As some of you may have noticed, this story now has cover art! Yes, after all these years, I've finally learned how to make covers for my work. I'd like to thank Marcus S. Lazarus for making it possible by cluing me in to the program I used to do it, which I had somehow never heard of before even though it was apparently on my computer all along. I don't want to say I'm clueless when it comes to technology, but, well…

"Are you sure? I mean absolutely, positively, beyond a shadow of a doubt certain?"

"Well, I've never seen a wolf imprint before, so no, I can't be positive," Bella retorted, her nerves fraying under her sister's intense questioning. "All I can tell you is what I saw, which was his aura going supernova when he saw Kenzi for the first time after his wolf side kicked in. That's how it happens, right?" She whirled around to stare expectantly at Dyson, who had been called in to lend his expertise on all things shifter-related.

Now the four of them were clustered in the Swans' living room, where they could discuss the situation among themselves before letting the Cullens know. They were all certain to have advice and opinions – and off-color jokes, in Emmett's case – which was more than Bo and Kenzi wanted to deal with at the moment. At a time like this, they preferred to go back to the way things were when it was just the two of them tackling whatever came their way with their inner circle of friends and allies helping out as needed, before that group expanded to include a large family of vampires.

"That's right," Dyson confirmed.

"But then why did he run away?" Bo demanded, indignant on Kenzi's behalf. "Who runs away from their soulmate?"

"The younger a shifter is when they imprint, the more intense the experience. The sudden rush of emotion, the realization that you've found the person you'll be tied to for the rest of your life…it can be overwhelming."

"Boo-frickin'-hoo." Kenzi, who had huddled into a corner of the couch with a throw pillow clutched to her chest while the other three paced restlessly – or stood still, in Dyson's case, though he remained on his feet since neither Bo nor Bella had shown any inclination to sit – finally raised her head and fixed the room at large with a rebellious glare. "I'm really sorry this is so hard for him," she practically spat, not sounding sorry at all, "but what about me? I never asked for anybody to imprint on me, and now you're telling me I'm supposed to get with some guy I don't even know all that well just because his inner wolf decided to howl at the moon when it saw me? I mean, sure, we've hung out a few times and he seems nice and all, but I wasn't exactly scoping him as a prospective hookup. Doesn't anyone give a crap whether I even want to date Jacob Black, never mind all this soulmate bullshit?!"

"Of course we do," Bo rushed to assure her, sitting next to her and putting a supportive arm around her. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to, and if Jacob or anyone else tries to pressure you, I'll kick their furry asses – you know that, don't you? All I'm saying is that maybe you shouldn't immediately assume this is a bad thing. You did say you like hanging with him," she pointed out while giving Kenzi a little nudge that softened her mutinous expression by a minute degree. "Besides, as someone else who's been on the receiving end of an imprint, I can say from personal experience that it can be kind of great."

"Because you already lurved Dyson before he dropped the imprint bomb," Kenzi rebutted, rolling her eyes at the exchange of sappy grins brought on by Bo's last comment, though she didn't sound nearly as angry as before.

"That's true," Bo admitted. "If he'd come up to me that first time we passed each other on the street and started talking about how we were destined to be together, I probably would've taken out a restraining order no matter how tasty he looked."

"Just because you don't already love Jacob doesn't mean you couldn't, though," Bella interjected. "He really is a great guy."

Unfortunately, her attempt at offering words of encouragement caused Kenzi's temper to flare up again. "You'd love that, wouldn't you?" she growled, tossing the throw pillow aside as she jumped to her feet, glowering at Bella. "It'd be just swell for you if I ended up with Jacob so you can waltz off into the sunset with Edward without feeling bad about friend-zoning him, right? Well I hate to bust your bubble, but I'm not here to tie up your romantic loose ends in a neat little bow!" With that, she stormed out, leaving a shocked silence in her wake.

"I didn't mean it like that," Bella said a second later in a small, wounded voice. "You guys know that, right?"

Bo, who had automatically started to follow Kenzi as if pulled by an invisible string, froze, feeling torn. Kenzi was clearly very upset, but now Bella's feelings were hurt too; with both of them needing her, she didn't know which way to turn.

