"Rachel?" Paul stepped closer to her, placing a hand on her elbow ."Are you okay?"
She turned her head towards him and smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Thanks for helping me today, I would've taken me ages to get home by myself. I better make start on these pies though, so maybe I'll see you later."
Rachel went back to her bags and Paul frowned, "But what about what I…"
"Goodbye, Paul." She said sternly, her hands gripping the kitchen counter tight enough hat her knuckles paled to almost white.
Paul blinked in surprise at the sudden dismissal, "Bye, Rach." He murmured, dropping Jacob's car keys on the kitchen table and walking out of the house.
As soon as he was outside he broke into a run and headed straight for the forest, and when he hit the tree line he skidded to a stop. His shoulders shook and his chest rose and fell almost uncontrollably as he balled his fist and slammed it into the nearest tree, splintering under the force, He let a deafening howl as his skin exploded to make way for his wolf.
"Paul? What…" Sam's voice echoed in his head, cut off when he ran through the last few hours he'd spent with Rachel.
"Oh." he sighed, "I'm sorry Paul. Just give her some time, I'm sure she's just surprised by it all."
"She didn't even acknowledge it," Paul growled "she told me she's been feeling…unexpected things about me and I know it's the imprint she's feeling, so why won't she talk to me about it?"
"You can't force her Paul, it's her choice whether she follows the imprint." Sam said, "I know it's not what you want to hear, but you need to accept that she may decide she doesn't want this. Rachel's had a lot of information thrown her way over the past week, and she's handled it pretty well so far."
Sam's black wolf trotted through a break in the trees and fell into step with Paul, "all you can do is wait, let her work through it all, answer all her questions and pray for the best."
"But what if she decides she doesn't want me?" Paul asked, his thought almost childlike.
"If she doesn't want you as a mate, then there's not much you can do about other than hope she changes her mind and if she doesn't then you will be her friend, her confidant…anything she wants, that's what you'll be." Sam explained.
"Was it this hard for you?" Paul questioned and was immediately bombarded with memories of Emily with a perfect face and perfect smile that suddenly contorted into a look of sheer terror. Then she lay in a hospital bed, completely motionless with most of her face and the upper half of her torso bound tightly in thick bandages.
"It had been just over a month since I started phasing that imprinted on her, it wasn't like with you, or Jake or Jared, I didn't have anyone to lean on, to understand what I was going through. The elders recognised it, sure, but they didn't have to live it like I did." Sam explained softly, "I was still so volatile, I should never have gone to see her, but I had to see her, I needed to see her and she denied me right away, because of Leah and something in me just snapped and it was completely out of my control, I felt completely powerless against the wolf."
Sam stopped and sank to the ground. "The first three months of my imprint were spent in a hospital room, listening to a beeping heart monitors, ignoring her pleas for me to leave and enduring every scream that passed her lips when they changed her bandages, willing for her pain to be my own." The wolf let out a huge sigh and Paul looked on in quiet awe at Sam's words. He'd seen the memories before but he'd hardly ever spoken about what had happened.
"Eventually I worked up the courage to stand within two feet of her, and she let me. She held my hand will they changed her, and she started talking to me to take her away from the pain and even after what I did to her, we became friends. After she left the hospital, Leah shunned her and Sue wasn't much better, but they didn't understand, they couldn't. Harry did though, he knew what was going on between us and he talked Emily into moving onto the reservation, into the house that's now ours, so that he could help care for her. I was always close by, helping her with what ever she needed, shopping, cleaning, cooking, changing her bandages and eventually the friendship changed."
Sam chuckled dryly "I guess what I'm saying is that, yeah it was hard, if I could go back and change what I did to her I would, but going through what we did together made us what we are. Everything happens for a reason, you just need to wait it out."
Paul nodded, unsure of exactly what he should say, but Sam stopped his thoughts. "You don't need to say anything, I wasn't after pity, you asked me what it was like for me so I told you." Sam leapt to his feet. "Now lets move, the bonfire is supposed to start in a couple of hours and we need to get the fire going and find enough drift wood to keep it going."
Rachel pushed her father along the beach path, pie boxes placed carefully on his lap.
"You okay, baby girl?" Billy asked quietly breaking their silence, and Rachel pursed her lips.
"You know about Jake and…and Paul, right?" She replied.
"If you're talking about the fact that they turn into gigantic wolves and hunt vampires on a daily basis, then yeah, I know about Jake and Paul." He said, cocking an eyebrow, "Why do you ask?"
"Do you know anything about…" Rachel trailed off and stopped walking, "Do you know about imprinting?"
Billy's eye's widened and he drew in a quick breath. "He finally told you then?"
"You knew?" She exclaimed standing in front of him and he winced a little.
"Paul told me, the day you saw him at the beach." he explained. "But if he told you then what do you want to know?"
