Imprinted (Progress), Sara Imes [essential reading txt] 📗

Hayden stopped, her body going rigid all over. Then she spun, glaring at Seth, a dangerous fire blazing in her eyes. “What?”, Hayden said angrily. Hayden’s eyes then turned black with anger as she glared at Seth. Seth jerked his chin up, staring squarely back at Hayden, not backing down. Dylan smirked. He knew Seth wouldn’t let Hayden toy with him like that so easily.

Dylan stepped back, leaning back against the table, and stared at Hayden. “Why does your pack have to come with me?”, Hayden yelled towards Seth. “I just told you I have a boyfriend, so why do you want to continue in following me? Why not just let me go?” Seth smirked. “Like I said before Hayden, sweetie”, Seth said sweetly, only making Hayden even angrier. “Once a werewolf imprints on someone, they will do anything, and I mean anything to make them theirs.”

“So what? Are you going to kill Jake?” Seth shrugged and grinned, “Who knows. Maybe I will if it means means that I can have you. I have to get rid of the competition”, Seth said. Suddenly Seth’s voice changed from playful and carefree to rough and serious. Seth turned a fixed gaze toward Hayden, making her angry gaze evaporate into one of question.

“Look. I know you may be in a relationship, or you could just be saying this to hurt me or just to get out of us escorting you. Whatever the reason”, Seth felt his legs move involuntarily toward Hayden. “I won’t stop until I can call you mine."  Suddenly Dylan felt as if he was intruding, listening into a private, intimate conversation. Seth moved even closer toward Hayden until he was in front of her. Hayden didn’t make a move to step back. She only stood her ground as she looked up to meet Seth’s awaiting eyes.

Something in Seth’s eyes made Hayden’s eyebrows come together in wonder. Why is he looking at me like this? He possibly can’t have feelings for me, we just met, right?, Hayden thought. But the look in Seth’s eyes told Hayden otherwise. Something inside Hayden’s stomach twisted. Hayden always kept walls around her, never letting anybody get too close to her. However, she wanted to know what the look in Seth’s eyes meant. As is they both shared a telepathic link and Seth could hear her thoughts Seth said, “let me show you how I feel, Hayden”. Without waiting for an answer, Seth cupped Hayden’s face into his hands and leaned down, closing his eyes. Seth’s hands were warm and soft against Hayden’s cold skin. Hayden tiled her head up, closing her eyes. When her lips brushed up against Seth’s lips, Hayden felt tiny explosions go off around her. But before she could pull Seth deeper into the kiss, Seth pulled back, revealing a lopsided grin. “So you were lying about Jake”, Seth said.

Hayden stood staring at Seth with black empty eyes. When she spoke, Dylan nearly cringed. “Why did you do that?”, Hayden said dangerously. Seth cocked his head to the side like a dog would when he didn’t understand something his master told him. “Oh please do tell me what you mean Hayden, dear”, Seth said mockingly. Hayden growled and clenched her hands into fist by her sides. Dylan watched intently at her hands. Hayden’s hands were shaking badly and small droplets of blood were sliding down her hand from Hayden digging her nails into her skin.

But there was something that drawed attention to Hayden’s hands. There was a slight red-orange light that emitted from Hayden’s hand, that made faintly them glow. Is that...fire?, Dylan thought. No..no. I must be seeing things. That’s impossible… . Dylan slowly drew his eyes away from Hayden’s hands, refocusing his attention on the on-going argument between Hayden and Seth.

“Don't play this game with me! Why did you pretend to kiss me!,” Hayden yelled fiercely. Hayden’s face was lit up with anger and frustration from Seth’s sudden forgetfulness at how he almost kissed Hayden. “Oh! You mean that?,” Seth said, suddenly remembering the incident that happened about ten seconds ago. “Well you did say you and Jake were dating, so I wanted to see if you were lying or not. And, as it turned out, you were”.

Hayden opened her mouth, but faltered. “I didn’t lie. Jake is my boyfriend”, Hayden said softly, all the anger gone from her voice. “Oh? Is that so? So if you guys are together, then why did you let me almost kiss you?”, Seth said, raising an eyebrow. A flash of anger flashed over Hayden’s face, but as quick as it came, it disappeared. Hayden took a deep breath and shrugged, digging her hands into her jean pockets. “Fine. Yeah I lied. I only lied because I thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with me if I already had a boyfriend”.