Luckily, Dyson came to her rescue. "Is it all right if I try talking to Kenzi? Maybe I can offer her a different perspective on this whole thing."

Bo gratefully accepted his offer, knowing that even though she was Kenzi's best and closest friend, Dyson had a certain bond with the human girl too. She just hoped it was strong enough to help him get through to her.

###

Kenzi's scent trail led Dyson a short distance from the Swans' house, where he found her kicking a clump of fallen leaves on the sidewalk. She glanced up as he approached, then went back to her leaves. "Is this becoming a thing with us? I freak out and run off, and you come after me to talk me into going back? At least I'm not dying from poisoned foot soup this time."

"That's a definite plus," Dyson said with a grin, though it faded quickly, because there was nothing humorous about Kenzi's brush with death. "I asked Bo if I could have a few minutes with you. Is that okay?"

"Depends if you're here to try and sell me on this whole imprint deal or chew me out for snapping at Bella. If Jacob's so great, why doesn't she go out with him herself? But no, she likes sparkly vampires, so I'm what, the consolation prize? You know, I might not have been on a date in a while, but I could totally get one if I wanted to – I'm not so desperate that I need her leftovers!"

"You still have complicated feelings toward her, don't you?" Dyson asked, though his tone made it more of an observation than a question. "If you need to vent, I'm happy to listen. No judgment…and I won't repeat anything you say to Bo."

This assurance was met with a look of immense relief from Kenzi, who sometimes found herself frustrated that there was no one with whom she could discuss the thorny tangle of emotions the younger succubus brought out in her; all of the Cullens she was on the best terms with were firmly on Team Bella, and while Bo had been Kenzi's friend first, Bella was her bio sis, so Kenzi didn't want to make her feel caught in the middle.

She chewed her tongue for a moment, gathering her thoughts before the words burst out of her like water breaking through a dam. "It's just that everything's so damn easy for her! Her dad's still alive, her stepdad isn't an emotionally abusive fae-hole who tried to break her down one criticism and overreactive punishment at a time, and if he did I bet her mom wouldn't be a doormat and look the other way just 'cause he pays the bills – and if that's not enough, she gets Bo too! The first person I've had in my life since I left home who really felt like family – of course you and Hale and Trickster are on that list too, so don't give me those sad puppy eyes – except it turns out she's somebody else's family-"

"You know Bo doesn't see it that way," Dyson cut in, feeling that it had to be said despite his promise to hear her out. "You're just as much her sister as Bella is."

"Yeah, I know that," Kenzi sighed. "And I know it's not fair to blame Bella for getting better breaks than I did; not like she could help it. I've tried super hard not to hate her for it, and most of the time I really don't, but… Well, there's still that 'but' there, and I guess this just brought it all back. I mean, I'm not stupid; I don't need succubus aura vision to know Jacob had the hots for her right up to the minute he imprinted on me, so why the hell would I want to get with a guy who only wants me because some freaky fae magic made him, who was actually in lurve with another girl when he still had a choice? Especially her? Can you tell me that, huh?"

She stared defiantly into his eyes, practically daring him to argue with her, but he didn't answer immediately, taking a moment to formulate his response. "I understand why you feel that way," he said at last, speaking slowly and cautiously, "about all of it, and there's nothing wrong with feeling the way you do. You say it's not fair to resent Bella, but feelings aren't always fair or rational. What matters is how you act on them, and I know Bo appreciates you making an effort with Bella."

He paused to gauge her reaction, then, seeing that she appeared slightly mollified, continued. "Now, I won't try to tell you what to do about Jacob; that's your decision, but I will say that imprinting isn't random. There's a reason his wolf chose you instead of Bella. It means you're a better fit for him than she is, which he probably would've figured out for himself if he'd had more time. As for why he was so slow on the uptake…well, he is a guy."

That got a reluctant laugh out of the stubbornly disgruntled girl. "True that. Still…I guess it couldn't hurt to talk this over with him. Just to get a read on how he feels about it."

