Forced

I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw were a pair of worried brown eyes. The eyes moved back to where I could see the entire face, and I realized that they belonged to Embry. "Are you alright?" he asked, helping me sit up.

"Yeah." I rubbed my eyes and slowly got to my feet. "What happened?"

"Uh…" I heard him sigh, and when I turned around, he was scratching the back of his neck, trying to think of something.

"What! Did something bad happen? What did I do this time?" I sat back down on the couch beside him.

"No, no. You didn't do anything. You just fainted." he said, taking my hand. I immediately felt comforted.

"That's…so unlike me." I rubbed my head, feeling a headache coming on. "How long have I been out?"

"Only a couple of minutes. Do you, um, remember what happened before you fainted?" He asked hesitantly.

When I looked up at him, he was looking at me with a worried expression. "Not much." I squinted my eyes, trying to think back. "I remember Paul and Emmett arguing. Clothes being shredded." And Paul exploding. A giant wolf standing in his place. I covered my mouth with both of my hands and looked at Embry, wanting to confirm if what I remember seeing was true. From the look on his face, he understood what I was freaking out about.

"Please don't freak out." Embry said, putting his hands on my shoulders.

"I'm not." I said truthfully, relieving in his touch. "I just don't know how any of this is possible."

His hands moved from my shoulders down to hold my hands in his. "I know it's a lot to take in and hard to understand that something like vampires and werewolves could even exist, but some how they do." He sighed and looked down at our hands. "I'll explain as best as I can and Carlisle can fill you in on anything you want to know about vampires that I can't explain myself."

"But why where vampire and werewolves enemies? You seem to get along get fine early, other than Paul and Emmett." I stated, curled up on the couch as I had been for the past couple of hours while Embry explain all of the basics between werewolves and vampires.

"Our differences started way back, shortly after we had become werewolves." Embry started, leaning back to start what sounded like a long story. "Some people form the neighboring tribes went missing. They knew about the shifters in our tribe and asked for our help. The tribe leader agreed and sent the shifters over who quickly picked up a scent leading into the woods with the missing people. They sent out immediately, thinking that that would be able to handle whoever took them quickly and bring the people back unharmed. That was when we first became aware of the cold ones.

"They ran, following the sickly sweet scent until they came to a clearing, where they found one of the missing people, her body mangled with bite marks. They found the other missing person in the arms of a man, sucking the life out of her. When he saw them, he threw her lifeless body and took a stance, ready to attack.

"One by one, they launched themselves at him, quickly turning into wolves. He looked surprised, but immediately got over it by the time they were upon him. Instantly they knew that he wasn't human. Effortlessly, he threw two of them off and killed the third.

"Back then there was never more than three wolves at a time." He explained at my confused look. "With a coven as big as the Cullen's, more of the tribe turned, since vampires usually only travel in pairs."

I nodded that I understood and he continued. "The other two charged at him, furious that he had killed their brother. Seeing how strong that he was, they put more effort into killing him, but they found it hard to penetrate his rock like skin. They fought for minutes, before anyone could deliver a fatal blow, but it was the cold one who delivered it. He kicked at one of them, sending him flying back, and quickly grabbed hold of the jaw of the other. While he was killing that one, the hurt wolf ran up behind him and tore out his throat, but not before his other brother was killed.

"The surviving shifter went back to the tribe and told his leader how they were to late to save the women and how the man was not human, how they had fought but his brothers had not survived.

"Whenever we came across one, we would kill it immediately with the only way we found that we could, with our teeth. Our tribe has never went unprotected since then. There has always been at least one werewolf in the tribe."

"I get that there is at least one, but why exactly is there more now? What causes you to turn into a wolf?" I asked.

"When a vampire is near someone with the wolf gene but hasn't turned, it triggers the gene. Since the Cullens are in such a large group and stay here for years at a time, more of more people get the gene triggered."

I went back over the story in my head, trying to make sense of it all. "Wait. You said that you became enemies shortly after you became werewolves. What were you before you were wolves?"

"That's a long story, but I'll try to give you the short version. We were spirit warriors-"

"What!" I asked. This keeps getting weirder and weirder.

He laughed. "If you let me continue you would understand."

"Sorry." I said, my face heating up from embarrassment.

