Hello! I would just like to tell you guys how excited I am for this story! I have been brainstorming for a long time, and unfortunately for you all, I wrote the ending first, so I am still in the process of writing the beginning, but once we reach a certain point, I will release a new chapter every day. Please tell me your thoughts so far, for I would to hear them. Thanks!
Nothing could have prepared me for what I was going to hear from Seth. I sat there and listened as he explained; without speaking up and asking any questions, but I was so confused, and I didn't know what to feel.
"So there's this thing called imprinting," he explained, "No one really knows why it happens, it just does. It's something that has been around in my tribe for many years, but it is supposed to be incredibly rare. It's this bond that happens when two people meet.. I know you felt what I felt whenever we looked into each other's eyes. It's powerful. It is love, maybe not in love, but it's a powerful inseparable bond between two people." He paused, but only for a split second, "It made members of my pack feel like nothing else mattered in life except protecting their imprint, knowing everything about them, it's wanting more than anything to make sure they're happy. There are some people in the pack, for example Jacob with Renesmee, who have imprinted, and the pack has this thing where we can speak to each other through our thoughts whenever we're in wolf form, so I can see for myself that the imprints are always in their thoughts. I couldn't even imagine feeling that way towards anyone. Well, not until I met you."
My heart was pounding and there was a ringing in my ears, but before I could say anything, he continued, "And please don't think I'm crazy. I know you have felt it. You said so yourself. I just really don't want to freak you out here, and scare you away. I know we met just tonight, but I'm really just trying to tell you that if you need anything at all. I will try my best to give it to you because I really just want to know the most beautiful girl I will ever lay my eyes on."
I blushed furiously. So much was going through my mind. I already had so many questions to ask about the werewolf subject, but now imprints? I'm not even quite sure what he means. Sure there is something definitely going on, but I didn't even know his name until thirty minutes ago, and now he says we have some inseparable bond? Does this mean we have to date? What if I don't actually like him? And what about Demitri? To be honest, Demetri hasn't truly crossed my mind like that since I met Seth, but the feelings I have for Demitri were still there. They just didn't seem as exciting.
"This happened so quickly," I whispered to myself. I didn't even realize I said it out loud until I saw Seth's crushed expression. My heart sank.
"I know it happens fast. It always happens as soon as you look into each others eyes for the first time."
"Like love at first sight.."
"Yeah, except it's more complicated than that," he replied, "It's more like love at first wolf sight. Paul and Rachel, Jacob's sister by the way, dated in high school, but they had a really bad breakup, but she came back from college and Paul had wolfed out since then. When they ran into each other again, they imprinted."
"How many members of the pack have imprinted?" I asked.
"Well, like I said before, it's not supposed to be that common," he scratched his head and leaned back on one arm, "But then maybe it's more common than we believed. Sam and my cousin, Emily, were the first. That was messy. Sam and my sister, Leah, were engaged whenever Sam met Emily, but in my opinion, they were having a lot of problems, but that could be because of him being the first of all of us to transform into a massive wolf."
"Sam imprinted on your cousin whenever he was engaged to your sister? That's messed up."
"Yeah, I know. Leah's still bitter about it," Seth mumbled, "Anyway, the next to imprint was Paul with Rachel, and then there was Jared and Kim. I guess you could say they've known each other their entire lives, and Jared never really noticed her, but she already had a huge crush on him. The transformation has a really rough effect on you. Your body temperature raises, a lot, and you go through this crazy growth spurt and suddenly something makes you so pissed you just explode into a wolf. It takes a while to turn back to human for a while, and not be a crazy hot head, so when Jared finally went back to school, he just happened to ask the girl behind him for a pencil and boom! They're relationship has been the smoothest so far because she already had a crush on him. And then it gets weird."
"How so?"
"Well the next to imprint was Quil and Emily's niece, my little cousin. And when I mean she was little, I mean she was two years old at the time. She's turning nine in June now."
"Um, that's creepy."
"Yeah everyone else thought that, too," he laughed, "But it wasn't like that. He's more like a protective older brother to her."
"Still seems creepy."
"Well, when you meet them you wont. Jacob imprinted on Renesmee when she was a baby, but once she got older she ended up having a crush on him and it creeped him out a lot, but after a few years, they fell in love. So you see just because you imprint doesn't necessarily mean you'll be in love and in a relationship. We just want to make you guys as happy as possible, and that's enough for us. You're our first priority."
"What happens if they don't want to see them again?"
"I mean, it would really, really hurt us," his face saddened, "But we would listen to you and hope you would eventually come back. I will tell you whenever I ran out of the house away from you, it was the worst pain I had ever come across in my life. Sam mentioned that, but I didn't realize just how bad it was."
