Short one that is a bit delayed. This scene was originally in Book II. So…enjoy.

You know what's awesome?" Paul asked me.

"Peace and quiet," I said. I was feeling pretty low. The situation with Victoria was looking hopeless since we lost her last week.

"Nope. Life. Specifically mine. Gwendolyn has invited me to your former school's dance. Spring Fling. Hell yes."

I smirked. "I was going to go to that with her last year, but I was in the hospital."

"After your 'accident?'" he said using air quotes.

"Precisely."

"Woah. A hit and run. A kidnapping. Your life is like a soap opera."

I laughed and Emily snorted. She was hunched over a notepad on the kitchen table with a curtain of hair covering her face.

"Is there a test coming up?" Paul asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm just looking at the legends I've written down."

"Anything interesting?" I inquired.

"I'm looking at the ones about the Alpha's actually," she said with a pointed look at me. I thought of Sam, but then I realized I was Alpha by blood, if not by rank.

"I see."

"Anything about facial deformities?" Paul asked. I swung a punch which he deftly dodged.

"I'm reading a story about one's sister," she said in a faraway voice. She flipped to the front of the notebook and then flipped a couple pages forward. "Huh."

"What?"

"There haven't been many imprints. Our pack is weird that we've had so many as well as for other reasons," Emily said, quirking her lips at Paul which sent me into guffaws, "But almost every Chief's daughter or sister has been an imprint."

I never knew my sisters, but I felt myself mourning them. Not only did they never get to see their ninth year, they also may have lost a chance at the type of bliss that only existed between imprints.

"I wonder which one of us would have been your brother-in-law," Paul said lightly because he had a tendency to be light in sad moments.

"Hopefully not you," I said.

"I wonder if one's imprint died before they were imprinted on- does the wolf ever imprint?"

"I think so," I said. I don't think everyone gets an easy life, but I did have an optimistic idea where everyone got a shot at true love. Love hadn't been my friend for a while, but I had a shot with Bella, one evidenced by many things, I think. It was a shot I was going to take until I had nothing left.

"I think that whatever Spirit or ancestor controls imprinting," Paul said, "would have a back-up plan in case anything veered off course. Like if imprinting is supposed to be with whoever is most likely to transfer the wolf gene, but that person would be completely unavailable to the wolf, then there's gotta be another good match. Like of course an Alpha and their sister would have a wolf kid together, but no Spirit in their right mind is going to make two family members imprint."

Emily and I were subdued with silence by Paul's surprising insight.

He shoved his eyebrows together. "Don't be so shocked. Believe it or not, I am capable of thought."

Have a lovely day