NATALIE'S P.O.V
I swear today's picnic started off as a complete repeat of the one we had a couple of weeks ago; Percy not being a morning person, Annabeth and I mocking him for his swimming trunks (he'd gone for the Pegasi ones this time), and Percy and I once again having another water fight as we finished our lunch. I had started when he'd stolen the mini tub of Ben & Jerry's that I'd brought with me - I was not taking that. I threw my lemonade over him, just after I had levitated my precious ice cream to safety. In retaliation he sneakily gathered his hand into a fist and moved it in my direction. Realising what he was doing, I looked up, only in time to see a massive sphere of salt water drop on me. I gasped, trying not to inhale the water.
"Oh you're sooo dead Seaweed Brain." I got up as he began to run away, but I just clicked the trident on my bracelet and smacked him onto the ground with a large wall of water. He had already thrown his top off so I stripped down to my bikini and followed him into the water, preparing for an all out battle.
Eventually Annabeth joined us in the water, even though she must have known that in a water fight with two children of Poseidon, she was going to lose. Leaving the lovebirds in the ocean, I placed my large towel out on the beach next to the empty picnic rug and lay down. Being from England, I was pretty pale, but the couple of months at camp meant that, unsurprisingly, I was now more tanned than Percy, who seemed to be one of the palest people on Earth. Okay, let's not compared my tan to Percy's - anyone could beat his, but I was actually quite tanned now. I had been laying there for quite a while, with my eyes closed and headphones in when a shadow came across my eyelids, blocking the sun from me. Opening my eyes, I was shocked to see Jake and the rest of the boys in front of me.
"Hey Natalie." Jake greeted me, the other boys murmuring their hellos after him. "Fancy seeing you here." He said smiling down at me. I lifted myself up onto my elbows.
"Well when you live with a son of Poseidon it's kind of hard to keep him away from this place." I chuckled. I noticed that the boys were all, once again, shirtless. "Do you boys have an issue with clothing?" I questioned, gesturing to their uncovered torsos.
"We rip our clothing when we phase." Embry answered, speaking up. I smiled at him and tried to ignore the funny feeling I got in my stomach when he looked at me. "So it's easier to wear less as it's quicker to take off when we need to. Also we have increased body heat so we don't really get cold." I nodded in understanding, remembering some of this from the night of the bonfire.
"Hey Natalie," Paul said, raising his eyebrows and pointing at me, "Like you can judge us on lack of clothing." Looking down at myself I realised that I was still only in my blue bikini, that was still slightly damp from earlier. I tried my hardest not to blush, but noticed that Embry was completely avoiding looking at me. Didn't think I was that hideous considering his cheerleading comment yesterday. Nonetheless I replied to Paul and acted like I was unfazed by their staring.
"Difference is I've actually been in the water. Anyway what are you guys doing now?" I questioned.
"Oh we're going to a clearing to train in our wolf forms for a bit, then setting up a perimeter around the land." Jake replied. My ears perked up as an idea came into my head.
"Hey can I come with you? I'm meant to be training with Percy today but I always do that, plus I've never actually changed into my wolf form yet." I pleaded, looking towards Jake.
"No!" Embry stepped forward, his eyes flickering between me and Jake. "Come on Jake you can't let her it'll be too dangerous." He seemed really serious - all trace of his cheeky boyish self gone, but I couldn't tell whether it was to protect me or if he didn't want me there.
"I can handle myself." I stood up and folded my arms across my chest. "Seth and Jake have seen me fight before." I glowered at the boys, daring them to challenge me. Jake looked between Embry and me, as if debating it in his mind.
"Alright," He finally said. "You can come with us."
My face lit up as Embry's looked downcast. "Yes!" I jumped in the air in excitement, thrilled at getting a chance to try out my wolf form. "Thanks Jake." I grinned at him and attacked him in a hug. I could've sworn I heard a growl from Embry, but I was already making my way to the shoreline, so any sound was whipped away by the wind.
EMBRY'S P.O.V
She ran down to the beach, I'm assuming to tell her siblings where she was going. I tried not to stare at her body for too long, as I was already having trouble with that earlier and yesterday. Jared had told me that once Kim knew about the whole imprint thing, he had marked her within a couple of weeks, as the urge was too strong. Luckily for us shapeshifters, the urge to mark only happened when the imprint was of legal age, so it meant that there was no weird stuff if the imprint was still a baby thank god. I had known Natalie for a few weeks now and was already shooting the boys jealous glares when I saw them looking at her too. When Seth had his arm around her yesterday after tryouts I even got jealous at that! It was even worst when I caught the boys at school staring at her. She was mine and they shouldn't be looking at her like that. When Jake made his decision, I turned to him whilst she ran down the beach.
