Chapter 5
Chérie Amour
"So, what exactly was it that set it all off?" Damon asked as he and Keith sat in front of me at the table while the other guys wrestled behind us. I was looking down at my fingers as I traced a circle with my nail.
"You remember that guy that I described to you?"
"The one that got you tatted?"
I looked up long enough to see his expression and then turned back to my hands. He looked perfectly serious.
"Yeah…him, he's at my school now."
"I'm sorry, what?" he asked.
"He goes to my school."
"The leech is at your school?"
"Leech? There's a vampire at our school now? Since when?"
I couldn't help but to look up at the sound of Keith's voice. He was looking in my direction, but not exactly at me. Obviously Damon hadn't filled Keith in about my little adventure during the concert that night.
"Can we not talk about this now?" I pleaded. Keith looked concerned. I despised his girlfriend, whoever she was.
"It's not that simple. You were tatted by a leech. How can you just sit back like it's nothing?" Damon nearly roared at me. I almost didn't know how to react to my cousin's sudden intensity, but after a quick recovery, I held my ground.
"Why shouldn't I? I died. I'm not dead anymore. It doesn't matter."
"It does matter? He could've ripped you apart, but you're still here."
I shivered. "Thanks for the image."
Keith smiled. My heart sped up and judging by the sudden seriousness in Damon's expression, I wasn't the only one who had noticed. I could hear his jaw pop as it clenched and unclenched. Keith turned his attention back to the fight. I glared at Damon and his overly excited expression suddenly came back.
"Why don't you try her out Keith?"
"What?" we both asked. Damon's smile grew even wider.
"She took Kel, maybe she can take you too."
He's completely lost his mind! There was no way that I could possibly 'take' Keith. Not only was he ginormous, but there was no way that I could hurt him intentionally. I wouldn't be able to handle it. Keith's curious expression burned the side of my face as I continued to stare at Damon.
"Are you up for it?"
And there was that groupie feeling again. How could I say no? Hell, how could I say anything? All I could do was nod my head. He stood up and pulled off his shirt, only more hesitant and somewhat more nervous than he had done earlier. I walked around the other side of the house and prayed that I would be able to do this quicker and with a lot less screaming. I stood against the wall with my clothes folded up beside me, thankful for the lack of houses and traffic.
I closed my eyes and tried to make myself change. How was I supposed to do this exactly? It was mental, right? I pictured the night that I died and the vampire that had caused it. That word just seemed so foreign to me, vampire. It was so sci-fi. It wasn't me, and yet there's one trying to kill me and had technically succeeded. Those eyes, that voice and his touch were enough to make me shake, but that was it. At least, that is, until I pictured Keith's eyes, my eyes. There was a snap. I let out a sharp breath and bit my lip, making sure not to slice my gums again. I dropped. Luckily, this time was quicker, but don't get me wrong, it was still pretty painful.
I shook my head as my vision adjusted. I walked back to the backyard to see the guys waiting for me. It still felt a little weird walking on all fours, but it felt a bit natural too. I sat down and stared in the face of the wolf that looked impossibly larger than he did not too long ago, and if this whole lycan thing worked the way it did in my dreams, then he was seeing everything that I was. As I looked around, I was thankful that Kel and Josh had both changed back. I already had enough distractions without them being in my head too. Keith's vision was slowly meshing with mine and leaving a large black spot in my brain. His sight was gone, but his other senses sent completely different messages. From his perspective, I was finally starting to get how his senses painted his vision. It was almost like I could feel everything that he 'saw'.
I tried to clear my head. I didn't want him to know about the imprinting just yet. I just met him. How would he take it? It's not exactly something that you expect. He barked at me playfully. His toothy grin made him look like a deadly yet playful puppy. I was waiting for him to make the first move, but he didn't budge.
'Ladies first.'
I looked around for a second like an idiot before realizing that it was his voice that had just echoed in my brain. I refused to do anything to give myself away, so I just shook my head. He tilted his head to the side. I guess he took this as a sign to start, because he growled and charged at me the same way that Kel had. I started to move to the side, but he jumped at the last possible second and we both tumbled to the ground, only he did it more gracefully. It was pretty clear that he was smarter than his cousin when it came to this sort of thing. He had expected me to move. I hadn't thought about it the way Kel had, it was just common sense.
'Come on,' he encouraged, snapping at me. Okay, just for the record, it was very clear at that moment why people have such a problem with dog breath. His mouth was only centimeters away from my nose and he was still breathing pretty hard from the last fight. Safe to say, I had never been this close to him, and under the circumstances, it was pretty awkward. I shook my head again. He bit my shoulder and it stung even though he was barely even trying. I winced and knocked him off. He came at me again, faster this time, but I actually managed to dodge him. I backed up nervously.
'I know you can do better than this,' said the voice coming from the wolf's body, 'You're not even trying. We're fast healers, remember? It's fine.'
We were both pacing and panting.
'I can't,' I managed to reply in a shaky whisper.
'Come on. Yes you can.' At that moment, his eyes seemed to get a little darker as he crouched down. 'I'll scare it out of you if I have to.'
A growl erupted from deep inside his chest and before I knew what was going on, a sharp pain began to spread from my shoulder and my legs started to buckle. He was leaning on me and he weighed a ton! Of course, the painful biting didn't really help my concentration. I bit his arm unconsciously as it swayed by my jaws, and yanked him off of me. He was stunned for a second, but his excitement was overwhelming.
'Yes! That's what I was looking for!'
