Twenty-Six: Embry

This was it. I had finally told her. My heart was pounding; I had no idea what she was thinking. Mila stepped back but still hadn't said anything. She just stood there staring at me. Her eyebrows were scrunched but I couldn't tell if she was just thinking or if she was mad.

"Mila, can you say something please."

"Take me home Embry."

That wasn't what I wanted to hear but I agreed to anyway. We were pretty deep in the forest now. "Umm it might be faster if you let me carry you…on my back."

"Just get me home," she said to me. I ran over behind a tree and took my clothes off. I tied them around my ankle then phased. When I came back out, she was still standing there but her back was to me. I nudged her shoulder. She turned around and started to smile. This was a good thing right.

"You know when you said carry me I didn't think you meant this. So how does this work?" she asked. I got flat on my belly and she slowly climbed on my back. She ran her fingers through my fur and my tongue rolled out my mouth. I could only imagine how crazy I looked.

"So what am I supposed to do just put my hands here?" she asked as she slid her hands on the back of my neck. I yipped and felt her legs squeeze tighter around my sides. Once she was comfortable I took off towards her house. The run took longer than usual since I had to take it slow. Mila jumped down and ran her fingers through her hair attempting to fix it. She turned around and headed towards the back door. She had just opened it when she stopped and turned to look at me.

"Are you coming in?" she asked me. I wasn't sure what was going to happen but at that moment there was no place I'd rather be. I phased and threw my clothes on. When I stepped inside the house, I looked around.

"Ava and Jeff won't be back for two days. You're not gonna get in trouble," Mila called from the kitchen. I chuckled and walked into the living room. I wasn't worried about being in trouble. I already had Ava on my side. Mila walked into the kitchen and sat the bowl of popcorn she was carrying on the table. She took two cans of soda from her the crook of her arm and sat them down. She sat down and I could see her leg jumping.

"So I have some questions…if you don't mind."

"Not at all," I said sitting down next to her.

"So you said that you…that I'm your imprint."

"Right."

"So does that mean you're like in love with me or something?"

"It means that you are the one for me. You are the one who will make me a better person in every way. But if you say that you just want to be friends then that's what we are. I'm supposed to be whatever you need…protector, friend, lover...whatever you need." Mila started chuckled when I said lover.

"Next question…what happened with your girlfriend?"

"It just didn't work out with me and her. We tried but it was never going to work out."

"But you guys are having a baby so it must have been working out fine."

"Yea we are having a baby but that doesn't mean we need to be together. She wasn't an imprint so I couldn't tell her anything. She knows nothing about patrols, phasing, or leeches. She's in the dark just like a lot of the tribe and everyone else in the world. Leeches are what we call vampires by the way."

"But why can't you tell her? There's a chance your kid could be a part of this. Shouldn't she know?"

Mila had a point. But Bree couldn't know. My own mom didn't know. I shook my head no. Even if my child were to phase, we would just do what we had already done. The pack would take him under their wings and they would make sure he was alright. Just thinking about the possibility that my child could phase, actually scared me. Being a Spirit Warrior was hard work. Was that really something I wanted for my child?

"So what exactly happened with you and your ex-girlfriend?" she asked me. She opened up both cans of soda and passed me one. I took a long sip and ended up finishing the can before I started talking.

"Do we have to talk about that?"

"Look Embry," Mila sat her can on the table "I don't know what's going to happen with us. But I do know that a child is something you'll always have to deal with. If we become we then she's a part of it. I can't say I accept you and your wolf but not your child. And accepting your child is accepting its mother."

I hadn't expected Mila to be this mature about the whole situation. Most all the other imprints, expect for Kim, weren't really happy when they found out about the whole imprinting thing. And the fact that I was going to be a dad made our situation one hundred times more difficult than the others. I expected Mila to tell me to go to hell but there she was sitting in front of me. She was asking questions and wanting to fully understand everything. I made it a point not to say yes when she asked if I was in love with her.

Not because I wasn't but I really didn't know. But as I looked at her I knew that I was falling for her. I leaned over and put my hand behind her head, pulling her closer to me, before I softly pout my lips onto hers. She paused for a second before leaning into me and kissing me back. Her tongue darted out and licked my lips. I opened my mouth and welcomed it. She let out a soft moan as I slowly eased her back onto the couch. As we kissed and kissed some more I knew the Spirits had it right. In the entire three years I had been with Bree, there had never been this much passion. My other hand went to her hips and my fingertips brushed against her bare skin.

Mila quickly put a hand down there and turned her head. "Whoa there wolf boy," she said before laughing "You aren't getting out of answering my questions. I will be not be misled by your lips and your hands."

"Sorry about that," I said leaning back helping her up. Her lips were full, she looked flushed, and her chest was heaving up and down. I could hear her heart beating forcefully and slightly fast. Mila cleared her throat.

"It's fine really. But you were just about to tell me about your girlfriend."

"My ex-girlfriend…her name is Bree by the way…but we-"

"Bree? Bree is your girlfriend?" Mila asked very surprised. She looked at the ground and started shaking her head while laughing. "This is going to be so awkward."

"What?"

"Well I met her when I was shopping with Ava and Leah, the day you took me to Third Cliff. She was very nice by the way. But I met her and she said her boyfriend helped me move. I said I didn't know Collin had a girlfriend and I hadn't seen her at Emily's."

"You told her you went to Emily's?" I groaned. Bree had been asking about going to Emily's for the last six months we were together. I always found some reason or excuse for her not to. She stopped pushing it but she must have felt horrible hearing that Mila had been there and she hadn't. That had to be the moment she knew things weren't going as well as she thought.

