Now we were going to meet Sam's pack. I was scared as hell. How were they going to react to some white kid joining a supposedly exclusive ancient and magical pack of protecting werewolves?
We were all in our wolf forms with Jacob at the front. We padded through the damp forest noiselessly and everyone was calm. Almost.
Geez kid. Don't have a heart attack, said Seth. They're not gonna lunge at you the minute we come around.
I got a mental image of a pouncing wolf with glistening, sharp fangs.
Kinda looks like Leah in the morning.
Shut it, baby brother unless you want to find your head shoved up your-
Cut it out. They're close, came Jacob cutting off Leah's R rated comments.
Prude, she snarled at me.
Suddenly Sam's pack came into view. Sam Uley was in front, a midnight colored wolf almost as large as Jacob. I didn't know the names of the others.
Jared, Paul, Collin, and Brady are the elder wolves, because they transformed the earliest. Leon, Phillip, Gabe, Harris, Peter, Don and Anthony are the others in the pack.
Those names didn't sound remotely Native American to me.
Idiot, snorted Leah. Our parents live in the twenty-first century, not a thousand years ago.
Technically, our ancestors only lived a couple hundr-
Shut it, Seth. Don't you ever grow up?
What fun is there in actually being nice to your sister?
XXXXXXXX
Later after Jacob finished talking to Sam, the two packs went their separate ways. Collin and Brady phased back into their human forms and tagged along with us.
"So what's up with you?" asked Brady. "Why did you phase and not some kid from the rez?""Honestly, I have no idea. I guess there's Quileute blood in my line somewhere." I responded.
"I wonder why you imprinted that girl before you changed and not after. I know that's not the way it worked for Jared. Of course, the rest of the guys had never met their imprints before," said Collin.
"You're such a sap," said Brady, punching Collin in the head.
"Watch it you-" yelled Collin, tackling Brady to the ground. What started out as two guys wrestling, soon turned into a mass of snarling mass of fur and fangs. Brady managed to get away and race off through the forest, Collin hot on his tail.
It was insanity, but yet…..
"Hey, wait up!" I called, phasing as I went.
XXXXXXX
A couple days later…
I was done with my patrol duties early, so I decided to head over to Skye's house to kill some time.
"Skye! I'm off early today!" I called through the house. The empty house.
Damn, I thought looking at the clock. An entire hour before she was done with school. What the hell was I supposed to do until then?
I shook my head. The pack's foul language must've been rubbing off on me. I needed to watch that. But what to do for an hour?
The TV beckoned to me enticingly, yet I refused. Surely there was something better for an artist like me to do.
Maybe I could start that portrait of Skye I had been meaning to do, I thought. It could possibly be done before her birthday.
On that topic, I wondered when her birthday was. I'd never thought to ask. There was a calendar on the refrigerator in the kitchen. I started to flip through the pages, but went back to the first page.
No frickin' way. HER BIRTHDAY WAS IN A WEEK?!?!?
I hadn't even gotten her anything yet! We hadn't even talked about it!
I was having a major meltdown. What were you supposed to get for your soul mate? I had art on my side, but I would do stuff for her like that all year round. I needed something special.
I could take her somewhere, but that wouldn't work. Alice would be planning a party. I sat down on the couch, my mind working overtime, coming up with ideas and rejecting them.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?!" Seth yelled, sneaking up behind me.
"Bloody hell! What are you talking about?" I almost jumped out of my skin.
"Are you British now?" Seth teased. "Goin' to have tea and biscuits?" he said in a very whiny accent.
"Okay, shut up."
"I get that from my older sister, my pack mates, and now my daughter's boyfriend? Does everyone around here hate me?"
"Yeah. Hey, what's the plan for Skye's birthday?"
"Same as every year I suppose. She runs away so Alice can't throw her a party."
"Skye hates parties? I didn't know that…"
"Daniel, she is much smarter than you know. She purposely strays away from all mention of birthdays."
"Oh, wow."
" I suggest you tread carefully with her. She has a depth to her that she doesn't show. Skye may act like she's fifteen, but when she thinks no one is looking, she seems to be almost a hundred."
"Yes sir," I said, taking that all in. "And you didn't crack a single joke."
"My daughter is not a joking matter."
XXXXXXX
What was I doing here? What was I thinking?
I smashed my head against the steering wheel of the pickup. I was sitting here in the Cullens' driveway, debating about if I should actually go in. Frickin' insane.
A knock on my window startled me. It was her.
"Are you going to come in, or not? I've been waiting all day for you to get here!" said Alice, bouncing up and down cheerfully.
"What?" I said, my mouth slightly open.
She tapped her head in response. She'd seen me coming.
"Thought you couldn't see werewolves in your visions."
"Oh, I can't. All I saw was my future disappearing for a little while, so I assumed it was you coming to talk to me about Skye's birthday."
Evil and smart to boot.
"Okay, yeah. I want to convince Skye to have a party this year. But Alice, I swear, if you go overboard on this I will never forgive you. From the way I hear it, Skye would rather have bamboo splinters shoved into her fingernails."
She grinned impishly. "I'll bet she's nowhere near as stubborn as Bella was."
"Yeah, and no one is betting against you, Alice."
XXXXXXXXXX
Now all I had to worry about was convincing Skye to come to her own party.
"No."
"What?" I asked innocently, sitting next to Skye on the La Push cliff.
"You are about to ask me to come to my own birthday party. I am not stupid. The answer is no."
I was starting to see what Seth meant about a hundred years old. Skye and I had been spending a lot of time on one of the lower cliffs at First Beach. Whenever it was just me and her, she sometimes dropped the façade of a teenage girl and spoke like someone from a different time and place.
"How'd you know that?"
"I'm not sure. I just did. Perhaps I know you very well."
I scooted closer to her and put my arm around her. Again that cinnamon scent surrounded me. I ran my lips across the smooth skin of her neck.
"Please come, for me?"
I moved to her cheek, her forehead. She shivered.
"Daniel, seduction is not going to make me come!"
I immediately ceased my efforts, unwilling to treat my imprint that way. I'd been inside the minds of my pack mates.
"Did you mind that much?"
She hesitated, looked at me with deep, knowing green eyes. And shook her head.
"Don't worry, I still won't do it again unless you want me to."
That made her grin. She leaned her head against my shoulder.
"So will you come?"
"Do I have to go shopping with Alice?"
"More than likely, but…"
I knew that I needed a good argument. Unfortunately, my mind was very preoccupied with the shape of the girl in my arms.
"If you go, I promise we can do something special afterwards, just you and me," I said.
She perked up, and then slumped down again. "Fine. You win."
"Woohoo!" I shouted into the wind, jumping up triumphantly.
I started dancing around the cliff base in a kind of victory dance. Skye stood up staring at me.
"You do not need to be so jubilant about it. You look like a fool."
"And you," I said, still dancing circles around her, "don't need to act like you have a stick up your- hey!"
She jumped up onto my back and held on tight, laughing so much that I joined in. I twirled us around, and my imprint and I danced around like insane people on a cliff watching the sun disappear beyond the horizon.