Temper, Temper: Chapter Twenty Three: Disney Princess
Alex huddled her face into the crook of Paul's neck like a cat while the pair sat in Emily and Sam's house along with the rest of the pack. Gently she moved and kissed his warm neck softly before returning into her sleepy nest,
"Quil, I swear to God if you say one more thing about Claire I am going to punch you" Alex murmured with her eyes shut. The wolf instantly stopped yapping on about his younger imprint and gave Alex a pointed look.
"Oh yes, I'll shut up…as long as you and Paul stop sucking each other's faces off every second" Quil shouted with angry sarcasm which made Alex wrinkle her face in distaste at the loud noise.
"It's called kissing Quil and maybe one day you'll get to see what that's like when your imprint is not in preschool" Paul stated while his hand squeezed Alex closer to him.
Alex snorted at Paul's remark, she opened her eyes to look at his face. Quil was looking like he wanted to dive at Paul, but Paul's expression made it perfectly clear that if he did then he would happily rip his head off.
A hand rested on Paul's chest cooling the tremors which had started up across his chest,
"Chill out – Sam is there a particular reason that I'm awake at this hour on a Saturday morning, and not in bed?"
"Yes – We're all here because of you Socks" Sam stated as he leaned on the kitchen counter, "…and it's eleven in the morning, not exactly dawn"
"Yes but it's Saturday, I'm sure all you Quilt folk are as sleep orientated as the blood bags we're genetically programmed to tear up and eat and wha-"
"We thought you could get the mark…if you wanted it" Sam stated, cutting Alex's rant off and getting straight to the point. Under the groups gaze, Alex shut her mouth and looked at the alpha with a vacant, wide eyed expression. When Paul looked down to judge her reaction, Alex moved simultaneously to meet his stare.
Reassured by Paul's smile, Alex shuddered out a breathe.
"You want me…to be a Quilt?" asked Alex incredulously, feeling Paul's hand give her own a squeeze.
The entire wolf pack covered their eyes in exasperation at Alex's constant nickname for the tribe. With a smile Sam nodded his head,
"Only if you want to be" Paul added, thinking that the conversation needed to be balanced, despite the fact he really wanted her to feel integrated into the tribe.
"I already have a mark though" Alex commented more to herself than any of the people who were looking at her. Pressure was made onto the tattoo she was mentioning, Paul's thumb stroked the exact spot it was beneath the material of her jeans.
Obviously Paul has seen the tattoo, and with Alex's love of exhibition, a lot of the pack had as well. The mark wasn't anything major, nothing overly extravagant or huge. The tattoo was Welsh, obviously, each of the Celtic markings flowing together in a small, neat, circle that etched into her hip bone discreetly.
"They're your old family" Embry said with a smile that was intended to reassure, but it caused a whirlwind of thought to go off inside Alex's monologue.
Zeus? Josh? All the others? Were they just a chapter in her life that had now been ended? Had the eighteen years before she even knew La Push existed meant to be forgotten? Eighteen years of memories wasted and cast aside. All because of imprinting.
In that instant familiar red haze clouded over Alex's pupils. Her hand closed together tightly into a fist, Paul stiffened in his seat as he felt the tension fire through Alex's muscles.
"They are not my old family" She sounded out dangerously before slowly standing from her seat and lashing around to leave the house, controlling her anger enough so she didn't burst into a wolf nor cause a fight with her own pack brother.
"Are you serious?" Someone shouted at her incredulously while snapping out their arm to grip Alex's own and pull her back.
Paul had launched after her to question the outburst.
"Why because I want to keep my old family in mind?" Alex spat back at him, "Because I don't to be a pretend Quileute? What do you want me to say?"
"I've seen some of your memories Alex, from what I've seen you're better off without them" Paul said without thinking, his mind only focussing on one or two memories Alex had slipped when her and Josh or Zeus were fighting.
"You didn't see it all!" Alex defended stubbornly, trying to pull away from Paul's grip several times before succeeding after the third vigorous attempt.
"That's because you don't share anything! You don't tell anybody anything about your past" Paul was getting angrier now, his face contorting with anger as the ugly words twisted and spat from his lips. "I'm your imprint, but you still pick and choose what to show me of your life before all this! I don't even know about the stupid pack you were in!"
Alex buttoned her lip. The angrier Paul became, the quieter Alex got. Even though they were imprints, and Alex knew Paul wouldn't intentionally hurt her, when his temper got control of him it was extremely unsettling to watch.
Especially when all the focus of his anger was her.
"Why should I feel like I have to explain every millimetre of my life to you Paul. I'm not writing and autobiography, I don't want to tell you what cake I had for my eleventh birthday or what Disney princess I dressed up as for a friend's fifth birthday party" Alex said, using her hands to enhance the words of her speech. When she was done though, her arms folded protectively around her chest moving rhythmically up and down in time with her deep breaths.
"Don't be so sarcastic, it's really not clever at all"
Pushing past her, Paul launched forward with dogged steps and made his way towards the forest angrily.
"And you were Ariel the fucking mermaid!" He shouted back over his shoulder before changing into his silver wolf and pelting out of sight, picking up a lot of speed on the flat ground.
Shaking slightly Alex watched him go, her arms still folded over her chest, but her shaky breaths made them tremble in place. A huge sigh escaped her lips, followed by a groan of agitation as she spun on her heel and marching in the opposing direction.
Delicately her hand rested on her hip and touched the black ink on her skin which remained covered by her light blouse Emily had gotten her in Port Angelos a while ago.
From the steps of Sam and Emily's house, a figure made to intercept her. However Alex easily dodged out of their way and cut them off before they could muster up a sarcastic remark to greet her with, as most of the boys did when Paul and she had smaller insignificant arguments.
"Shut your mouth Quil"
The young boy held his hands up as surrender, allowing Alex to go past with no conversation. He watched her march away angrily and looked behind him as someone else made their way down the steps to go home.
"Nice girl, baaaad anger problems"
Quil nodded in agreement before jogging in the direction of his house, which luckily wasn't in the direction of Paul or Alex.