"I don't know what I'm going to do.."
"What do you mean?"
"Seth, I ran away from home, and Demitri was my personal body guard. His special ability is tracking and he's had my blood, so now there's nothing I can do to hide from him."
His face darkened, "Why has he had your blood?"
I blushed, "Well I snuck out yesterday and I was attacked by a vampire. He bit me, and the venom was going to change me, so Demitri had to, uh, suck it out."
I pulled down my shirt to show him the large band-aid on my chest. I could feel the anger radiating off of him.
"Maybe that's why you had a body guard. If you wouldn't have left, you wouldn't have gotten hurt."
"Well if I wouldn't have left I would have never have gotten the idea to come here and I would have never met you," I spat back.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," he apologized, "does this mean they'll be coming to get you back?"
"Any day," I whispered, "But I hated life there. I wasn't happy. I've seen more than I have ever seen in my life today. I don't want to go back to being a prisoner in my own home."
"Well then we can't let you leave then," Seth concluded, "Maybe they won't find you here on the reservation."
"They'll find me and make me come home, and there's no point in fighting them. They're too powerful," I disagreed, "The only chance we have is for me to make them let me stay, but my powers can't control a room of vampires like they could on humans, and they're definitely not as good around strong vampires. Once I started using my powers to sneak out, they ended my training, so I'm not very strong."
"Well I know a room full of vampires and wolves who would probably let you practice on them," he snickered, "including myself."
To be honest, I didn't know if training really helped or not. I wasn't training and I discovered today that I could speak to people through their minds, but I still agreed with Seth that I should practice.
Suddenly, there was a low growl behind me. I jumped and looked behind me to see a huge, light, grey wolf snarling at me.
"LEAH, NO!" Seth yelled and there was a loud ripping noise, and suddenly Seth was a wolf. He tackled his sister and stood over her while baring his teeth. I looked past them and gasped whenever I saw that there was three more wolves headed our way. They hung their heads low and were all staring at me. Leah whimpered and immediately backed off. She circled around to be in front of me, plopped down, and tilted her head at me as if she were interested in me. Seth sulked off towards the pack of wolves, and then they all turned around and followed him to a nearby clearing of trees. Is he leaving? I looked back at Leah, who was still intensely staring at me. Seth's shorts were in pieces on the ground. I blushed at the thought of him being naked. As if Leah read my thoughts, she let out a short growl.
"Sorry," I squeaked. She continued to what I imagined to be a dog's way of glaring and so I started to have a one sided conversation with her.
"So, um, you must be Leah. You must really love your brother. Uh, well I just met him today so I wasn't meaning any harm.. We uh kind of imprinted? Anyway I'm just visiting for a little bit before I have to go back home. My names Scarlett by the way.." I couldn't think of what else to say, but I didn't have to because Seth returned with a different pair of shorts on with three other insanely tall, insanely built men.
"Scarlett, I'd like you to meet the rest of the pack," Seth smiled, "This is Embry, Quil, and Jared. That's my asshole sister, Leah. Guys this is Scarlett."
"Where are Paul and Sam? I thought you said they were part of the pack."
"Well, they are, but they aren't currently shifting. Whenever you stop shifting, you continue aging, but if you keep shifting, you stay frozen in time. Sam and Emily got to the point where they were the same age, so she didn't like the idea of being older than Sam, plus she didn't really like the amount of danger he put himself in. She asked him to stop, so he did. Her happiness is more important to him than the pack. Paul and Rachel ended up having a baby, and Rachel was too afraid of her kid growing up with a dad who didn't age, so she asked him to stop."
"Oh, okay, so which one of you is the alpha?" I chuckled, "Since you're wolves you do have an alpha, right?"
"Yes, we do, it's Jacob," Seth said.
"Finally, as it should have been," the man introduced as Quil answered.
"Who was the alpha before?" I asked.
"Sam, it was supposed to be Jacob, but Jacob didn't want it, and then suddenly he did, so the pack split up for a little bit. Boy drama," Embry answered. I could already tell he was the goofy one.
"I see, well, I feel like I should get going," I could feel myself getting tired, and I've had enough with strangers one day.
"Sorry to intrude, Scarlett," Jared apologized, "We'll be on our way, glad I got the privilege to meet you."
"No, I really am tired, I need to find a place to crash for the night."
"You could stay at my house," Seth offered, "I just got my own place this year."
I blushed and he added, "Not like that! You can sleep in the spare bedroom if you want."
I finally agreed with him, but I became worried. My rib was throbbing from that run, and who knows how far away Seth lives.