"No, it couldn't hurt," Dyson agreed. "Who knows, it might even lead to something that will make you happy." He hoped so, anyway; never having met Jacob Black, he had no idea why the Wolf Spirit had pointed his newly awakened wolf toward Kenzi as its mate, but he'd seen enough imprints to be sure it wouldn't have happened if they didn't at least have the potential to be good for each other, which was the only reason he felt comfortable encouraging her to consider the matter carefully before deciding how to proceed. Kenzi deserved happiness, even if it came about in an unexpected way.

###

After multiple reassurances that nobody truly believed Bella wanted Kenzi and Jacob to get together to assuage whatever guilt she might have felt over rejecting him (that in fact, Kenzi probably didn't really believe it herself, she was just confused and upset right now), Bo managed to soothe her sister's hurt feelings and was fighting the urge to go outside to check on Dyson's progress with Kenzi when they walked in together.

Bo noted with cautious optimism that Kenzi's expression appeared much less surly than it had been when she made her exit, and she didn't slam the door this time; nevertheless, an almost palpable tension hung in the air until she announced, "I'm still not totally sold on this whole imprint deal, but after talking it over with our resident expert on all things wolfy, I've decided I can at least get Jacob's side of it before filing that restraining order." As Bo and Bella relaxed, however, she held up a warning finger. "Just to be clear, I'm not committing to anything more than one heart to heart convo, and if I don't like what he has to say, I'm still pulling the plug on the whole thing, soulmate bond be damned."

"If that's what you want to do, we're behind you one hundred percent," Bo said firmly. "We've got your back, whatever you decide."

"Also, if he asks me to be his date to his high school prom, I swear I'll break some- What's with you?" This question was directed at Bella, who for some reason had winced at the mention of prom. "I know it's pretty cringeworthy, with the cheap decorations and cheesy corsages and zit-faced teenagers dressed up in suits that don't quite fit and frilly dresses that all look the same and… OMG, Edward's totally making you go, isn't he?"

Bella nodded miserably. "He's never been to one before, so he says he wants to see what it's all about, which brings me to something I meant to tell Bo and Dyson earlier… My school's short a couple of chaperones so I sort of volunteered you two." She said the last part in a nearly unintelligible rush, trying to get the words out before she lost her nerve, but their fae ears were still able to decipher her hurried speech.

Bo was obviously taken aback, but Dyson looked at her like she'd said she had offered him up as target practice for a firing squad. "What? You volunteered us as chaperones for your prom? Why would you do that?"

"Can I plead temporary insanity? Edward had just cajoled me into going with him…somehow…and then when Mr. Varner made the announcement all I could think was that maybe I could survive it if you were there, Bo, and Dyson, I thought you might like to go with her and… I'm sorry, okay? Please don't hate me!"

"We don't hate you," Bo assured her. As she processed the news, her surprised expression had turned thoughtful, perhaps even…wistful? "You know, I never got to go to prom either; Kyle was going to take me – of course I wasn't allowed to date, so I was going to tell my mother I was spending the night with a friend and then get ready at her house – but then I killed Kyle and had to go on the run, so… That kind of ruined my plans." She stared off into space for a moment, swamped by a wave of painful memories and regrets, then forcefully shook it off, wrenching her mind back into the present and adopting a more upbeat attitude. "So maybe it'll be nice to go to yours – sort of like a do-over. Especially since I have the perfect date."

She turned an expectant look on Dyson, who quickly got the hint. He didn't really see why the prom was such a big deal, and he couldn't pretend he was looking forward to spending an evening in a room full of sweaty, nervous, overdressed teenagers, but if it was important to Bo, if it would give her a chance to mend even one of the wounds left behind by her past… "Bo Dennis," he asked in a tone of solemn formality while lifting her hand as if to kiss it, "will you allow me the honor of escorting you to the prom?"

Bo's breath caught as he took her hand – if she had thought it was romantic when Kyle asked her, an all-important moment in her life as a high school senior which had merely consisted of him casually asking, "Hey, wanna go to prom with me?" while she was getting a book out of her locker, then running off to high five his buddies the instant she said yes, Dyson had just blown that memory out of the water – and even though she desperately wanted to say yes now, to let him know how much it meant to her that he was willing to put serious effort into something he obviously thought was a waste of time for her sake, she found that all she could do was bob her head up and down in an enthusiastic nod…before jerking her hand out of his grasp so she could grab the front of his vest and pull him to her, claiming his lips in a heated kiss.

