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Chapter 165

Imprinted ...


Leah


'What do you know about it, you ass!' opined Jake over our united thoughts.

I had still been thinking about the appropriate word, whereby I had terms like idiot or garden gnome in mind, while I chuckled about it. But ass hit so much better! His luck that he was not further interested.

But then the stranger began to attack us personally.

With words. He probably didn't even know how much his words really hit us. We had heard them too often. From Seth. And from Billy. That we had no idea. That we had forgotten our duty. That we were nothing. But Jake and I were unable NOT to respond to these accusations.

So it ended in a loud war of words punctuated by copious growling. The more violent this Nanuk got in his accusations, the nastier Jake and I got.

Five wolves caterwauling wildly at each other in their thoughts. Insulting each other, threatening each other. Attack-lustful growling penetrated through all our muzzles; the paws scraped furiously on the ground. Everyone in a slightly crouched position, the muscles stretched to the breaking point, in order to be able to attack immediately.

'Stay out of this, you little squirt! Otherwise ...', Jake thought just after the little gray one had meant that we should all calm down again.

At that moment, the tri-colored one sprinted off.

And I did as well!

I rammed him.

First rule as a wolf: Never forget an opponent, no matter who he was. Well, he had probably not learned that. He didn't pay any attention to me. Apparently he saw it below his dignity to attack a girl. I would discreetly drive that condescending opinion out of him.

He flew to the side, and I jumped right after him.

That would teach the arrogant bum to underestimate me.

We scratched with our claws, bit with our teeth, hit with our paws.

He probably rather with his little paws.

But he was more persistent than I had suspected. He caught my paw with his muzzle just as I pushed him off me.

I shook myself, sorted myself out and attacked again. I limped, I made a small jump and when I came down on the ground right in front of him, he jerkily turned his face to me.

A jerk with which he gave the world around me a push and lifted it off its hinges. Everything around me turned, only his eyes stayed there. The world, the forest, the wolves, my parents, the air to breathe, the darkness, the moon in the sky. Everything swirled and broke apart. It rushed in my ears. But in the black night of his eyes, I held on. I felt safe.

I was phasing without having knowingly done so.

I cowered on all fours, just like the man in front of me. The young man under the wolf fur.

Instinctively, we reached our hands out to each other, pulled each other up from the floor and stood directly in front of each other. Unable to take our eyes off each other. I saw only the darkness of his eyes. Warm hands gently pushed against my cheeks, mine rested against his torso.

The whirl around me became more violent, but brick by brick my world put itself together again. Until no part, no fragment remained. None was there anymore, where it once was. It was a completely new world. A world in which the young handsome man in front of me was EVERYTHING.

When this new world stood still, when no sound could be heard, our eyelids closed, and our lips touched as if sealing my new cosmos and holding it together forever.

"Leah," he murmured lovingly as I opened my eyes again.

"Nanuk," I whispered. Strange name, but for such a thing I had just no thought free. Not even for my hand, which was burning pretty badly.

We smiled gently at each other and tentatively explored each other's faces.

Nanuk. He was exactly my type. Tall and dark and muscular. His hair was so dark it was almost black. It was typically straight for Native Americans, but uncharacteristically full and reached his chin. His eyes coal black, mystical and mysterious. Highlighted by almost straight eyebrows that had a small teasing downward sweep only at the outer end. On the right eye, a small birthmark sat just between the tips of the ends of the brow and eye. Nanuk had a slight bulge on the bridge of his nose. His sensual lips were just full enough that it didn't seem exaggerated. An attractive man. Very attractive!

"I hate to bother you, bro," a boy said casually, somewhere to my left. However, he continued rather indignantly. "But can you tell me what this means exactly now? What about Kate?" he shouted, enraged.

"Didn't you notice? You tied the bond!" the other boy tried to explain.

"They imprinted on each other!", I heard Jake say.

Nanuk's eyes seemed to burst for a split second when the name Kate was mentioned, before he squinted them painfully.

Kate? ...

Something rang in my head and burned in my heart.

