“Fine,” I said before they could get into it again. “I’ll talk with you both, together. That’s my condition.”
I could tell neither of them was happy about it, but they reluctantly nodded.
“Let me walk you to class,” Dean offered, reaching like he wanted to take my bag.
I sidestepped just out of his reach. “I’m good. We’ll talk later,” I said pointedly.
When I turned around and looked back, they were both still watching me like they wanted to follow, but to their credit, they didn’t.
This day was already off to one hell of a start.
Chapter 3
Alistair
In a moment,my world shifted. One look, one instant was all it took. Twenty-three years of just existing without a purpose and there she was. A perfect stranger, but someone my soul knew better than it had any other.
I’d heard stories of vampires imprinting, but I had never imagined it would happen to me. That seemed a twist of fate too cruel to inflict on anyone, even another vampire.
And it had to be a vampire. We could only imprint on our own species, and as far as I knew, the same applied to shifters and werewolves. It was rare enough, and I’d never heard of someone imprinting on a creature outside their own kind, let alone two people doing it with the same person.
I wasn’t even surewhatBells was. I just knew she resonated with the same frequency of my DNA, the music that flowed through her blood, singing so sweetly in its scent.
The hunger was something I was well accustomed to, and had been all my life. I’d never known anything else, except in those brief moments of satiation after a feed, but for the first time, I wasn’t sure I could control it. My nature went from being something I tolerated to something I feared, because the same force that drew me to her across the room also drove the shamefully dark thoughts, pooling in the corner of my mind like tendrils of black smoke.
I wanted her.
No, Ineededher. Her blood, her voice, the sting of her gaze as she looked at me like I was the very thing I’d always been: a monster.
A thousand possibilities went through my head in the moment that elapsed between seeing her and her becoming aware of my existence. A few precious seconds beforeheintervened.
There was no way what he was saying was the truth, but as I stared Dean down once Bells had left us both, I knew that as much as I wanted to deny it, he was being honest.
“You’re wrong,” I said once I trusted myself to say something that wasn’t going to end in a fight. “You couldn’t have imprinted on her. You didn’t even know what it was until now.” The only reason I cared was the fact that if I wound up in the isolation room, I wouldn’t be able to protect her.
And I had to protect her. It wasn’t just an instinct, it was my new purpose in life. What I’d told her about imprinting being more than just a romantic connection was the truth, but only half of it.
“I sure as hell feel like I did,” the werewolf shot back. “And how am I supposed to know what imprinting is? In case you didn’t notice, there isn’t exactly a mentoring program for us. There aren’t many werewolves here in the first place.”
He had a point, as much as I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t have the time or the energy to explain why he was wrong, but it was becoming clear I didn’t have a choice. I hadn’t even had time to process the fact that I’d somehow imprinted on someone who wasn’t even a vampire. Hell, I didn’t even knowwhatshe was.
“It’s not just a feeling, it’s instinct,” I explained, trying to stay calm. The fact that another male had laid claim to her, even though I had no right to do the same, was enough to drive me to the brink of madness. “It’s everything. You couldn’t possibly understand.”
“How do you know what I’m feeling isn’t instinct?” he asked angrily, but he held back from doing what he looked like he really wanted to do--throttle me. “Wolves are all about instinct. I’m telling you, when I saw her, it was like she was a magnet and I was a nail. For a moment, I couldn’t even see anything but her.”
It took all my willpower not to roll my eye, even though something far more concerning than irritation was brewing within me. His words were too close to describing exactly what I’d felt for comfort. What if he was telling the truth? It shouldn’t have been possible, but neither should imprinting on a human. And as far-fetched as it seemed that one of those might have wound up here, there was nothing about her scent that led me to believe she was anythingbuthuman.
“Say I believe you,” I said grudgingly. “We’re only supposed to imprint on our own kind. How do you explain that with one, let alone both of us?”
Dean hesitated, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. They were probably rusty wheels, too. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted, shrugging. “Maybe she’s a witch.”
I had already wondered that, but usually their blood was tainted with magic. It was an unpleasant smell to vampires, but I wasn’t sure about werewolves. All I knew was that there was nothing remotely off-putting about her blood. I was having the opposite problem.
“I’d have smelled it in her blood,” I muttered. “I don’t think that’s it. She must be something else.”
“Well, whatever she is, it doesn’t matter. I want her. And I’m not gonna let a vampire near her,” he said firmly, his eyes narrowed. He looked like he was ready to fight right there in the cafeteria.
I snorted. “You really think that’s supposed to intimidate me?” I asked. If nothing else, he was going to send Bells running in the opposite direction. Maybe I should just let him screw himself over.