Bella and Kenzi immediately turned away, the latter fervently grateful that Dyson was willing to be Bo's plus one so she wasn't in danger of getting shanghaied into it, and suddenly feeling much better about her own situation. Compared to the prom, hashing things out with a guy who was convinced they were meant to be together forever seemed like the easiest thing in the world.

###

Despite Kenzi's surge of optimism, setting up face time with Jacob turned out to be a ridiculously complex affair. First he had to be tracked down by his new packmates, though as Dyson explained, that was fairly easy since members of a pack were telepathically linked while in wolf form. Calming him down enough for him to shift back to human was the hard part, but they eventually managed it. Then came the actual arrangements for him and Kenzi to meet, which were complicated by the fact that she was technically the property of another fae, so Bo was required to personally escort her to the Blacks' house and assure the Quileute elders that she had no problem giving permission for Jacob to date her human as long as it was what Kenzi wanted.

"We'll also need a guarantee of her safety," interjected Dyson, who Bo had brought along so he could speak wolf to the elders. "Since we're dealing with a young wolf who's only shifted once, Bo and I would like to supervise their visits until we're sure he's in control."

"That's a reasonable request," Harry Clearwater agreed, "although we've taken precautions of our own. In the old days, our shamans knew how to mix herbs that helped the young ones to maintain their composure, even prevented their inner animals from emerging for short periods. Much of that knowledge has been lost, but we still know a few of their secrets."

"I've never heard of anything like that," Dyson replied with a mixture of skepticism and curiosity. "When I was younger, I knew some wolves who could've used those herbs of yours; then again, we were raised as warriors, so control wasn't exactly a priority."

"Yes, it sounds like your background is very different from ours. We would like to hear more of your history if you're willing, and tell you more of ours," Quil Ateara, Sr. offered. "It's been a long time since we've met a wolf from outside our pack."

"Great," Kenzi piped up, growing impatient. "So while you guys all turn into wolves and go off to sniff each other's butts, can we get on with what I'm actually here for? I'm starting to feel like a kid whose bitterly divorced parents are fighting over handing them off for the weekend!"

Her directness – not to mention the fact that Bo didn't object to her speaking out of turn – seemed to catch the elders off guard, but after a second's hesitation, Billy said that Jacob was waiting for her inside, and they all piled into the Blacks' small living room. As Kenzi made her way down the short hall to his room alone, Bo called after her, "Leave the door open!"

Kenzi responded with a raspberry and a reminder that Bo wasn't her mom, before sashaying through the door at the end of the hall and defiantly kicking it shut behind her.

Jacob was lying across his bed, gazing up at the ceiling, but he bolted upright the instant she walked in. Every muscle – and he had a lot of them – went rigid, as if the sight of her had sent an electric current through him, but all he said was, "I didn't think you'd come."

"I almost didn't, but Dyson talked me into it. He said you couldn't help imprinting on me."

"He's right," Jacob said quickly. "I didn't mean to, and I'm sorry if this is too weird for you, or if it makes things hard with Bo, or… Anyway, I want you to know I don't expect anything, unless you want… And if you do, that's great, just…whatever you want is all good in my book."

There was something endearing in the way he tripped over his words in his haste to reassure her, and while she was very glad to hear that he didn't expect her to start writing out wedding invitations – which she estimated would take about ten minutes, since there weren't many people she would want to invite to her wedding – she still had reservations. Refusing his offer of a chair, she prowled the room as she spoke, picking up various items and briefly inspecting them before setting them down again, partly out of a vague interest in the things he had chosen to decorate his personal space with – you could tell a lot about a person from their possessions, though she wasn't sure she could realistically expect to find the key to what supposedly made him her perfect match in the contents of his room – but mostly to keep her hands busy.

"What I want is to know why this happened. I mean, you didn't like me that way before, right? When it was up to you, you were all about Bella." She tried not to sound accusing, but she still found herself staring him down, daring him to deny it.

"I was," he admitted readily enough. "When I was little, and she'd come here every summer to visit Charlie, I thought she was really nice and pretty even though I was too shy to talk to her much, so I was pretty sure she barely knew I existed. Then when she came back, she finally noticed me, and when she turned out to be fae, I thought… I thought it was some kind of sign, but obviously I was wrong. She was never the one for me."