Panically, I began to tremble as I realized it. I swayed a bit at this realization.

Marcus!

But Nanuk held me.

"Kate is ... I'm ... getting married ... in six weeks," Nanuk muttered unhappily.

"And I have a boyfriend!" I indicated in a whisper.

Something broke inside me and cheered at the same time.

"Leah," Dad said gently.

I turned to him, and he held his sweater out to me.

More mechanically, I took it and put it on.

As far as possible. My hand was burning like fire.

When Edward tried to take my hand, Nanuk pulled me back and growled at Dad.

I was not able to say or do anything. I was just confused.

"Nanuk. I just want to examine Leah's hand. She's in pain," Dad tried to explain calmly.

Searching for help, Nanuk looked at me.

He didn't trust the vampire one bit, but he would trust my judgment without a doubt. But I could not move. I felt completely out of place. As if in another world. Standing beside myself. I was simply physically present. My spirit was in search, but it found nothing to which it could have clung with certainty.

Jake joined us, as a human as I expressionlessly noted. He came directly at me and pushed Nanuk brusquely aside. With a purely instinctive gesture I gave Jake a rough blow against his shoulder.

"Leah!" cursed Jake, who really just wanted to personally deliver me into Dad's medical hands.

I knew it. But he had pushed Nanuk.

"Leah!" Mom looked me in the eyes.

Mom! She was my salvation right now, in this whole mess. I just didn't know anything anymore. Who was friend or foe here? Who owned my heart? Who was my family? Where did I belong? But Mom was just Mom. Not a wolf, not a vampire, not a brother, not an imprinted, not a boyfriend. Simply just my mom!

I fled to her. Into her arms.

While she was leading me back to the cabin, I heard discussions behind me, but I couldn't listen to all of this.

We went step by step.

It seemed to be an endless path.

Finally, I sat on a bench at the table.

The table where we had eaten just fifteen minutes ago. When everything had still been fine. It seemed like ages ago.

"What am I going to do?", I asked in despair.

"I'm afraid no one can help you with that," was all she said, pressing me.

Mom just held me tightly and I began to quietly shed tears, though I couldn't actually say why. Some time passed before I heard Dad outside the door.

"... and you stay outside!" he ordered clearly.

Immediately he came in, put my clothes on the table, put down a bottle of lemonade left earlier and knelt in front of me.

"How are you, little one?" he asked, but I had no answer.

Was I doing well? Or rather bad?

Therefore, I just shrugged my shoulders indecisively.

"Show me your hand," he then prompted me, palpating it very gently.

It had stopped burning, however, as I only now noticed.

He sighed in anguish.

"They didn't grow together properly," he whispered, already apologetic.

I squinted my eyes.

The next thing he would say, I didn't even want to hear. That he would have to break the bones again. There the syringe was a lot more to my ...

"Ahhh ...!", I cried out and pushed Dad against the wall with a well-aimed kick.

Mom gasped and put her hands over her mouth. Dad lay to the side and grinned a little. Outside the door it was getting quite ... restless. Nanuk forcibly demanded entrance, but Jake stood obviously in his way.

"Let me go to her!" demanded Nanuk.

"Stay calm!" one of them said.

"Forget it!" countered Jake loudly.

"Nanuk!", I heard someone else say soothingly, which by all appearances didn't do much good.

Dad was already sitting with me again, holding my injured hand.

Now injured by him, I would like to clearly note here!

"You have one wish," he smiled and breathed a kiss on my cheek.

"Undo it!", I begged, looking pleadingly into Dad's eyes.

He put his fingers under my chin.

"If it were in my power ... would you really want that?" he asked tentatively.

"I don't know," I replied bitterly, and new tears ran down my cheeks.

He sat down next to me, holding me and my hand, and I hid my face against his shoulder.

Outside, meanwhile, the quarrels had not subsided and had reached a volume that Mom could even understand without difficulty. With firm steps she went to the door.

"Quiet now!" she shouted angrily at the young men.

