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She was frozen stuck in place even when Paul had showed up with the rest of his friends dressed in only jean cut offs and a change a clothes for the completely nude Jacob Black. Paul's warm hands were quick to grab Elise up, holding her to him trying to find any signs of injury. "Baby, are you hurt? What's wrong?"
"No, no. He didn't hurt me." Her watery cerulean eyes shamefully looked into his mahogany gaze. "Paul, I hurt him."
Confusion was clear across the young quileutes face. By now whatever pain Jake received from Elise had ebbed away but the residual soreness and aches from the shifting process was still fading away. "What do you mean you hurt him?"
"I just got so scared. He got angry at the movies and I jumped in the car with him because I didn't want him to hurt himself and when he was driving he kept shaking and I made him pull over. He got out and I went to touch him and he just turned into a giant wolf and he was coming right at me and I didn't know what else to do." Her breathing was labored, her tear clogged throat was chopping up her words while Paul's friends watched silently, their eyes peeking over at Sam for the answers they figured he'd have. "I just put my hands out and he started whimpering and then he was Jake again and he was still in pain until I put my hands down. I thought it was a joke, Paul, I never knew it was true. It wasn't supposed to be true."
"What wasn't? Baby, I'm not understanding."
Sam's deep voice broke their conversation, his strong stance as always showing his authority. "Take her down to Billy's place. He's going to need to talk to her."
"Sam, do you know what happened."
Eyeing the shaken up female nestled in the warmth that her imprint provided, Sam simply nods. "Just keep her calm, fear must be a trigger for her and the last thing we need is a ker getting too overwhelmed."
Bright blue eyes looked up at the name he'd called her and all the puzzle pieces started clicking in Elise's brain. "You're one of them too aren't you, the wolves. I saw one a few nights after I moved here."
Shifting uncomfortably beside her, afraid of how she'd react, Paul cleared his throat moving back a little, giving her plenty of room for escape if that was the route she intended to take. "That was me, actually. I was on patrol and I smelled your scent and wanted to make sure you were okay seeing as it was Cullen territory."
"The vampires."
"You know?"
"I didn't realize it was that big of a secret, it's quite clear something was off about them. No one just looks the way they do and it be normal."
Paul chuckled at her, a weight seeming to lift off his shoulders at her words; she didn't seem scared or off put at the sound of him being a werewolf, but then again it was clear judging by the slight shake of her fingers that she was still in shock whether it be because of the shifting or her own supernatural piece of the puzzle. "Let's get you to Billy's, you can ask me questions to fill any gaps if you'd like."
Piling into Jacobs self-fixed volkswagen rabbit, Elise and Paul drove relatively calmly, her steady in and out breathing helping to calm her previously rapid heartbeat. "Why didn't you ever tell me before?"
"Judging by how you reacted to Jake when he phased, I was trying to avoid scaring you off. Not to mention, we aren't allowed too unless it's absolutely necessary and even then we have to ask Sam for permission."
"Why Sam?"
"He's alpha, whatever he says goes."
Humming under her breath Elise nodded in understanding, he always did have that aura of authority around him. "He already knew I was going to find out, didn't he? There was this day I was at the beach with my friends and I was wandering through the woods and he said something about me being a handful already. He made it seem like he was preparing himself for me to figure something out eventually."
Paul's hands clenched a little tighter around the steering wheel. "Yes, he knew you were going to be apart of this sooner or later, mostly because of me."
"Because of you?"
Taking a deep breath, his mahogany brown eyes darted to the side to glance at her before retraining his eyes on the road before him. "That night when we saw each other in the woods, me in my wolf form and all—there's this thing with wolves in our tribe, it's called imprinting."
"Imprinting," She repeated, tasting the feel of the word around her tongue, waiting patiently impatient for him to move along and just tell her everything at once. "Why do you look so nervous?"
"Basically, imprinting is when we find 'the one'. Everything changed for us, everything that made us run before changes and all these metaphorical strings are connected to the imprint."
Elise's fingers twitched in her lap, the palms of her hands growing clammy in nervousness, her mouth going dry at the information. "Kind of like soulmates?"
"Exactly like soulmates, it can be anything you want though," He rushed out, knowing how full of commitment and scary the explanation of imprinting sounded—it made it seem like all other possible options for loving anyone else couldn't be anymore, which in a way that was true. "I could be a friend, brother, lover. Anything you asked me to be I will be."
Cracking a smile and breaking the tense air the heavy topic was creating, Elise reached her hand over to hold his. "If you weren't driving right now I'd ask you to kiss me."
"That means you want to be with me right?"
"Obviously, who do you know that wants to kiss their friends and brother?"