I backed up. He moved closer. He barked. I jumped. He ran and bit my neck this time, putting his weight back on me. I whined quietly, but didn't move. This was my own personal punishment. I could've seriously hurt him just now. He backed up and confusion practically streamed from his eyes.
'What happened? You were finally fighting back.'
I started to shiver with my tail between my legs. He was staring at me, but all I could do was focus on his eyes and at that very second, and it was only a second, he thought the worst possible thing that he could have thought. Apparently, something about my reaction had reminded him of his girlfriend. I was seeing the memories that he had created from time spent with her and she was beautiful. In his mind, she was the definition of perfection just like he is in mine. It had only been a second but it felt like forever. Seeing this girl was like being stabbed with six different knives, having those knives turned at the same time, getting thrown out of the tallest building on earth, and then landing onto a race track in front of the very first car knowing that they're all moving too fast to be able to stop. Yeah, it was that bad.
There was no point in fighting it anymore. With my hesitation and the fact that I hadn't dared to take my eyes off of him or even blink, it was already clear to him that there was something wrong with me. So, safe to say, imprinting took over. My tiny, microscopic bit of self-control was gone and he was seeing it all. And with how strong it was, he was probably feeling a bit of it too. My need to protect him, the power of his scent to my senses, my pain at knowing that I could have hurt him in even the smallest way, the desperateness that was spreading with the fact that he was in love with somebody else, and the irritation that I had for feeling this way towards a stranger; it was all there with even more than anyone could ever imagine. This was the love that people prayed for and hope to someday experience. It was the kind that is often misunderstood or misread and abused. It was the kind that you read about in sappy romance novels or hear about in love songs. True, he was getting a small glimpse of it, but I was convinced that he would most likely never feel it the way that I do.
His eyes exploded into perfect circles and he started to step away from me shaking his head. Trust me, he wasn't the only one scared, he just happened to be more shocked than I was at the time. We were both backing up at this point and I could practically feel the guys' confusion as they watched us. And apparently, that whole 'animals can smell fear' theory is pretty true because his fear was overwhelming. It was so strong that I could practically taste it and the stench was terrible. To me, it smelled like a weird mix between decomposing fish and cigarette smoke. Awful!
At that moment, we both had the same idea. We ran. Neither one of us knew where we were going; we just knew that we didn't want, nor need, to be there. The world was flying past me, the wind was whipping around me and it felt downright intoxicating after that…experience. I couldn't tell where I was, but I didn't stop until I got to a small river. It just seemed so Zen that I couldn't help but stop. I walked over to the water and looked at my reflection for the first time as a wolf. I didn't look like the other guys. My fur didn't reflect my hair, or my eyes. It was simply white. I matched the few traces of frost on the ground that had refused to melt. It was so strange. The color of my fur made my eyes stand out as if they were light brown marbles on a perfectly white carpet.
I shivered. Keith hadn't changed back yet, and his mind was even more cluttered than mine. He was upset. He was thinking about me and about his girlfriend and he didn't care if I was aware of it or not. The rest was coming in too quickly for me to understand. I felt like I was eavesdropping. I needed to get home. It took me a second, and I guess it's kind of like some kind of homing device in my brain, or something, but I knew how to get back. Sadly though, I didn't have clothes, or my key…or fingers. I couldn't turn the knob, and I was pretty sure that I had locked my sliding door this time. What else could I do but to ring the doorbell? I sat down and pressed the button with my overly large paw. Diamond started barking madly from inside the house. She didn't sound very far away and I could hear my mom's slow steps. Seconds later, the door was creeping open and my mom stared at me. Surprisingly, she seemed less shocked now than she had when I had lifted the table.
She moved to the side and let me in. I bolted up to my room and pushed the door closed. I changed back, grabbed the first pieces of clothing that I could find and threw them on before collapsing on my bed. This had definitely been one of my worst days that I've had in a while. The emotional pain just kept coming. On a positive, maybe I would never see Keith again. He had just been so confused and it had been my fault. I had caused it even though I had tried so hard not to. GAH! This all just felt so unnecessary. I looked up at the sound of my mom knocking on my door. I didn't answer, knowing that she would come in regardless. I waited for her to sit down before I started my whining.
"As you saw, I changed today. And with my amazing luck, not only did I change, but I imprinted too."
Diamond walked in and stopped below me beside my bed. She seemed more wary of me and nervous as if she were looking for the giant wolf that had walked in not too long ago. I felt my mom readjust herself as she lay down beside me.
"Who?" she asked. The nervousness still lingered in her voice, but she sounded excited never the less. She was in best friend mode.
"His name is Keith."
"Do you know him?"
"Barely, I just met him. He's one of the guys from the pack."
I hadn't meant to sound as upset when I said that, but my mom noticed it instantly.
"What happened? Does he know?"
"He does now."
"How did he handle it?" she asked, picking Diamond up and sitting her on my bed.
"Horrible and I don't blame him. I'll just have to stay away from him for a while."
"And you're okay with that?"
"I will be. I'm doing it for him."
"And what about Dominic?"
I sighed and put my hands over my face. "I don't know."
"Well, maybe you need to find out before someone gets hurt."
"Yeah, I know. I can't stay with him. Of course, Keith is completely freaked out by me, but…it just wouldn't feel right."
"Maybe you can at least try it," she moved my hands from my face, "and if not, then maybe he'll get the hint."
I sighed and she leaned forward to smooth down my hair. "Imprinting is a big deal, mon chérie, and it is one that you're going to have to get used to. You can't get rid of it, but you can make it easier to stand. You'll make this work. I know you will."