Everything instantly fell silent, so I chuckled to myself. I also heard Dad's smile at the prompt reaction.

Against Mom, hardly anyone stood a chance when she had that tone of voice.

"Leah!", however, I then heard Nanuk.

Questioning. Emotional. A little paniced. And worried. Most of all worried.

I lifted my gaze over Dad's shoulder.

The four boys were dressed by now. Nanuk looked so incredibly worried, and it looked like the others were just trying to keep him from rushing in. Out of fear about me. How did I know that?

"Get dressed first, little one," Dad whispered to me.

I looked at him a bit puzzled.

What was wrong with my hand? He was still holding it, but nothing hurt anymore. I moved it, pumped a little with my fingers, but everything was like new.

"You must have dreamt up the healing a little," Dad gently smiled at me.

Um ... yep ... could be.

I grabbed my clothes from the table and disappeared into the small bathroom.

I chuckled when I heard Mom say in the sternest tone of voice that she would personally kick everyone out if they didn't behave. She didn't give a shit if they were wolves! I believed her.

I quickly washed a few blood stains from my skin and got fully dressed. Underwear, black jeans, a gray tracksuit top, and pink sneakers. When I opened the bathroom door, everyone looked at me and there was silence.

Nanuk stepped toward me, but he said nothing as he stopped two steps in front of me.

I didn't know what to say either. I looked down at him.

Black T-shirt, blue jeans, pink-colored chucks.

I smiled at that.

Like him.

"So, who are you?", Mom broke the silence.

"I'm Nanuk Latham," he introduced himself.

"I'm Akai and his little brother," said the younger one at the table.

That was certainly the smaller gray wolf. He had such a brash look in his eyes, but in an amiable way.

"Tom," the last stranger said, smirking.

"Sounds refreshingly boring," Mom commented.

Tom nodded in agreement.

Dad smirked a little more.

"Do you know what your name means?" he asked Nanuk.

"Yes," he opined sheepishly, elegantly running a hand through his hair, "Big Wolf or Leader of the Pack."

"How appropriate," Jake chuckled.

"How long have you been wolves? We've never noticed you before, and apparently you haven't noticed our family either," I asked, grabbing a glass of lemonade from the table.

I walked with it to the other side of the room.

Nanuk's proximity made me nervous. Comfortably nervous. Tingly.

His eyes followed me, but he kept his distance.

Because he was busy looking at me, Akai, his younger brother, began to talk.

"Not for long. Only since Christmas. We went for a walk in the woods on Christmas Eve. Family tradition. Our parents, grandparents, Tom and his dad. Our fathers, and their fathers before that, have been friends and neighbors forever. We hadn't been walking very long when we heard strange noises," Akai told us.

"Blood drinkers. Two of them," Tom continued the narrative. "We didn't know what kind of strange people they were, of course, but the three of us began to tremble the closer the noises came. My father noticed that something was wrong with us, while the others didn't even notice anything odd in the forest. When this strange pale couple then stood in front of us, with their spooky red eyes, it burst out of us. We had absolutely no idea what to do, what had happened to us, but we suddenly smelled this stinking sweetness. Right in front of us. In front of our families. 'You have a destiny to fulfill!' the grandpa of Nanuk and Akai stood in front of us, pointing his index finger at the two of them. Suddenly we knew what we had to do and all three of us rushed off at the same time. We acted really stupid, and it took forever, but we managed to finish them off without hurting ourselves too much."

"We spent the rest of Christmas night with our grandpa educating us about what we are. Our grandfathers were wolves, which now made us understand the friendship that has lasted for decades. To our fathers, it passed. My name was not chosen by chance. They all knew that this day could come," Nanuk ended, without once not looking at me.

I knew because I couldn't take my eyes off him either.

"We are Jake and Leah Black. We are wolves since summer vacation, and we have the gene from our father. He died before we were born. Mom used to tell us our legends, but we preferred not to believe a word she said and dismissed it as a scary story. That changed when Dad showed up at our school with his siblings," Jake began.

