It had been the longest night of my life.

Impossible long and extremely embarrassing. I doubted I would be able to look neither Sam nor Jared in the eye for quite some time. Or even Paul if my hormones got ideas.

I wasn't even ashamed to admit to myself that I had basically fled the scene by making up some story that Jason was picking me up down the road. Poor Bella was going to sleep over and had given me a helpless look as I walked out. I didn't envy her.

Emily and Kim didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon, switching between gushing out advice to us new imprints and telling stories. I now knew more about other people's sexlife that was decent and the fact that I knew Sam and Jared's wolf related sexual quirks was going to haunt me for months to come.

The worst part was that they both seemed so convinced that it was just a matter of days before I would give in and become Paul's girlfriend. They kept telling me how Paul had imprinted on me because we were perfect for each other. I was more leaning towards the broodmare theory because there were no chance in hell that Paul and I were soul mates.

Even the new and slightly improved Paul was still a hot tempered asshole who lacked a mouth filter and even the decency to miss one. Now I was suddenly his world because of some wolf voodoo. I could argue that the whole thing couldn't be real but the way he now looked at me… It was real. At least to him.

Sometimes I even found myself wishing that this voodoo thing worked on me too. Because unless I was a cold hearted evil bitch then I would be stuck with this for the rest of my life even if I chose to stay status quo with tentative friendship. If I had imprinted too it would at least have stopped my thinking and all my doubts and the both of us would have been blissfully happy with being brainwashed.

And all that bullshit about being what I needed? A friend, a confidante, a brother and so on. I mean come on. It was just the imprinting's way of making sure I would become a mate later on. Cause what girl wouldn't be swayed by it? In the simplest way of looking at it, it was in a way like a dream come true.

A guy that put you over anyone else in his life. Someone that would always love you for the rest of his life and who couldn't weaver and didn't even notice other girls. Even I would have thought of it as sort of nice. If it had not been Paul. Or Quil. Or god forbid Seth because that would be majorly freaky.

And Leah would have killed me.

I looked up from the ground and spotted someone walking in my direction. The first thing I noticed was that the person was white. La Push had a white population of three. My mom, Mrs. Waters and I. And tourists and people from Forks never wandered around here alone but always in groups for some reason.

The hair on my neck rose as I came closer.

It was a young man perhaps early twenties and he was impossible beautiful with pale skin and ruffled dark brown hair which fell in perfect waves over his forehead. His coat looked worn and he had a slight tear in his jeans and oddly enough expensive looking running sneakers on. Not the kind of shoes you put on for a nightly stroll.

The way he walked, so silently graceful made me wary. His eyes were dark seemingly black in the sparse moonlight as he smiled at me.

It was like an alarm bell went off in my head and my heart beat so fast that I was sure everyone within ten feet could hear it. I forced myself to look calm as I walked by.

"You can run you know."

His voice was bell like and I froze in my tracks almost toppling over. The man chuckled and I didn't need to turn to imagine his amused expression.

"It won't help of course but it makes it so much more fun."

His voice was so musical and soft. Almost too soft to be uttering such treats but I knew he wasn't joking. Instinctively I just knew he meant them.

I didn't hesitate and I just ran. My purse slipped off my shoulder and I let it fall to the ground as I didn't need the extra weight. My feet pounded against the dirt road as I ran for my life. And then something smacked into me. It was like getting reamed by a truck and I went flying. For what felt like minutes I was airborne before my right side smacked into a three. There was a horrible crack at impact and my mouth filled with dirt as I face planted into the ground like a lifeless rag doll. From the pain that shoot threw my wrist I just knew it had to be broken.

It was like I had been put on slow motion and he was or ordinary pace. A hand reached out so fast that to my eyes it was just a blur and I didn't even have the time to flinch as he gripped my shoulder and lifted me up like I weighed nothing. I wasn't even aware that he had thrown me before my backside made a painful impact with the ground. My foot made a snapping sound beneath me and I gasped in pain. And he was smiling. The whole time he was smiling a cheerful happy smile like he was having the time of his life.

"What?"

His lips twitched as he peered at me almost curiously. Like a cat who wondered why the mouse wouldn't move anymore.

"Giving up already?"

In a flash he was just inches away from me. A hand cold and hard like stone gripped my wrist and yanked me up so hard that I could feel something pop in my spine and I bit my lip so I wouldn't scream. His grin widened as his eyes slid over me appraisingly.

"Not a sound? You really are a brave one. Perhaps I shouldn't just drink."

He tilted his head thoughtfully.

"You would make a good companion. We will see. There is after all a chance that I won't be able to stop."

It was like everything came together with a click. Pale skin. Ice cold. Impossibly fast and strong.

Vampire.

It wasn't like I had not believed what I had been told or the stories. When you see someone turn into a fur ball right in front of you then you pretty much realize that there is a hell of a lot more going on than just what you know.

Still it had been a hard concept to grasp that someone could be technically dead and feed off only blood. Besides my mind had been pretty much been overloaded by this whole werewolf imprint business to even give vampires a second thought.

And here was my proof. They were real. He was real. Like a nightmare coming to life.

The moonlight gleamed in his pearly white teeth and I dimly noticed that his eyes were not dark as I had assumed but blood red. The grip he had on my wrist was hard like steel bands and I knew that there was no chance in hell for an escape even if my leg wasn't broken. He was too fast and too strong.

I wondered how mom would do without me and I was happy that she had Kyle to take care of her. And I hoped that what Emily had told me about the wolves going mad if they lost their imprints were just tales. Perhaps if I died the imprint would simply be broken and Paul would go back to think of me as an annoying little paleface and completely forget that for a short time I had been his whole world.

At least deny it with his very soul.

I hoped so. I was unfair to him if he went mad just because I was an idiot who insisted on walking home in the dark by myself when I knew that monsters were very much real.

The vampire leaned in and breathed cold air against my neck. I always thought that in moments of intense fear it would be natural to close ones eyes but mine stayed wide open frozen on a large oak three.

Would they find my body? Would my mom even have a grave to grieve over?

Suddenly I was dropped and fell limply to the ground as something brushed past me. Someone screamed a bloodcurdling scream and there was a sound like metal being ripped apart.

The shapes in front of me were blurry, part because of the speed and part because of the tears of pain that blurred my vision but whatever had attacked the vampire seemed to have a human form. They were snarling and my brief hope that it was one of the wolves vanished.

Another vampire. This clearly wasn't my day.

The snarling was abruptly cut off by a loud crack and I was suddenly hoisted up in the air gently like I was something breakable. A face looked down on me.

Pale skin. Lush pink lips and long wavy blonde hair.

It was a face that I knew. A face that I trusted and loved. Still unchanged despite the fact that I had not seen her since I was ten.

There was only one difference. The eyes I remembered as dark green were now dark red.

Gaia.

Authors note: Leaving you with a little cliffhanger there. Thank you all for the very nice reviews. Makes it even more pleasurable to write. Big hugz to you all.