"I didn't know that going to Emily's was a big secret! And I thought she was Collin's girlfriend. I didn't know you had a girlfriend. She must have really loved you. There is no way I would have been ok with my boyfriend going across the country with some girl I didn't know."

"She didn't know that I went with you."

"OH MY GOD! Is that all you do? Lie to people?" she yelled at me.

"I didn't lie to you Mila!" I yelled back. She had called me a liar twice in the past hour alone. I didn't lie I just held some stuff back. But only because I had to! Why couldn't she understand that? She just had me thinking how mature she was but here she was calling me a liar. She sounded like…like a child whining because they didn't get their way. I held my hands up and took a deep breath before I finished talking. I couldn't get mad or upset this close to her. We had all seen what happened when you let your anger get the best of you.

"Mila I told you, I can't tell anybody about being a Sprit Warrior. The only people who know are the wolves, their imprints, and the Elders. Nobody else knows we really exist. I don't lie, I just hold back information. As far as-"

"So you don't think a lie by omission is the same as flat out lying?" she cut me off.

"New rule we don't cut each other off when we are talking. No I don't think they are the same thing, especially if that lie by omission is protecting someone you love."

"If you say so. Tell me about Bree."

"Ok Bree and I met about 3 years ago. She had just returned to La Push from grad school. She came into the shop and at first I ignored her. I wasn't really looking for anybody. But she kept coming in and requesting that I work on her car. I think she was purposely breaking things." I laughed when I thought about how much she came into the shop.

"Anyway Brady and Collin kept telling me I was crazy for not paying attention to her. They told me I could be missing out on my imprint by not paying her any mind. The two of them are really eager to imprint for some reason. So the next time I saw her, I stopped and really talked to her. I knew right away she wasn't my imprint." Mila raised her hand. "What are you doing?" I asked laughing.

"You said no cutting off so I'm raising my hand. How did you know she wasn't your imprint?"

"Ok so when you imprint everything changes for you. It's almost like gravity doesn't exist. It's only her and she is the only reason you are here. Every other tie that you have, with family or friends, none of that matters really anymore. It's all secondary to you. The only thing that matters is your imprint. All you want to do…need to do is be around her. Whatever it is she wants from you that's all you want to be. It was never quite like that with Bree."

"But you still were with her. You still had sex with her."

"Well yea but that was only because I hadn't seen you yet. If I had then I would have ended everything with Bree. It's just like with Sam and Leah. He was going to propose to Leah but when he saw Emily everything changed for him. He told me the first time he saw her he wanted to go over and hold her hand. He just wanted to touch her and be around her. The first time he met her, he had to walk away and leave with Leah. It physically hurt him to walk away from her. When he told me that you were leaving, I started to panic. I knew that I couldn't be away from you. The few hours I spent away from you during the day were driving me crazy."

"It was like a dull pain in your chest right? You couldn't stop thinking and wondering what I was doing? You just wanted to see me again."

"Yes that's exactly how I was."

"Me to," Mila told me. She grabbed my hand and moved closer to me. "What happens if the imprint doesn't want her wolf?" Mila asked. She leaned down and put her head on my lap. She grabbed one arm and pulled it across her. My other hand went right to her hair.

"I don't know. It hasn't really happened before. But when the wolf is away from his imprint it causes him emotional pain. If it's long enough physically he can become weak. It happened with Claire and Quill when her parents took her away once. They didn't really understand the whole imprinting thing."

"But I thought you said nobody knows but the imprint and her wolf."

"Remember when I said it can happen at any time? The first time Quill saw Claire she was two years old." Mila sucked in a breath and tried to sit up but I stopped her with my arm. "It's not like that at all ok? Quill and Jake are the only ones to imprint on young children. When they first met there were like older brother's you know. There was nothing romantic there. Claire's parents didn't understand why a 16 year old boy was always volunteering to babysit their daughter. Sam and Emily decided to tell them about imprinting. It didn't go to well and they took Claire away and banned Embry from seeing her. She was young so she couldn't tell him what she wanted. The time she was gone it was like Quill was disappearing right in front of our eyes. He lost weight, he was physically sick. And Claire had started acting out. As soon as they were back together, they got better."

"So I was the reason you looked sick?"

"I told you Mila, I can't be away from you. When you told me to go away I felt like I was about to die. That's why I lied to Bree. I didn't know how long you were going to be gone but I knew that I couldn't be away from you. That's why I came over so much."

"Wait a minute," Mila sat up "If the imprint is why you came over and did all that..." she stopped talking like she was trying to find the words to say. I knew what she was about to say. This was the conversation that Seth and Paul had warned me about. The one where your imprint worries that none of the feelings are real. She thinks that you wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the imprint. I never understood why they hated this part of imprinting until now. I grabbed Mila's chin and slowly turned her to face me.

"Mila the imprint is not why I did all that. Yes it helped me realize something but it's not why I'm here. A wolf can reject an imprint, at least I think he can, but that's not something that I want. Everything I told you at Third Cliff was true. That was me talking not the imprint." I softly kissed her lips. I wanted to kiss her again but decided not to. Mila put her forehead on mine.

"We can take this as slow as you want Mila. I told you whatever you need."

"I need to sleep. No more talking about imprinting, phasing, none of it. I just want us to sleep like we're back in the hotel in Michigan. Can we do that?"

"Whatever you want," I told her. She stood up and grabbed my hand. We had only been laying down in her bed for a few minutes before I heard a light snore.