Now we finally start to resolve some of these issues, and Paul starts to get a grip and come to terms with where he is in life.
{PAUL'S POV}
I ran alongside Collin, who had taken shifts to help occupy his mind while he waited for his imprint to answer the phone. How he plans on answering the phone on patrol is beyond me. We usually don't have the younger wolves run regular patrol, but running helps him clear his head, or so he tells us. He was also willing to switch with anyone on my shift, my mental turmoil over my own imprint grating on the entire pack's nerves. The two of us run mostly in silence, but he speaks up tonight.
"Have you told her yet?"
"No, watching what happened with yours isn't exactly encouraging." I think back at him. He sighs.
"She's not mine." Oh yeah, I remember something about the girl's whole 'nobody owns me but me' thing. She's some form of hippie. That also has something to do with her parading around mostly naked.
"She's your imprint." I remind him.
"But she's not mine." He sounds so depressed, his defeat leaking over into me, putting me in a foul mood. I push myself more, covering more ground. He continues to think at me.
"You need to appreciate Daenarys more, she's willing to at least be your friend. But you keep shutting her down. She'll hate you soon if she doesn't already."
"I don't care, I don't want an imprint." I repeat, hoping that if I say it enough times, it'll go away.
"It's too late. You can't do anything about it. Just embrace it while you can, enjoy it." This is stupid. Collin is still a teenager, caught up in this whole sappy romance drama with his girl. I'm nearly twenty, only back in high school part time because of the time I lost in my schooling from learning to control my temper and during the newborn battle.
"You go ahead and enjoy your little romance, I'd rather not get my heart broken when she finds out I turn into a giant wolf."
"It's just a matter of time, Paul. Not even Sam could escape it, and he had a good reason to want to."
"I'm less emotional than Sam."
"Not really, you just show less emotion than Sam."
Shit, kid knows everything.
"Well, don't hold your breath." I tell him before taking off in a different direction, effectively ending the conversation even though his thoughts were still in my head.
When I got off patrol, warning Jared of Collin's state after phasing out, I went home to find a pair of jeans to go to the bonfire. I don't want to go, but Ava is going, and I'd rather go sulk there than sulk here without food.
Of course, it didn't even occur to me that somehow Dae would get invited. The only person that would invite her - I thought - would be Collin's girl, since they're best friends or something now. And I didn't think Collin's girl would be going, considering that she is avoiding Collin.
But she was there, up to her shoulders in the water, along with her friend. When she saw me, she gestured frantically to the other girl, both of them disappearing before popping up about 15 feet away. It was so… cute. I caught myself smiling. Ew. The friend seemed exasperated at Dae, probably at her terrible evasion tactics. I turned away, moving closer to the table where the food was being brought out. I find Embry there, snatching pieces of food when Emily isn't looking. He chuckles when he sees my face. I guess I look less cross than usual.
"You saw Dae I'm guessing?" He smirked when I scowled at him. Of course I saw Dae, my brain is specially wired to find her in a crowd. Damn, I hate this imprint so much.
"I don't know why she's here, who invited her?"
"Me. Well not directly. I told Jay and he invited her." He looks so damn smug. I glowered at him.
"Why?"
"Because I'm tired of your bitching. A little exposure therapy will do wonders to making you fall in love with her and quit your griping. You're always less of a whiny little bitch after you've spend time with her."
I growled and snatched the chicken leg in his hand, glaring at him as I walked away.
I refuse to fall in love.
After everyone had eaten and I was not approached by Dae, I sat down around the fire to listen to the legends. Collin joined the circle, but only barely. He looks like he needs a nap, sex, and then another nap.
Billy wheeled himself over, looking at the group, catching my eye as he saw Dae sitting with her friend on the outer edge of the circle. I shrug. Billy tries to intimidate me, but he's an old guy in a wheelchair and I'm a nearly indestructible gigantic wolf, so I'm not afraid of him. I guess he would know Dae, considering he's good friends with her uncle. He's probably not happy with how I'm treating her, but I couldn't care less what he thinks about me. Still, I catch myself checking on her constantly through Billy's tales, making sure she's still there and gauging her reaction to what she probably thinks are fairy tales.
I hear Quil snort softly next to me as he strokes Claire's hair from where she's curled up in his lap. A pang of jealousy stabs me unexpectedly, as I see how easy their relationship is. I frown and glance back at Dae.
"You're in too deep this time." He says quietly. "You can't help but like her."
"I know, I know." I grumble.