"I don't know, I just…I'm having a hard time getting my head around it." She said moving back behind his chair and continuing towards the beach. " I feel…things, that I wasn't expecting especially since I only met him less than a week ago. After he told me about being a wolf, when I didn't see him for a few days, I felt anxious and jittery but this morning all it took was one look from him and I was instantly calmed. I want to please him, I even asked him what his favourite pie was, it was the only one I made from scratch and I'm worried shitless that he won't like it!"
"Breath, Rachel." Billy chuckled, reaching back to pat her hand. "It's all part of the imprinting, it's purpose is to make you want him. It's a mating imperative."
"It's a mating what?" She almost shouted, coming to an abrupt halt.
Billy's eyes widened as he realised she obviously hadn't been given this particular bit of information. "It's nothing, just forget I said anything."
"Tell me!" She demanded crossing her arms.
"Together, you and Paul are a perfect match for carrying on the wolf gene, it's the reason they imprint." He explained softly.
"So he lied? He told me it was like, super love at first sight, that we were soul mates! When actually the only reason is to give him perfect puppies!" Rachel was yelling now, pacing back and forth across the path.
"He didn't lie," Billy pressed "I'm not explaining this very well. You are soul mates, you are perfect for each other in every way, like two puzzle pieces clicking together to complete a picture."
"But you said it was…" Rachel started but Billy cut her off.
"I know what I said, and I shouldn't have, imprinting is more than that. It's finding the love of your life." He said apologetically. "Would you have looked twice at Paul? Jacob's school friend, angry teenager if it wasn't for the feelings the imprinting heightened?"
"Teenager?" She asked, her eyebrows shooting up, "Oh this just keeps getting better and better!"
Billy sighed and shook his head in resignation. "I don't know if I can help you with this, you need to talk to Paul. Come on let's get to the beach, I'm sure he'll be there."
And he was.
Rachel's traitorous eye's found him as soon as her bare feet hit the sand, and it was almost as if he knew she was there, that he could feel her as his head automatically snapped up in her direction.
She felt her cheeks bloom when his eye's met hers and she forced herself to look away, grabbing at the boxes her father held and mumbling about going to put them on the food table.
"Hey!" Rachel jumped slightly at the cheery voice, and she turned to find Emily's scarred face beaming at her. "I'm so glad you came, Kim and Lee are around here somewhere but us girls need to stick together, we're completely out-numbered. How are you doing?"
Rachel frowned "You know don't you? About me and Paul?" Emily nodded.
"Sam tells me everything, no secrets." She held up her hands. "I take it your not entirely happy about it then?"
"We're you?" Rachel snapped.
"Not at first, but you'd be amazed at how convincing these guy's can be!" Emily grinned.
"But he's a kid!" Rachel exclaimed, letting her eye's drift back to Paul "I mean sure, he looks older and he's definitely…damn! But it doesn't change the fact the he's still… "
"You're twenty three, right?" Emily cut in and Rachel nodded. "He's nineteen, he'll hit twenty and January. It's what three years? It's not so bad."
"Look at them. They stopped being kids the moment they learned the truth." Emily explained quietly. "They've had no choice but to grow up faster physically and mentally. When they should have been out cliff diving and crashing college parties they were fighting off an army of vampires. Sure, Jared likes the odd prank and Embry will happily rip the shit out of you just to get a laugh but when it comes down to it? They're old well before their time." Emily squeezed her shoulder and smiled, "Just don't deny him yet okay? Now lets get these pies out."
Emily reached for the boxes and began pulling them out and setting them on the table and, right on cue, four towering wolf men bolted towards the table, immediately grabbing for them. Rachel looked in, bemused as Emily scolded them and slapped their hands away. Demanding they leave some for the others.
"What about that one?" Emily asked, pointing to the box firmly grasped in Rachel's hand.
"Yeah, no fair!" Embry piped up through a mouthful of cherry pie, "If we have to share, so do you."
"Oh!" Rachel blushed and looked from the box to where Paul was standing across the beach and back again. "It's…I…"
Emily smiled knowingly and placed a hand over hers. "They can share what they've got, you go and give it to him."
Rachel nodded timidly and walked off, looking back at Emily who gestured her forward and turned back to the table.
Paul stood talking to Seth, bottle in hand as Rachel approached. Seth smiled warmly and greeted her before making his excuses and running off.
"Should you be drinking that?" Rachel asked, pointing to the beer in his grip, her voice exuding a confidence that she wasn't feeling. "You know, being under age and all."
Paul grinned and clicked his tongue. "You found out about that huh? Don't worry I won't get drunk, I can't get drunk. Our bodies burn off the alcohol to quickly, it would probably take a keg drunk in minutes to even get me tipsy. Is that all or did you want to tell me off some more?"