"Which brings us to the unpalatable subject of why you pretend to be related to that scum of bloodsuckers!" rumbled Tom, rising suspiciously.

No one insulted my family!

Immediately I stood behind him, pulled him by the shoulder backwards over the chair and dragged him to the floor. He still managed to hit me in the face, even though it wasn't very hard, but I grabbed his wrist and pushed him to the floor. I growled. Tom stared angrily into my eyes and tried to free himself from under me, but I didn't give him a chance doing so.

I was stronger. Much stronger.

But Nanuk immediately sat next to me.

"Tom, stay calm, please. Give them a chance to explain," he said meekly.

Tom nodded.

He could do no more. I did not allow him to do more.

Nanuk held out his hand to me, with which he helped me up.

Tom pulled himself to his feet, rubbed his shoulder and screwed up his face. He was still busy with himself when a brutal blow whirled him against the wall. Stunned, he looked towards his conqueror.

Nanuk, who stood between me and him, quivering with rage.

"And if you touch Leah again, I'll kill you!" threatened Nanuk after him.

Jake had held onto Akai so that he wouldn't intervene, but he had apparently only jumped up in the heat of the moment. He stood there rather amused.

"That's what you get!" was all he said, pushing Jake's hands aside and sitting down again. "So tell me!" he looked at Jake and my parents promptly.

I went outside. I needed fresh air. I turned around when I heard the door behind me again.

Nanuk. He looked as confused as I felt.

"What's gotten into him?" we heard Tom get excited indoors.

"You saw it, didn't you? The bond tied the two together," Akai replied.

"You mean they imprinted on each other!" wanted Jake to correct.

"You call it something different, but you mean the same thing," Dad clarified.

"That's no reason to start at me like that! After all, we are his pack brothers," Tom said angrily.

"For Nanuk, Leah is above everything else now. Nothing matters anymore except her. And it's the same for Leah the other way around," Jake said.

A small, heated discussion broke out about it, because Tom did not want to see this in any case.

Just as I did not want it.

I hid my face in my hands, breathed deeply, and dropped my hands again without strength. I turned away and walked down to the lakeshore, to the end of the jetty.

I didn't want to listen to how my life had just been decided in there. Without me having any say in it. That was so absurd.

"I don't know you at all ... and yet you are to be my destiny," Nanuk murmured behind me.

"Absurd, isn't it?", I commented, sitting down so that my feet dangled over the landing stage.

The Sebago Lake was quite empty in winter. The water only started a good half meter below my feet.

Nanuk sat down next to me.

"I'm seventeen and I go to high school in Saco," I began to say at one point. It would be nice to know who fate had in mind for us.

He smiled slightly and looked at me.

"I'm twenty-one. I study and live in Boston, but I come here as often as I can arrange to visit my family," he replied.

"What are you studying? And at which college?", I asked, not wanting the conversation to break off.

It was geology at MIT. His brother was seventeen, as was Tom. The two had been friends since they were in the sandbox. He loved the outdoors and the woods and came here from the big city every chance he got to unwind.

"Where did you actually get your clothes so quickly?", I asked. After all, this pack had also been naked when they were no longer wolves.

"We wear leather pouches around our necks when we run through the forest. They're not necessarily big, but they're quite sturdy. According to our grandparents, they are a tradition among the blood wolves, except that they probably didn't wear shoes in the past that had to fit in there. So we hang them on the bag. Looks pretty silly, but we haven't thought of anything more practical yet. If we then meet vampires or something, we can easily pull them over our heads with one paw and leave them there to collect them again afterwards. So our bags lay not very far from here," he told me with a charming smile that somehow confused me.

"With us it has arisen that we tie our clothes with a leather strap around the ankle. That way we only have the most necessary clothes with us. Just a pair of pants and a T-shirt. We usually do without shoes, because no one sees us in the forest anyway, that we would have to explain things to," I said and showed my bracelet from my father, which served this purpose perfectly.

The little wolf on it pleased him.

"Actually, you're right about that ... We really don't need to take a complete outfit with shoes into the forest. But you don't always seem to limit yourselves to the bare essentials," Nanuk said, pointing to my sneakers.