Seth smirked again. “Oh you vampires just don’t listen do you? With that heightened hearing one would think you would listen better. However, let me say this again. Do you have your listening ears on?”, Seth pretended to turn a knob up around his ears. Hayden rolled her eyes and muttered something unpleasant under her breath. That made Seth’s smirk widen, showing all of his white sparkling teeth. “Like I said for the, what? Millionth time, whenever a werewolf imprints on anyone, they’ll do anything, and I mean anything to have that person. And now, please don't forget it. So since you're going to be staying here, why don't we go meet the other pack members.”, Seth said.

Hayden groaned and said, “Do I really have too?”. Seth smiled and nodded. “Yes, you do. It’s the least you could do since you caused havoc every since you woke up.”. Seth turned and nodded towards Dylan, who nodded back and leaned off the table and headed for the door, opening it and stepping out of the room.

“Ladies first”, Seth said, holding the door open for Hayden. Hayden laughed and bowed, “Well then, that means you go first”. Seth chuckled, the sound rumbling deep in his throat, and he walked through the door. Hayden followed behind him, letting the door shut behind her. As Hayden followed Seth down the hall and up the stairs, she lifted her fingers to her lips, still feeling the lingering effects of the kiss, and smiled.

Once Dylan, Seth, and Hayden reached the living room, Hayden stayed back, making sure Seth didn’t notice her. Seth and Dylan entered the living room, seeing that the chair that Hayden broken was cleared away and the rest of the living room furniture was put back in place. Some of the pack was sitting on the couch and the rest the floor. Jack and Snow were snuggled close together on the couch. With October and Jessica huddled on the floor sharing an earbud with each other. Seth couch hear the song from where he was standing. It sounded like “Throne” by Bring Me the Horizon. The whole pack came to know most of the songs Jessica and October listened too since they blared it through their speakers or headphones. Meanwhile, October’s mate, Nick was sitting next to October, twisting and turning stands of her blond hair between his fingers. Kristen was sitting on the couch, with Natalie sitting on the floor in front of her, braiding her hair. Justin, Jack, and Jesse were playing rock, paper, scissor, shoot on the floor, in front of the tv. Jonathan and Alex were flipping through the tv channels, looking for a decent tv show or movie to watch as they usually did. T.J and Ashley were sitting next to Jonathan and Alex, both tapping their fingers impatiently on the couch, waiting for the two boys to pick a channel. This is my pack., Seth thought. If there not out killing a target, there here being their lazy usual self. No one seemed to notice that Seth and Dylan had come back, so when Seth cleared his throat loudly, everybody’s head turned to him. Ashley instantly jumped off the couch and walked towards Seth and Dylan. Ashley put a up a wall, blocking the rest of the pack from their thoughts. So is the target terminated?, Ashley said to them. Seth and Dylan exchanged glances, letting Ashley know the answer. Ashley sighed, and instead of speaking through the link, she spoke out loud. “So you haven't killed her yet?!”, Ashley said angrily. At Ashley words, everybody was standing and making a crowd around Dylan and Seth. “What do you mean, you haven’t killed her yet?”, Jonathan said. “Have you forgotten that she’s a dangerous target that has been killing werewolves for a reason that we still don't know?”. Jonathon’s mouth was starting to peel back into an angry snarl, showing his pointed teeth. “Also, Jesse started, “the Head Councilman demanded that we get the answers we need from her and then kill her.”.  “And anyway where is she if you guys haven't killed her yet?”, Kristen said. “What? What do you mean? She’s right he-”, Seth spun around, pointing a thumb to a Hayden who was supposed to be right behind him. Seth’s stomach clenched. How could I’ve been so dumb to let her go behind me?, Seth thought. And just as Seth was about to send Dylan to go in the forest to search for a fleeing Hayden. Hayden appeared behind the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. “I really don’t appreciate being talked about when i'm not in the room”, Hayden said.

Everybody stared at Hayden with wide, disbelieving eyes. Suddenly, the whole room was thrown into complete and utter silence. Hayden was staring back