"How do you know?" Kenzi demanded, unsure whether she was seeking reassurance or hoping she could somehow talk him out of this, convince him it was all a big mistake. "Maybe your wolf's barking at the wrong fire hydrant here. I mean, liking Bella was actually your idea-"

"I like you too," Jacob interrupted. "Even before I imprinted on you, I mean. You're cool and funny and you like all the same comics I do and you have great taste in cars even if your approach to acquiring them scares me a little. I just never considered dating you because…well…"

"What, because I'm human? Gah, you fae are so…ugh! You know, if you're gonna be one of those fae-holes that looks at me like I'm a bug just because I'm not super strong and fast and I don't have magic powers-"

"It's not that. You being human scares me even more than the fact that you apparently know people who can hook you up with illegal car parts, okay? I don't think humans are inferior, but there's no getting around the fact that you don't live as long as we do. You won't live as long as me." His voice grew progressively softer as he went on, until he was almost whispering at the end.

When Kenzi responded, her normal volume was almost jarringly loud in comparison. "Seriously? You're worried about outliving me?" She supposed this was better than finding out that her so-called soulmate was a human-hating bigot, but still… "Even if we ended up staying together long enough for that to be an issue, you know it wouldn't happen for, like, eighty years, right? Maybe this is overly optimistic of me, but I don't plan on shuffling off this mortal coil anytime soon, you know."

Jacob did not seem to find this declaration reassuring, his tortured expression remaining firmly in place. "It'll still happen eventually, though, and when it does, I… I don't know what I'll do. I've seen what losing their mate does to a wolf."

The raw pain in his voice finally dampened the nervous energy that had kept Kenzi on her feet; grabbing the previously rejected chair, she spun it around and plopped herself down backward, straddling the seat. When she spoke again, her voice was softer and for once completely free of sass. "You mean… Is that why your mom wasn't out there with the welcoming committee?"

He nodded sadly. "After she died, Dad gave up shifting altogether – said he didn't want to stretch out his lifespan anymore since it just meant having more time to spend without her. The thing is, when you give up the wolf's longevity, you lose all the other perks that go with it too: the strength and speed, and especially the healing. That's why he's in that wheelchair now. I guess he'll still live as long as if he was human, so he'll still be around until I leave home, probably even ten or twenty years after that, but he could've had so much more time… But he doesn't want it. That's why I was always afraid of imprinting ever since Mom died – the thought of being so wrapped up in another person that you don't even want to live without them, even when you still have everything else in your life…"

"Yeah, when you put it like that, I can see the appeal of an immortal soulmate," Kenzi agreed, her mood now as sober as his. Then something else occurred to her. "Hang on – your mom couldn't have been human, though, right? I mean, you're a wolf, and I distinctly remember Trick telling Bo that in the equation of interspecies hookups, fae plus human equals human kid with no powers. We actually met one of them in one of Bo's first cases – guy with a human mom trying to track down his fae dad – and that dude definitely did not get the fae genes."

"That's right. No, Mom was a shifter too – all of our tribe are – but there are some things even shifters can't recover from."

He didn't elaborate further, and Kenzi didn't press the issue; it was obviously painful for him to talk about even if the imprint bond made him more willing to open up to her, and she didn't want to hear the gory details of whatever it took to kill a shifter in spite of their enhanced healing power. She did have one more question, though. "Earlier, when Bo hammered out the details of you and her sharing me with your council of head honchos, they kept calling the wolf pack 'brothers', which I assumed meant it was a boys-only club."

"Only the guys are wolves," Jacob confirmed, "but there are other types of shifters. A lot of the girls around here are deer, though not all. Jared's mate, Kim, is a chipmunk." He said this with a snort of laughter, but Kenzi was less amused.

"So you guys get to be big tough wolves, and the girls are cute little woodland creatures? How is that fair?!"

"I don't know. That's just the way it is." Seeing that she still looked annoyed at the perceived sexism of shifter genetics, he added, "Anyway, they aren't all cute and fluffy. My mom was a lynx, and we actually do have a female wolf in the pack right now. Leah Clearwater. Nobody knows how or why she became a wolf, but here she is."

