The Unwanted Imprint

Chapter 26

Jacob took Sam's suggestion, and he went to the Cullen house, asking Carlisle if he could maybe talk to Jasper.

"You have some guts coming here," Jasper said as he came out of the house. "I can't tell if you're brave or an idiot, because right now, Rosalie is keeping Emmett from coming out here and beating the shit out of you."

"Look, I know that I've been a jerk-"

"You've been more than a jerk, Jacob. Nichole considered you to be a good friend of hers, and she didn't understand why you suddenly started to hate her. And then you imprinted on her."

"Look, it wasn't my choice, okay? She wouldn't have been the one if it was."

Jasper looked at Jacob for a moment. "I suppose that you want to tell Nichole."

"I do, if she'll even talk to me."

"That depends, she was hurt by your words the other day when you two ran into each other."

"Look, can I just talk to her please?"

Jasper sighed softly. "I'll see if I can get her to come out. Just wait out here."

"He actually had the gall to come here?" Nichole said when Jasper told her that Jacob was waiting outside for her.

"He wants to talk to you about the imprint," Jasper explained to her.

"I don't give a shit. He treated me like garbage, and then he thinks that all of a sudden he can just come over here and everything is going to be all hunky-dory?"She looked at Emmett. "You still got those steel-toed boots?"

Emmett smirked a bit. "If you're going to do what I'm thinking that you're going to do, then you are officially awesome. I'll go and get them."

Nichole walked outside, and Jacob glanced at her. "I didn't think that you were going to come out."

"I was contemplating not to. You've treated me like shit, and for what? Because I live with some vampires? Pretty petty if you ask me."

"You live with people who drink blood."

"Not human blood, they're strictly vegetarian."

Jacob let out a scoff. "You're acting like that makes it any better."

"They're not monsters Jacob. They're people like you and I, what's so hard to get about that?"

"They're dangerous Nichole, that's what's so hard. You're living with a group of people that could kill you at any time."

"But they haven't killed me yet, they've protected me, kept me safe when they didn't have to."

"You said that they weren't monsters Nichole, but you're wrong. Monsters is all that they'll ever be-" He cut himself off midsentence, and it was followed by a grunt of pain. Nichole had kicked him in the groin.

Even with the steel-toed boots, Nichole's foot still throbbed. "I am not going to stand here and let you talk about my family like that. Jasper said that you were here to talk about the imprint, but right now, I don't give a damn. You've changed Jacob, and not for the better either. I think it would be best if you left." Nichole turned on her heel and went back into the house, leaving Jacob doubled over on the driveway.

Embry raised an eyebrow as Jacob made his way back to the reservation. "From the way that you're limping, I'm gonna say that things didn't go very well for you."

"Shut up Embry."

"What? She kick you in the balls or something? She's human, I wouldn't think that would hurt very much."

"She had steel-toed boots on, of course, it hurt."

"Ouch." Embry winced a bit. "Well, good thing that we have enhanced healing then, isn't it? So what are you going to do now?"

"She wants me to stay away, so that's what I'm going to do."

"You know how this imprint thing works, Jacob, you aren't going to be able to keep yourself away from her for very long."

"I'll just make sure that she doesn't see me, that's all."

"Yeah, but you also have her family to worry about, remember? I don't think that they would be very happy about you prowling around their property."

"I don't care about them, the only one that I care about is her."

Embry raised an eyebrow. "What happened to you hating her guts?"

"You don't get it, Embry." Jacob's hands were clenched into fists. "Before the imprint, I hated everything about her that tied her to those bloodsuckers, but as time goes on, I find that I care about that kind of stuff less and less. It's like she's the only thing that matters." Before, he hadn't really taken much stock in the imprint stuff, but his opinion on that was definitely changed now. "She's the only thing that I care about now. I don't like it, the want to be around her all of the time. It's creepy, it makes me look like I'm some kind of stalker or something."

Embry clapped him on the back. "I hate to break it to you, but you're creepy enough with having the imprint."

"Oh piss off." Jacob playfully shoved Embry off of him. "You just wait until you get your imprint, then you'll know what I'm talking about."

"Oh, that'll be the day, we can obsess over our girls together. You need to head inside, Sam wants to talk to you about how things went."

"Great," Jacob grumbled. "Tell him that she kicked me in the nuts and that it actually hurt. He'll laugh his ass off about that."

"Oh, he won't be the only one. Just you wait until the rest of the pack finds out about it, they're going to have a heyday about it."

"Sam wouldn't tell the others about it."

"No, he wouldn't," Embry smirked a bit. "But I would." He ran off before Jacob could stop him, and Jacob groaned. Great, not only did his lower area hurt, but he was about to become the laughingstock of the entire pack. Things just seemed to be getting better and better, didn't they?