"I don't think it's going to help if I run," I said, "We'll have to walk."
"You could ride on my back, I won't mind, I don't live that far from here." I agreed, and he excused himself to behind the trees to shift and returned shortly. He laid down so I could get on comfortably, and once I held onto his fur, we were off. I laid my chest into his warm body, and my own body was practically buzzing. He was so soft and his smell was intoxicating. I nuzzled my face into his fur and smiled to myself. It feels as though my body has known him my entire life, even though my mind does not.
In a few short minutes, we were walking up the stairs to the front porch of a log cabin in the middle of the woods, although we weren't far from the beach, for I could still hear the crashes of the ocean waves. It was like we were in a clearing. I could hear the soft sounds of a stream not too far away. I admired the beauty of his property. I looked above me, and there were a million stars in the sky. He lives in paradise. I got off Seth's back, and he walked around the back of his house to shift back. He returned shortly, and he let me inside. I gasped once he turned the lights on. The house had a two-story ceiling, and there was a big, open, living room with a stone fireplace in the middle where a flat screen TV was mounted just above it. He had a large, black, leather sectional along with a black, leather recliner. I looked up to see there was a balcony on the second floor overlooking us. To the right was a decent sized kitchen, with an island, and a gas stove on it. There were white oak cabinets, and the counter tops were a mixture of blue and brown marble with flecks of silver. Behind the fireplace was a dining room with a grand table in the middle, and a crystal chandelier hanging above it.
"Your house is amazing!"
"Thanks," He scratched his head; "It was a gift from Edward and Bella whenever I graduated college."
"That's a crazy gift," I laughed.
"Yeah I tried not to accept it, but they made me feel bad saying they built it to fit my liking, and they would have just wasted so much time and money, so I had to accept."
"Well, I love it," I smiled.
"I'm glad," He smiled back and I caught myself gazing at his perfectly, straight, white teeth.
"So I'll show you around more." He lead me through the dining room and into a navy blue room that must have been his room. He had a massive, wooden canopy bed and a TV mounted on the wall across it, there was a silver set of curtains that covered a sliding glass door. His dresser was of a darker wood, and there were photographs in picture frames lined across them.
"This is my room, and this is my bathroom." I followed him into a beach themed, sky blue bathroom that had a jacuzzi along with a sandy tiled shower that had two separate shower heads.
"The bathroom was Bella's idea," he added. I just nodded and followed him out of his room and up the stairs to the left. There were two rooms across from me at the top. One was a simple grey office that had three computer monitors. Seems excessive. It had a huge window covering the wall and some of the other room was a dark purple, and violet bedroom with a queen sized bed with grey blankets. There was a smaller TV mounted on the wall in this room. There was also a matching window in this room as there was in the office. He then led me down a hallway to a bright yellow bathroom, but with a normal tub, with one shower head in it. I followed him back down the stairs, through the kitchen, and up another set of stairs to a large bonus room with a black, leather couch, a huge curved TV, and a pool table.
"Seems like a lot for one person," I joked.
"I said that, too!" He laughed, "They said they thought this would be a cool place for the pack to hang out. We already quit going to Sam and Emily's as often as we used to once she asked him to stop phasing, but once they had kids, we quit going there all together, so that's part of why they gave me so much space.
"Well, it's really nice."
"Yeah, but this probably seems small to you. You're used to some huge castle, aren't you?"
"Actually, it's considerably small for a castle, but it was so dark and cold, and I didn't have free roam of it."
"Well that makes a difference, I guess, but a castle is still cool!"
I just gave him a small smile, and he got the message that I didn't really want to talk about home.
"Sorry, do you want to watch TV or something?" he asked. I nodded, but before we settled in, I changed into my black, silk nightshirt, matching shorts, and threw my sheer, black, lacy, silk robe on over it. I retreated downstairs to the living room, and saw Seth anxiously waiting on his couch.
His eyes widened once he saw me, "You look great."
"It's just what I sleep in."
He patted the seat next to him beckoning me to sit next to him. I did so, and with a single click of the remote, the lights in the house were off and the TV was on playing a show I actually recognized.
"You like Titanic?" he asked, "I don't care what we watch, I just want to be around you.
"Yes, this is fine," I answered. As we watched the movie, he shrugged his arm over my shoulders and it felt as though my heart were in my throat. I eventually buckled up the courage to lean against him, and it seemed as though we were both able to finally relax. It felt as though we fit perfectly against each other. I could feel his body warming mine, and I was incredibly distracted by his amazing woodsy, but cinnamony smell. I could feel our breathing forming the same rhythm. It didn't take long for me to finally drift asleep.