"Cool," Kenzi said with a grin. "I'd like to meet her."

Jacob responded to her wish with a grimace. "You're only saying that because you haven't met her. Leah's… Well, she used to be nice, until her boyfriend imprinted on her cousin. Leah hasn't imprinted on anybody even though her first shift was almost a year ago, and now she's not so nice anymore. Yeah, it sucks for her, having to watch the guy she was in love with being happy with the girl who was more like a sister to her than a cousin, but she doesn't have to take it out on the rest of us. She and Sam obviously weren't meant to be anyway, or they would've imprinted on each other, right?"

"Does imprinting go both ways for shifters? I've only seen it go down between Bo and Dyson so far, and it was definitely lust at first sight – I swear it only took about five minutes for the fur to start flying – but there was no mystical soulmate connection on her end." And I'm not sure I'm feeling one with you either, she added silently. "I mean, she even did the whole love triangle thing with him and Lauren for a while, and I wasn't one hundred percent positive which way it was gonna go till D showed up here."

"Yeah, only wolves imprint," Jacob confirmed, nodding. "And since female wolves are so rare, we normally only see two-way imprints between gay couples. Still, other shifters understand what imprinting means, or at least know it doesn't happen unless there's some degree of compatibility there, so most girls who get imprinted on are willing to give it a shot."

He gave her a hopeful look, but she was still firmly on the fence. On one hand, she hadn't yet seen anything to make her think ending up with him would be a bad thing; on the other, she was determined not to be pressured into a relationship just because it was allegedly written in the stars when she wasn't convinced it hadn't been more of a drunken celestial scribbling. What the hell did the stupid stars know anyway? Still, if Dyson was right, if there was a chance she and Jacob might have fallen for each other on their own if he'd waited a little longer to wolf out, maybe she shouldn't be so quick to slam the door that had unexpectedly opened before her.

"Well," she said at last, between indecisive nibbles on her lower lip, "I guess it couldn't hurt to see where this goes. Not saying I'm ready to change my relationship status on Facebook-" She wanted to be very clear on that point "-but we can hang out, get to know each other better, and… ¿Que será, será, right?"

Jacob eagerly agreed; it wasn't quite what he'd hoped for, but considering that Kenzi hadn't been raised among shifters and didn't know their ways, it was more than he had expected. In fact, before she walked into his room, he had been trying to prepare himself for the possibility that she might never want to see him again. Wondering if he was pushing his luck too far, he said hesitantly, "You know, now that I've shifted, I'll have an initiation ceremony soon, to formally join the Light Fae. You could come, if…if you want to. I'd like it if you did…and Leah will be there, if you still want to meet her. Just brace yourself for some serious snark if you do."

Kenzi thought it over for a moment, then slowly nodded; a fae ceremony might not be her idea of a fun shindig, but if she was serious about giving Jacob a fair shake, she would probably have to embrace certain aspects of his culture, just as she'd made adjustments for the weirdness Bo had brought into her life. Going to his initiation seemed like as good a place to start as any.

When he told her the date the elders had set, she felt her enthusiasm rise by several degrees, because it happened to fall on the same evening as Forks High's prom. At least if I go to Jacob's deal instead, there's absolutely no way they can suck me into that vom-inducing cesspool of teenage awkwardness, sucktastic dance remixes, and Styrofoam cupcakes somebody's mom made… And hey, since most fae events I've been to with Bo haven't exactly been aimed at the under twenty-one set, maybe they'll actually have something better than cheap punch to drink!

Well, I guess that went about as well as any talk between two people who unexpectedly found out they're soulmates without even a hint of a prior romantic connection could go. After this…who knows?

If anyone's wondering, I tweaked Twilight's Quileute mythology a bit to square it with Lost Girl's rule that only the offspring of two fae inherit their parents' powers while staying true to the Twilight setup of only having male wolves, with the exception of Leah. I felt like it was an acceptable change because having some deer women running around probably won't mess up too much in the grand scheme of things, but having the pack be the kids of people who weren't wolves, or at least some kind of fae themselves would create a pretty big discrepancy with the other side of this crossover.