I smell him before I see him, familiar, something I can almost remember. Like the distant feeling of soft comfort from a loving touch, or even that first time I ever made a kill in hunger. My paws are close enough to the edge that I can curl my toes and dig the blunt edges of my claws into the earthy face of the ledge. My cold jade gaze flicks to him as he approaches, a flash of something, a memory. I watch him, cold eyes never leaving his warm whiskey gaze, something heated strokes my gut, like the unfurling of a great flame in the summer's heated lightning storms. I feel it, something I have not ever felt, not since Demetri. It sits, like a heavy bit of lead in a diver's bodysuit, rolling through me as I catch him in a deep bow, his words barely whispering across my consciousness as I watch his ruddy frame go into that awkward gesture. "Rise." I say simply, that beast called emotion thick in my voice. I feel, every bit of rage, hate, hunger, lust, love, sadness, joy, elation comes rushing to the surface and I am a volatile concoction of hormone and instinct. Carefully, I hide it, tamping down the violent storm within me to trap it behind a porcelain mask of cold indifference.
Who is this wolf that dares to wake the sleeping dragon within my hungry soul? Who is this male who thinks to bow to me and not some other hapless female? I know the word, but I dare not utter it aloud. Imprint. Rage spread its strangling wings, taking off within my heart as I watch him. Flames seem to rise in my eyes as I feel that bitter taste of past, that ugly sin of soul-bonding. His form wavers, distorts before me. He grows taller, his body turns from reds and greys and creamy tans to a black so dark it makes the ravens sing with envy. His eyes turn from earth to leaf, and I soften. I break, walls tumbling down before this awe inspiring image of my imprint, my only real love, torn by distance and forged by fire. The image strips away, shortening, dissolving into the wolf before me. His coat changing back to the myriad of grey, red, black and tan, his eyes melt into the soft chocolate of a loving gaze.
My face stays like stone, indifferent even as the rage dims in my eyes. Jade stone softens in pity as I cluck my tongue. "Fate must detest you, wolf, to tie you to one like me. Tell, oh knight, what do you really see?" I see him, his soul, his heart, pure and tempting to one such as I. I think of hunger, but it is different, new, savage. A possession, a trinket, a new heart to protect. I am a hunter, a devourer of souls and bodies, an undertaker for the dead and dying, a mercy to those fatally ill. I do not love, I do not feel, but I am drawn to this male as some are drawn to beauty. Run, wolf, while you still can. Jaidah has you now, you'll never be the same again.
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