We sat in the meantime before each other, with only in each case a dangling leg. Quite close to each other, with the other leg of each of us lying on the wooden deck. The pink-colored shoes of both of us lay therefore exactly between us.

"We were out with our dad all day today. There, you never know what we're going to end up doing. Today at noon we spontaneously went to a city in Canada for lunch. From there, it was good that Dad remembered to bring more than just pants and sweaters for us. He always thinks of everything," I indicated.

"Tell me how you came to call a blood drinker Dad," he pleaded, and I told.

How Edward once fell madly in love with my mom, left her to preserve her human life, and now met her here again. That this deep relationship between all of us had developed little by little, though I couldn't even say if this or that had somehow been the deciding factor.

"... you can recognize our family by its eyes. Theirs are golden instead of red. They only feed on animals, not humans," I ended.

"I've really never heard of that," he reflected.

"Families like mine are not very common either. Besides them, there's a friendly clan, as far as I know, but they live in Alaska. Have been for ages."

It got quiet, so I asked him about his family.

The last Native Americans in the area, which included his family, had taken up an interesting hobby. If you could call it that. There was a small area in the mountains of the Kezar Falls area. There the Native Americans met and lived as their ancestors had once done. Before the palefaces discovered America. They lived in wigwams, went hunting or fishing for their food, the old crafts were still practiced, and the old songs were sung. They wore traditional clothing, which was also manufactured in the old-fashioned way. That's where the bags for their clothes came from. It was not a fixed event. Whoever had time and desire, just came. There was always something going on there. It didn't matter who you were outside the tribe. Doctor, lawyer, dishwasher, gas station attendant. It didn't matter at all. Only the old tribal rules applied there. There was a chief - his grandfather - who was honored by everyone. They had often been there as children.

At some point, one of our hands had tentatively found each other and it was as if my slender fingers had been made for his large hand.

"We are the chiefs with ours, even though we live over 3,000 miles away," I laughed.

And I told him that in La Push they had a council of elders. The wolves were a part of it and the lead wolf - in our case, the lead wolves - were tribal chiefs. Accordingly, our grandfather had no say in the matter, which Nanuk found very amusing.

That was unthinkable with him.

"I was not aware that there were also female blood wolves. My grandfather belonged to the blood wolves, and he has a sister who is only two years younger. She knows about everything, but was never a wolf herself. Therefore, we assumed that there can be no female blood wolves, because in our stories there is always talk about males. Has it always been the case with you that girls also phase?" asked Nanuk.

Meanwhile, we held on with both hands.

I told that my namesake was the first girl and that one was very shocked about it in the male pack. The problem that came with it. On the one hand, of course, that not everyone should see Leah naked, on the other hand, a girl simply thought about other things, with which a boy could not do anything.

"There were never any problems like that between Jake and me. We're twins. We've always done everything together and never kept secrets from each other."

"And if you are wolves, do you think the same?" he inquired.

"No, not always. We can merge our thoughts, but we have to do it consciously. I guess it's just because we're both the pack leaders ... When you give Akai and Tom a command, no matter what it is, they carry it out. They don't have a choice if you use the command voice. But Jake and I weren't born to carry out orders. We give them. But in a fight, we can't have a big discussion about what makes the most sense to do. By the time we agreed, we'd be dead," I replied.

"Have you guys had to really fight yet?"

"Oh, yeah. A few times, but mostly it was rather unspectacular. Only once did it really hit us. It was four vampires from the south. They almost killed us, even though Dad and his siblings were there. Better said, they came to our aid in the end. Urgently needed help. Jake had bone chips in his heart, and I think my lungs were bruised. On top of that, we lost a lot of blood. I remember being scared that that was probably it then."

Nanuk sucked in the air hard between his teeth and squinted his eyes as if something was hurting him. He was trembling.

I heard his racing heart.

"Nanuk!", I addressed him and put a hand to his cheek.

Immediately he became quiet. He covered my hand with his and looked at me. Gentle fingers stroked over my cheek.