When the stories were over and everyone started leaving, I suddenly felt myself jabbed in the ribs and I spun around to see Dae's friend, Collin's imprint.
"What the fuck?" I hissed at her.
"Hi, you must be Paul."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you kept looking at Dae all night and you have bad language, just like Billy said." She said plainly, shrugging her shoulders.
"What do you want?"
"You need to tell that girl why you've been treating her like crap and that you're a wolf."
"I'm not going to do that, I don't want Dae in my life." I retort, how dare this outsider come and tell me how to live my life? I don't even let the counsel tell me what to do.
"Yes, you do want her, and if you don't tell her then I will." She threatened, and I felt anger rising up in me. I spluttered for a second.
"You can't do that!"
"Yes, I can do that, and I will. I already talked to Billy about it, and he agrees with me. You need to tell her, and if you don't, you forfeit the right to be the one to tell her."
"Then go ahead, tell her now. I'm not going to. Maybe she'll even back the fuck off of me if she knows I'm a monster, look at what you're doing with that poor kid."
"Collin?" Her face completely changes from anger to sadness. I smirked. I caught her off guard. I continue.
"Why are you accusing me of treating her like shit when you're over there ignoring the fucking phone when he tries to get in touch with you. I know how many times he's called you."
"You don't know my side of the story."
"And you barely know his. I don't see any way to justify what you're doing to him when all he's ever been is a gentleman treating you like a fucking princess." I point out. She frowned.
"I just want to think things through a little more, it was a huge shock. Don't tell me phasing for the first time didn't scare you – put yourself in my shoes. I didn't even grow up on the legends gradually dipping me into it. No, I go into the woods with him one day and BAM, gigantic feral creature standing where my kinda boyfriend was." I admit that I can kind of see her view now.
"We're not feral creatures, we're still people but with different bodies." I correct her, and she raised her eyebrow at me.
"How many vampires have you killed?"
"I don't know, I don't count them. A lot, probably over fifty. But Collin's never killed one. Sam left him here when we went to fight. He's a killing virgin. I doubt he could kill one even if he had to."
"That's his job, he'll kill one if it comes onto the res."
"Would you rather him kill it to protect you and your friend there, or would you rather be sucked dry by it?"
"They're harmless to us, they drink animal blood." She looked at me, anger in her eyes. I blink in confusion at her.
"What? Where did you hear that? Very few of them do that, most of them kill people. Sometimes just for fun, without even drinking the blood." I can tell when her brain shifts from wolves bad to oh shit, vampires bad.
"Collin said Nessie's parents-"
"Yeah, the Cullens drink animal blood. We don't mess with them, Jake even imprinted on their daughter, the half vampire. But pretty much all other vampires drink human blood and kill for it." No wonder she was so mad, Collin screwed up.
"Okay, so maybe there are a lot of bad ones. But what if it isn't a bad one and they accidentally finds themself over the border. You guys don't even give them a chance to explain what they're doing here, you just kill them."
I snorted. How is she still defending leeches?
"We don't need to. They can lie, but their eyes can't. If they've had human blood, their eyes are red. If they've had animal blood, their eyes are yellow or brown like the Cullens'. Simple. Guilty, they die. Innocent, we let 'em go. End of story." I was annoyed with her attitude, and was turning to walk away, when she gripped my arm.
"You'd better take care of her, I'm going home." She jerked her thumb backwards as she stalked past me. I looked to where she was pointed and saw Dae curled up on the sand.
Damn her. The girl knew I couldn't walk away from my imprint. I can't force myself to leave her here unprotected while she slept. I silently approach, sitting down next to her and gently lifting her into my lap so she can continue to sleep without catching a cold. I'm hoping she doesn't wake up and see me. I'll have to explain why I care about her again. I play with the ends of her damp braids, the heat from my body quickly drying the hair near her head. She shifts in her sleep, curling closer around me, and the two sides of me war, the one side rejoicing that at least her subconscious trusts me, the other side telling me that I'm not going to be able to resist her.
Jared winks at me as he left with Kim, and I can just hear him telling me that even I am not cruel enough to resist the imprint bond. In a way I agree with him. I'm also a little glad that Onyx is planning on telling her for me, so I can see what she does about it without actually telling her myself. Selfish? Sure.
I let myself wonder how she'll take it, thinking of her reacting in different ways. If she freaks out, I tell myself that it's all the better for me.
Leave me a review! I'm really excited about the new few chapters, they're going to move things along and we'll see a lot more of the couples interacting. Do you like Daenaul or Collyx more?