"How could you say yes Jake? She's going to get hurt and I can't let that happen." I pleaded, but my voice came out angry.
"Look I know she's your imprint Embry, but if she's a wolf too she's going to need to learn how to control herself in that form. Would you rather she was left to figure it out by herself or with us around to help if anything goes wrong?" He questioned me.
I rubbed the back of my neck, realising that he had a point, but still, my urge to protect her was ridiculously strong. "What if she reads my thoughts and finds out that she's my imprint? She might not be ready for that."
Clearly Jake hadn't thought about that. "Just try not to think about it, and hope that she will have other things to deal with instead of looking into your mind. Or stay human whilst she's a wolf." I was probably going to have to do that, as the idea of scaring her with the imprint thing was definitely not on my agenda, considering how well we were getting on yesterday.
Natalie was back up the beach now, and was putting her clothes back on, which I was slightly disappointed about, but it would give me less distractions when it came to training. We all stared at her when she dried herself with the air, but she just chuckled and once again reminded us: "Daughter of the gods."
NATALIE'S P.O.V
I followed the boys through the woods and into the large clearing, easily bigger than a football field, and stood in the middle of it as they began walking away from me.
"Hey!" I called out, confused. "I thought that you were going to train in wolf form?" I questioned, unsure as to why they weren't phasing already.
"Well since we rip our clothes if we phase with them on, we are going to take them off." Jake stated, smirking slightly.
"Unless you'd like to watch then I can just strip here." Paul continued, moving his hands towards his zipper. Once again I heard a growl coming from Embry's direction.
I raised my eyebrows in disgust. "Calm down Fido you're flattering yourself." I scoffed.
The others boys laughed at my snarky remark, but a snarl broke through Paul's teeth and he began shaking moving towards me. I was all set to click my hammer charm and have a repeat of last night, before Embry was in front of me, faster than I'd ever seen a human moved. Then again, he wasn't actually human. He stood in front of me in a protective stance, a hand gently gripping my forearm, as if to reassure himself that I was there. That funny, happy feeling went through my stomach again and any urge I might have had to shake him off me was completely gone. In fact, all I wanted was to get closer to him. Embry growled at Paul, who was still advancing. I didn't see Jacob come up behind him until a smack resonated through the forest, and I saw Paul had been slapped back a few paces.
"Embry, stand down. Paul, go phase." He said, pointing them in different directions. "Idiots." I heard him mutter under his breath. "Embry, why don't you stay with Natalie until we come back." He nodded, as the rest of the boys ran off into the woods to change. I was painfully aware of his warm hand that was still on my arm holding me to him. Turning around, he saw me looking at it and quickly dropped his hand. I tried not to let a feeling of disappointment spread through me.
EMBRY'S P.O.V
As soon as Paul began shaking, I was immediately in front of Natalie. I knew that she could protect herself but there was no way I was letting Paul anywhere near my imprint. When he had finally left to go and phase, I turned around to look at the beautiful girl behind me. I noticed her gaze direct at the hand that I had subconsciously held her with, and let go straight away. Of course she's going to find it weird that I did that, we're only just getting to know each other. I scolded myself until the recognisable scent of fear crept into my nostrils. Making eye contact with my gorgeous imprint, I realised that it came from her.
"Natalie what's wrong?" I asked, desperate to find out what it was and make it stop.
She seemed to be contemplating whether or not to tell me, before finally speaking.
"I'm scared of phasing." She finally replied. "I have no idea what's going to happen; I don't know if my clothes are going to rip; if I'll be able to control my wolf: if it'll be painful or even if I can do it in the first place!" Her voice became more and more panicked as she rambled on, so without thinking, I placed my hands by her shoulders and moved so that I was in front of her, mimicking her movements from yesterday morning after Emma. Almost instantly her heartbeat slowed down. Looking at her hazel eyes, I could see how nervous she was and it crushed me that she was feeling this way.
"Natalie look at me." I gently said, however she continued staring at the ground. "Look at me." I tried again. " Nat." She finally looked up, causing my heart to skip a beat when her eyes connected with mine. "If your clothes rip, we can easily find you some more, that won't be a problem. As for controlling yourself, we all struggled with it at first, but you'll learn how to calm yourself, just as we did. Don't even worry about not being able to do it, if it's an ability given to you by your parents, I doubt that they would lie to you. And if there is any chance of you being in pain I will do everything I can to stop it. I promise." I told her truthfully, hoping that she would trust me.
She took a deep breath, closing her eyes, and then reopening them with renewed determination. Her voice came out barely a whisper, but due to my enhanced hearing, I could just make out what she said. She looked me in the eyes. "I believe you."