"You're alive," he murmured, as if confirming it to himself.

"Yes, Nanuk, I'm alive," I confirmed in a whisper.

So we sat there and looked into each other's eyes.

Only when he turned away from me with difficulty and stood up did I realize that I had slowly leaned forward. I had to catch myself with my hands in order not to tip completely forward.

What the hell had I just intended to do?

I did the same to him, stood up as well, but kept a reasonable distance.

I took a deep breath, searching my mind.

Searched for a picture of Marcus in it and held myself to it.

"And what about you? Have you had to fight yet, except at Christmas?", I asked.

"No, not so far."

"Jasper, a brother of my dad, is of the opinion that vampires don't often stray into this area. That most of them stick to the bigger cities. That they run from Boston, through Manchester, right up to Canada and the lakes."

"My grandfather said something similar. That's probably why my father's generation was skipped, because simply no one could get too close ... This afternoon we were in the forest rather by chance. Akai and Tom had been bored, so they just ran into the forest for fun. At some point I thought I should check on them and went after them. They followed your scent because they couldn't do anything with it. Only when they recognized the vampire smell shortly before Hiram, our first real hunt as a pack began. To be honest, we were hell bent on destroying a vampire. To do what we were there to do. Purposefully, not just by chance, because he just accidentally stood in front of us ..." he told me.

His voice was like in the explanatory intro of a movie, so penetrating and announcing. His eyes shone heroically, and his gaze was directed into the distance.

I swallowed dryly.

He radiated pure euphoria at the thought of destroying my dad. Anger slowly bubbled up inside me.

"If you growl at Dad and his family even one time crookedly, I'll tear you a new one!", I threatened, jumping right into his gaze and sending sparks flying with my eyes.

But his sparkled no less. They confused me, in this pretty face that looked daredevil towards me.

"Do you do that, Leah?" he asked challengingly, slowly approaching me.

And I slowly went back.

"You're tearing me a new one?" he asked again.

I nodded.

"Really?"

I took another step backwards, but the jetty had ended.

I noticed it too late and rowed my arms in search of support as I tipped back.

There was already a strong muscular arm around my waist that held me securely and pulled me back. Against his strong muscular body.

I lifted my eyes and all the anger in me was wiped away. There was also nothing left of his feigned fearlessness. I mumbled a half-understandable 'thank you'.

How good he smelled. This was the pure untouched forest after a heavy rain shower. With the strong warm arms around me that continued to pull me against him, it was a feeling of absolute security. With my fingertips, I searched for something in that face that looked familiar. The scar on the eyebrow. It wasn't there. He wasn't Marcus. Not the boy I loved.

I looked to the side, freed myself from his arms, turned away from Nanuk and supported myself with my hands on the balustrade of the jetty.

"Tell me about Kate," I asked.

He took a deep breath and while I sat down on the banister, he now stood on the other side and supported himself.

I needed to know who she was and what she was like. I needed a reason to leave this handsome man alone. More reason than just Marcus. Because I was afraid that Marcus wouldn't be enough in the long run. I didn't want to be the one who destroyed a loving and functioning relationship. The one who prevented a wedding just because fate was having a bad day today. Neither his, nor mine.

"Kate ... Kate Everson. We've been together since high school. She's also at MIT and studying astronomy. We searched for an apartment-sharing a place together when we went to Boston after high school ... She's awesome. She can sit on the roof for hours and look at the stars. When she tells you something about it, her enthusiasm for it just sweeps you away. She makes me laugh. Just like that, completely out of nowhere. Whether I've had a bad day, whether I'm just in a thoughtful mood, whether I'm learning. It doesn't matter ... When I play poker with my boys, our girlfriends don't have to be there. We smoke, we drink, we curse, we make stupid remarks. We don't want to put our girls through that. She ignores the ban. She makes us a whole mountain of sandwiches, brings us cigars and whiskeys, makes the same stupid remarks that make my friends swallow hard, and then she leaves again. Once she played along. Strip poker. She undressed us mercilessly and then took our clothes."

