First Imprint [Book 1] ✔️

16 • Discovery

SAM'S POV

I heard the beating sound of sleet against the bedroom window. It was mid-January and the weather was more miserable than ever. I opened my eyes and stared at the bedroom ceiling. I looked over and saw Emily sleeping soundly on her side of the bed, her hand stretched out to rest on the corner of my pillow.

As much as I wanted to hold Emily through the night, my body temperature wouldn't allow it. I would hold her until she got uncomfortable and then she would move to her side of the bed and I would move to mine. I rolled over so that I could stare at her from a more comfortable angle.

Emily had gone in for her final physical therapy appointment yesterday. She had progressed at an incredible speed in the six months since the attack and her arm had healed completely. Well, not completely, she would always have slight pain when the weather turned too terrible, but it was livable. Luckily for her, I was her own personal heating pad and whenever her shoulder ached, I would massage it for her, the heat of my hand soothing her. I leaned over and kissed the drooping scar at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes flew open.

"Hey," she said, reaching up to run her palm over my cheek.

I could only stare at her. She was so beautiful. I pushed her hair off her face and moved over to her side of the bed, putting my arm around her back and pulling her close.

"Marry me." I blurted out.

This wasn't the way I had planned it to go, and I cursed myself for my impatience. I had planned a romantic evening out to celebrate the end of her physical therapy. I was going to take her to dinner at some fancy restaurant and then propose. I wanted to make it special and memorable and I just ruined it. What made me even more worried was that Emily hadn't moved or responded yet. She was just staring at me blankly.

"So...what do you say?" I asked nervously.

"Am I awake?" She wondered, confusion in her voice.

"Either that or we're both dreaming."

"You want to marry me?" Emily asked. I looked at her and smiled.

"I want to marry you more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. You're my whole world, Em. Please say you'll marry me."

Emily looked at me for a moment, before her eyes began to fill with tears.

"Yes," she whispered before shouting, "Yes!"

She rolled me on my back and proceeded to kiss my mouth with a vengeance. I chuckled pulling her in close. I felt a sudden shimmer in the air. I had to gently push Emily away, much to her surprise and my disappointment. I heard a howl in the distance but didn't recognize it.

"Something's off. I'd better go see what's going on." I sighed, pulling her in for a quick kiss on the scarred side of her jaw. I ran out to the backyard and phased.

"What the hell is going on?" A panicked voice yelled. Embry!

"Embry, this is Sam, you're okay, just keep calm." I began to run in the direction that I knew he was in.

Jared and Paul had also phased and were running in the same direction. I ran into a clearing up ahead. We were deep in the forest. I came upon a gray wolf with dark spots on his back. Paul and Jared soon joined us.

I quickly ran through the legends and showed him everything I knew. It helped Embry to calm down slightly. We all started heading back to my house. I had Jared and Paul phase so that Embry would know how it was done. He was able to calm down enough to phase back. We walked into the house through the backyard, and I grabbed some pants from my room and gave it to him. Emily came into the living room and asked us if we wanted breakfast.

"That'd be great, thanks Em." I told her after reaching out to touch her back.

Being able to physically touch Emily, even if it was just to hold her hand, always made me feel so much better. Contact with my imprint took away any remnants of anger I might have from phasing.

"Embry, we need to think about what we're going to do about this situation. You phased a lot younger than the rest of us, and you still have school to deal with."

"What about Jacob and Quil? They're my best friends."

I sighed, hating what I was about to say, knowing that it would cause pain to one of my brothers.

"You have to distance yourself from them, for their safety. If you were to lose your temper around them, it could bring on a really bad situation. And you can't tell them anything, that's really important, Embry. In fact, I'll have the Elders talk to your mother about having you stay home from school for a couple of weeks. We need to make sure you have some type of control before you interact with anyone."

We went into the kitchen. Paul quickly reached down for the toast that was on the table. Emily smacked his hand out of the way and told him to wait for his brothers to join him. I chuckled as Embry and I walked over to the table. The table was in the middle of the kitchen and we all crowded around it. Emily sat down next to me and began to eat.

"So did I hear you right, Sam? Did you and Emily get engaged?" Jared asked. I hadn't realized I'd been thinking about it, but I had been so excited they must have felt the reason why.

"Yeah," I responded, smiling like an idiot. Emily just laughed.

"Hey congratulations man," Paul said, punching me in the arm.

Jared jumped up from the table and went around to hug Emily. Embry still had a shocked look about him. He went to reach down for some bacon that was on the table and his knotted hair fell in his face.

"Ugh," he said trying to pull a dead leaf out of his hair. He looked at Paul, Jared, and me, and sighed.

"I guess I understand why you guys have your hair cut so short."

"Sam, can cut your hair if you want." Jared told him.

"Yeah that's me, the resident barber," I laughed.

After breakfast, I took Embry into the bathroom to cut his hair while Paul and Jared did the dishes. I ended up trimming his hair into the cropped hairstyle we all had.

Later that evening the four of us went out to patrol the area. We showed Embry what we did and how we patrolled the borders. I could sense that he was sad about not being able to have contact with Jacob or Quil.

"We suspect that Jacob may be on his way to turning too. If you turned so young, it may only be a matter of weeks before he turns as well." I told him, trying to comfort him all the while feeling sad that another boy would soon have his life uprooted.

"Don't feel bad Sam. I kind of like the idea of being able to protect the tribe. Like you guys did with that drug dealer." Embry said.

I was about to respond when something caught my attention. I could smell the sickly scent of vampire. Instantly the hair on the back of my neck stood up. All of us broke out into ferocious growls. The scent was fresh and right along the border.

"Is it a Cullen?" Paul asked furiously.

"What would a Cullen be doing this close to the border?" Jared asked.

Instantly a vision popped in all of our heads. Embry was thinking about a recent visit he had with Jacob Black at Jacob's garage. Jacob had been working on a couple of broken down motorcycles with Bella Swan. Bella had looked terrible.

"I don't think this is a Cullen." I said before adding, "I wonder if this is what triggered you to change today Embry. Maybe the fact that a vampire was in the area might have been what finally pushed your blood into making the transformation."

We speculated on that as we followed the scent all the way to a campsite. We soon could smell the strong scent of human but there was no one to be found.

A little farther north the scent of human and vampire combined. We picked up speed but lost the scent at a river. Paul found dots of blood on a leaf, but we couldn't find the missing camper. Feeling disgruntled, we headed for home.
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