighty. Shit. Looks like they've found me. I balled fire in my hands, waiting for the monster to strike. Seconds of silence, stretching into an eternity. I could feel the blood flowing through every capillary of my body, adrenaline jump starting my heart.

"Where are you, you son of a bitch? I'm ready," I challenged the darkness. I saw her a moment too late, a mere flicker in my peripheral vision as the vampire launched herself from a thirty foot perch in the trees, a scarlet-eyed demon with her impressive fangs bared. I let the first fire ball loose and missed her by a hair. She leaped to another tree with the ease of the most talented primate, and within I fraction of a second came at me with a feral hiss. I braced myself, unprepared for her speed.

Thud. No attack. Just a soft thud. What just happened? I held my arm out and exuded a jet of flame, illuminating more of the forest before me. "Shit!" I jumped back quickly when I saw the vampire's face no more than two feet from mine, her face contorted into snarl. Unmoving. Over my initial start, I dared to look again. There, in mid leap, her hands contorted into claws, her legs still angled toward the tree she had sprung from, the vampire was poised, entirely encased in an irregular block of solid glittering ice. The ice began to perspire from my proximity to it, beads of water racing down the vampire's encased form. I backed off, not wanting to allow the bloodsucker to escape. I couldn't hold back the grin or the light chuckle that overcame me just then.

"You looked pretty damn scared for someone that's been getting cozy with parasites," came a familiar voice. I looked past the vampire icicle to see Bobby Drake, aka Iceman, enter my illuminated halo, his body glittering like diamond.

"Scared? Please, I had her," I retorted. He raised a frozen eyebrow at me. Amazing how something made of solid ice could somehow convey facial expressions.

"Sure you did. Looks like you had it all under control," Iceman rolled his eyes at the attacking vampire.

"Give me a break, Bobby, I can't see shit out here." That had him cracking a smile. He stepped closer to me, holding out his hand. I took it in mine and squeezed, an eruption of steam resulting as the heat of my fire met his wintry palm. He squeezed back, smirking, and I winced as a penetrating wave of cold doused the flames of my hand and frost encased it. I let go; the pain was too much. I welcomed the fire back to my frozen hand. "Do you always have to win?" He laughed.

"Well I'm not about to let you show me up." I'd get him. One day. Bobby, being ten years my senior, had developed his mutant abilities so that he wasn't just covered in ice; every molecule of his body became a living crystalline solid. The development made him significantly more powerful than I was. The humor quickly faded from his face.

"So the vampires turned on you after all?" he asked. I shook my head.

"It's not that simple. That wasn't one of the Cullens. That was…something else. There're vamps crawling all the forest, but I have no clue how many. The Cullens are on our side, no matter what Ororo says to the contrary."

Iceman crossed his arms over his chest. "Is that so? If that's true, then where are they now?" My brow furrowed in frustration and anger, and I could feel my body temperature climb even higher and the fire rage stronger about me. I wondered briefly how high it could get, but I never had the means to actually test it. I was off the charts for most instruments.

"I don't need you to believe me, and seeing that I'm not part of this team, I don't need to explain myself to you." The suspicion in his face wavered briefly; I knew that stung. I brushed him off.

"Bobby, thanks for the help. But I gotta go find Brooke. Whoever you have with you, we could use your help to get rid of the vampires. But I'm warning you. We will defend the Cullens. I don't want this to come to a fight, but I won't hold back if it does." I turned my back on him and started walking into the darkness. It took a lot of strength to do that to one of my closest comrades.

"Wait," he said suddenly. I glanced at his glistening form over my shoulder. "I don't think I know anyone who valued their place with us more than you and Brooke. If you say the Cullens are with us, then I believe you." I almost smiled in triumph, but kept my composure. Instead, I turned quickly and sent a blast of white hot flames at the frozen vampire. She screamed as the fire torched through the ice and licked her diamond hard skin. She writhed as I kept up the steady stream of fire, but her movements were short-lived as she was reduced to ash. Bobby looked alarmed at the abruptness of my attack. I withdrew the fire and balled my hands into fists, flashing him a half smile.

"Then let's go roast some vampires."