"Sounds like a real dream girl," I laughed heartily.

"She is! She is spontaneous and funny. You can steal horses with her, but you can also save the world ... I proposed to her on Halloween, on our fifth anniversary. Because I never want to experience even one day without her again," he agreed convinced.

I nodded, still smiling.

How could I destroy such a relationship? I was not allowed to! But Nanuk was so ... everything! I was drawn to him and there was nothing I could do about it.

"What about your boyfriend?" he asked after a moment.

"Marcus Carter," I sighed.

"Sounds like the next president," he teased when I didn't continue. "But I shouldn't complain about names, I guess," he admitted.

"I like Nanuk," I murmured. It had a nice funny sound somehow.

"Your boyfriend," he reminded me.

"Marcus is great. We've only been together since about Halloween, but it just feels right with him. He's funny and totally hot looking," I said, somehow feeling pretty silly after his long enthusiastic tale about Kate.

"Does he know what you are?" asked Nanuk.

"Yes, he knows everything. He and his younger sister were attacked by vampires. Jake and I run around town twice a day, that's when we noticed it. Well, not quite in time. His sister was bitten. If we had gotten there later, they probably both wouldn't be alive."

"So his sister is dead," Nanuk muttered, concerned.

"What? No. She's alive. We called Dad and he stopped the transformation. He sucked the venom out of her, so that only an injury on her wrist was left. Supposedly, she got that from a wild dog that bit her. She doesn't know anything about us, but then we had to tell Marcus everything. He was quite shocked and compared us all to beasts from horror movies. He even suspected that my mom might be a witch because it would have fit in so nicely. It took him a few days to think it over, but then he came back to me."

"That definitely speaks in his favor," Nanuk stated.

"Marcus is funny and loving. Brash, but can also be incredibly romantic. He gives me what I need. Encouragement, comfort, support. He even manages to contain my temper. He is always there for me. I love Marcus and I want to spend the rest of my life with him," I tried to sum it up.

"And he's not afraid of you? I mean, you're huge as wolf."

"Nah, not at all. He also rides on my back through the forest without being afraid," I said.

"I envy you for that. Kate knows about it because she was there at Christmas, but she's terrified of all this stuff. She won't come near me when I'm a wolf," Nanuk said, sounding sad of it.

"I'm sorry about that," I murmured. I thought it was a great pity for him. It was a nice feeling to paint the forest red with Marcus.

"Why are you guys so big anyway?" he seemingly changed the subject.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Why are you so small?", I asked back, chuckling.

"That's not fair. I'm taller than you!" he rumbled, offended.

"But only as a human being!", I clarified.

"You're probably stronger and faster than me, too," he grumbled playfully.

"I'm assuming that," I said snobbishly. "And not only as a wolf!"

"Excuse me?!" he questioned indignantly, coming toward me.

I laughed heartily. I noticed how I almost tumbled off the banister from laughing and quickly slid forward onto my feet so that I then had the railing in my back.

Nanuk was already standing with me. Much closer than I had expected.

Apparently, he had also wanted to save me from falling into the ice-cold water. His hands were on my waist. Warm and firm. Mine on his arms. Warm and strong.

"You're beautiful, Leah," he whispered.

The smell of untouched nature, the warmth from his body and the eyes of a deep black night. The stars were reflected in them, but that was not the only reason why they shone. My heart skipped a beat, and I was not able to move.

Nanuk's eyes twitched, and his lips opened in surprise. He put a hand over my heart as if he could not believe what he had undoubtedly heard. Our hearts were the only thing that could be heard at all right now.

"Leah ... I ..." he whispered, but didn't speak further.

"Don't say anything," I whispered, pulling on his T-shirt and just kissing him.

I didn't know what had gotten into me. I knew for sure that Marcus was waiting for me at home. The man I loved more than anything. And at Nanuk's, Kate was waiting. The woman he wanted to marry. But everything in me begged for that one kiss. I thought I would lose my mind if I didn't get it.