"It's okay." he replied, placing his hand on my cheek for a moment before continuing again.

"We were able to release our spirits and roam the land, leaving our bodies behind, sort of like a ghost but we weren't dead, we were able to go back into our bodies.

"One day the tribe leader sent his spirit out, making sure that there was no threats in the area, like he did everyday. Once he was far enough from his body, another person entered the spirit realm. He sensed the other spirit and knew immediately that I was the spirit the traitor that he had banded. He quickly went back to his body, but he was to late. The other spirit had gone into the leader's body then killed his own, causing the true leader to be trapped without a body.

"He awaited for another spirit warrior to leave their body so that he could tell them what happened, but the traitor had forbidden to spirit travel. The leader soon grew tired of traveling and found a wolf and asked it if he could share the body, since animals could see our spirits when we traveled. The wolf agreed.

"The leader watched as the traitor ruined the tribe and his own family. The leader grew so mad, that with all of the human emotions in the wolf's body, he transformed into a human. That was the beginning of shifters."

"Wow." I said, not able to say anything else. We sat in silence, me looking at my hands digesting everything, and Embry staring holes into the side of my head. "What did Bella mean when she said that 'you know whated' on me?" I finally asked, remembering what started this entire conversation.

He smiled at me and rubbed my knee. "It's supposedly rare, but when one of our kind find someone and they feel a pull toward them, it's called imprinting."

"Como?" What was that suppose to mean?

His smile grew and he quit rubbing my knee, but he left his hand there. I didn't mind in the least. "Imprint. It's pretty much love at first sight. When someone like me, finds there soul mate." He grabbed both of my hands in his and turned me so that I was fully facing him. "And I've finally found mine. You."

My eyes widened. I was his soul mate! He imprinted on me!

"We'll be together forever." He raised our conjoined hands to kiss that back of mine, but I slipped my hands from his and pushed them away. "What's the matter?" He quickly asked.

I stood up and walked to the door, with him following me. "This," I turned around and waved my hands between the two of us. "It just seems crazy." I quickly ran outside, not caring that it was raining. I looked around and realized that I was still at the Cullen's and that Embry was that one that had given me a ride here. So I decided to walk. To where I didn't know, but I had to get away.

"Korlee. Please, wait." Embry said, grabbing a jacket.

I ignored him and started walking across the lawn, until I felt something wrong. I looked down and remembered that I didn't have any shoes on. My feet were now all muddy. I stood there, thinking whether or not to go back and get shoes, then I remembered the reason why I was out here and thought not.

Before I could take another step, a burning hand grabbed me from behind and spun me around. "Are you trying to get sick? Get back inside." Embry threw the jacket he had grabbed, over my shoulder.

I shoved his hands away, making the jacket fall into the mud. "Stop." I took a step back and almost joined the jacket, but Embry quickly grabbed me and pulled me to his warm chest. I didn't protest, relieving in the warmth, but after a second I pulled back, making sure I didn't trip again.

"What's the matter?" Embry said, slowly letting go of my hands with a sad look in his eyes.

"You're imprinted to me." I yelled over the rain.

He winced as if I had physically hit him. "It's your choice. You don't have to be with me."

I sighed. I didn't like seeing him in pain. "I like you. I do." He looked up at me with hope in his eyes. "It just seems forced." My body was trembling with my tears.

The hope in his eyes vanished, replaced with confusion and sadden. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know if the feelings I have for you are real." I was so glad that it was raining at this point. I didn't want him to know that I was crying. "Maybe you imprinting on me made me have feelings for you."

His eyes widened and he took a step toward me, but I backed up to where he couldn't reach me. "It doesn't work that way Korlee."

"How do you know that? What if it does?" I cried even harder, wanting him to be right be badly.

"Look at Sam and Emily. At Jacob and Renesmee. At Paul and Rachel. Does it look forced between them?"

I thought about them. How Emily's eyes seemed to get brighter when Sam was in the same room as her. How Renesmee looks at Jacob when he's in eyesight. How Rachel loves Paul no matter how rude he is to everyone else. You can't force love like that.

"You can't force this." Embry said.

Before I could comprehend what he was about to do, he quickly took the step that was separating us and crushed his lips to mine.