Rachel sighed deeply, and nervously pushed her hair behind her ear as she eyed the box. "Here." she said holding it out to him, and he cocked an eyebrow in confusion. "Just take it."
Paul reached with one hand and passed her the beer with the other, and she took a long swig as she watched him open the box and grin widely.
"Chocolate Pecan! You made it!" He chuckled. "Thanks."
"From scratch, even the pastry." She smiled nervously, pulling at the label on the bottle. "You might not even like it."
Paul stepped forward, placing a finger under her chin and lifting her face up. "If you made it, I'll love it. Thank you." He smiled down at her.
Rachel closed her eye's breaking his lock on them and stepped away from him. "Just so you know, I still don't understand what's going on. Not entirely. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
"You're not supposed to do anything, you just have to be. Just see what happens." Paul's voice was almost pleading.
Rachel looked around her, and spotted Emily and Sam wrapped up in each other. The intimacy of the moment had the tears that had filled her eyes, falling over and she turned back to the man in front of her.
"I leave the day after tomorrow." She almost whispered and Paul visibly tensed. "I got offered a job in Atlanta at the beginning of last week."
"You can't leave." Paul said leaning towards her, his voice low. "You can't leave me."
Rachel shook her head and wiped her cheek. "I don't know you, I met you a week ago!" She exclaimed, her voice breaking. "Do you have any idea how fucked up I feel right now? When you leave I feel it here," she pressed her hand to her chest "I feel anxious and twitchy, and I want to know where you are and what you're doing.
These are the kinds of feelings you're supposed to have about people you've known for longer than five days! This is my life, Paul and I don't want this!"
"Rachel?" Jacob ran up behind them. "What are you doing?"
"Can you look after dad? I suddenly don't feel so good." She asked quickly, not even trying to stem the tears and Jake nodded dumbly as she brushed past him and ran back up the beach.
"What did you do?" He asked rounding on Paul who shook his head.
"She's leaving me." He said trembling. "She's denying me."
In the time it had taken Rachel to run home, the warm night had deteriorated into a heavy rain.
She lay on the mattress in Jacob's old room. Ignoring Billy when he came to her door to let her know he was home, and Jake when he pleaded with her to open her door.
It had been hours since she left the beach and Paul and the emptiness that gnawed at her insides only grew worse. Her cries had turned to sobs, drowned out by the rain smacking against the roof and eventually she'd heard the rest of her family retire to bed.
She clutched her pillow to her chest, willing away the ache that had settled and then she heard it, a howl that made her heart pound.
Rachel bolted off the floor and to her window, pulling back the curtains, and standing just in view was a wolf. His grey fur almost black with rain water and his hot breath misting around him.
He grunted and turned back towards the trees and before she could stop her self, Rachel had pushed open the window.
"Paul!" She yelled and the wolf stopped and turned, watching as she walked backwards from the wide open window, looking at him.
Paul grunted and walked towards the house, stopping at the window.
"Can you come in?" Rachel asked quietly, watching as the grey fur melted away and Paul stood soaking wet in front of her.
"I don't understand." He pleaded.
"Well that makes two of us." She replied, stepping to the side and waiting for him to jump though the window.
He stood, water dripping into little puddles at his feet. Rachel handed him a small towel and busied herself with finding any clothes that Jacob had left in the drawers, finally fishing out a pair of boxers and handing them to him.
Paul smiled gratefully and hung the towel round his neck as he pulled on the boxers.
"Can you close that?" Rachel asked when he finally looked at her, pointing to the window behind him before she sat cross legged on the mattress.
"Is it supposed to hurt like this?" She whispered, and Paul sighed dropping on to the mattress next to her, letting his head fall back against the wall.
"I don't know," he shrugged "no one's ever denied my imprint before."
"You're asking me to change my whole life Paul, I can't…" She started.
"I'm not asking you to change anything, I'm asking for a chance, that's all. Don't you feel it? " He cut in, turning to face her and twisting his fingers into hers. "Since you ran all I feel is empty, it's the only way I can describe it, but now? Just sitting here with you, holding your hand? It's peace. Tell me you feel it?" Rachel nodded.
"It's not something I feel often, it's like you ground me. How the hell am I supposed to manage with you almost three thousand miles cross country?" His voice was breaking.
"Come with me?" Rachel replied. "To Atlanta."
Paul let go of her hand and tangled his finger into her hair, pulling her forehead to his, his eyes falling shut as her breath ghosted over his face. He could hear her heart beating faster against her chest, completely in sync with his own. "I would leave with you right now, if it meant I get to keep you…But I can't. Please give this a chance? There will be other jobs, I'll help you find one here just, please, give us a chance?"
The desperation in his voice sent a fresh wave of tears sailing down Rachel's face, and she leaned into him greedy for the warmth and comfort he gave her, pushing him on to his back and burying her head in his neck as she sobbed.
"Please stay for me?"