Nanuk's arms wrapped around me and mine slid around his back of the neck.

And how this kiss felt. This was not a gentle touch of our lips, as it had been at some point earlier. There was no cautious approach. No groping forward. It was like a release. Our lips played with each other as if they had never done anything else. Lively and exuberant. Without any shyness or embarrassment. As if they were there just to experience this very thing. And it was an experience! I was giddy with inner excitement and enthusiasm. I didn't know how much time passed. I only knew that this kiss should never end ... But it was I who actually ended it.

With tears in my eyes, I broke away from his inflaming lips.

It was wrong. Simply just wrong. I felt like a hypocrite. I said I loved Marcus and kissed Nanuk, who still held me in his arms.

"How can something that feels like that be all wrong," he muttered, as if it hurt him.

I had no answer. How could I? That had been, damn it, the kiss of my life! Only that Nanuk was the completely wrong person for it.

I tore myself away from him, took a deep breath and wiped away my tears.

"You want to marry your Kate?", I asked.

"Yes!" he said determinedly.

"And I want Marcus!", I clarified.


We went back to the cabin.

They sat together in a soothed mood and talked all the time. Currently, Dad was explaining his family circumstances. Now everyone was looking at us.

"This encounter between us never happened!", Nanuk announced firmly.

"Absolutely no one is said a word to. Neither Kate nor Marcus ...", I started.

"Nor to our parents or grandparents!"

"Carlisle and the others ... Becky!", I also remembered.

"Do you think this is the right thing to do?" asked Dad cautiously.

"Yes! He's going to marry Kate in six weeks, and I want Marcus! This encounter will absolutely not change that," I clarified.

"There is no supernatural destiny that dictates our lives!" put in Nanuk.

"Leah, you can't be serious!" thundered Jake at me.

"Yes, that's it!", I shouted at him.

We stood in front of each other staring at each other until Jake's eyes twitched once arrogantly.

"I give you my word you both won't withstand this!" he said, and something inside me broke so loudly that I had to hold onto him. "I'm sorry, Leah," he whispered softly against my ear as he held me.

I wasn't sure what he meant by that. What exactly he was sorry for. That I was now supposedly imprinted or was it this saying?

I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, so I decided to drive home with Mom in the car.

Jake and Dad wanted to run.

I think Dad did me a favor by doing that because he wasn't near my thoughts that way.

The farewell had been strange.

We extended our hands to each other. I had wished Nanuk a good life and a very nice wedding. We would avoid their territory and they would avoid ours. We would never see each other again.

It felt surreal.

Then, on the silent ride home, I got a glimpse of what Jake had promised.

Every mile that lay between Nanuk and me was hurting me.


Jake and Dad were waiting for us outside the gate by the road so we wouldn't have to explain why we were coming back separately.

We drove to our house because Becky, Ced and Marcus were waiting for us there.

I saw him. He was sitting in the play corner with Becky and Ced.

How he smiled at me! Happy that I was here again.

I jumped into his open arms and my pain, which I had brought with me on the way here, instantly fell silent.

The past hours did not matter, and no one had power over me and my decisions. I was free! And I chose completely freely the young man who really meant everything to me. Marcus! What did the alleged destiny know before me? Nothing!

Greedily I kissed his soft lips.

"There are children present!" Mom reprimanded me, and I looked to my little underage brother.

I bit my lips a little embarrassed.

Dad had him in his arms. Ced giggled merrily and covered his eyes as if he had seen something forbidden.

I gave him a big apologetic peck on the cheek.

It was already late, but Dad made us all something to eat. That we had actually planned a movie night, we forgot in the midst of the good mood among us. We told what we had done that day. Different races, where mostly Dad had won. How we tried to fob him off with foxes. The house where he once lived and the town in Canada. How he'd carried us into the treetops and Jake dislocated his arm on the way down. Mom's surprise picnic.

Then we went to bed.

I experienced an incredibly intense night with Marcus.

A night that eclipsed everything that had gone before. I was happy. Everything was as it should be.


Thank you for reading!