Ashlynn, talk to me... Ryder pleaded through my mind. Now, I was still against the wall, but he had taken the liberty to put several feet between us for my own adjustment and safety. We'd been like this for less than a minute, which felt longer, and my brain wasn't even attempting to wrap around this new information. The only thing I was confused about was the distance between him and I. I didn't like it at all. Eventually, I looked down at the silver dagger in my hands. Not one thought led me to even close to thinking of ever using it. I threw it on the ground after realizing what damage it could do. I took a step toward Ryder, but he took one in opposite of me. A piece of my heart cracked at that.

"I don't want to hurt you," he whispered.

"I think we both know that you won't," I said, stubbornly. I closed the distance between us and his reservation yielded for my comfort. He pulled away once more and cradled my head in his hands delicately. His eyes were a chocolate brown again, only glazed with moisture and daring to flicker red.

"I shouldn't have told you," he said.

"I think I already knew," I shocked even myself because that inner pull towards him was speaking for me now. His eyes opened. "...about the werewolf thing. The blade, I didn't know about, but I mean, I wasn't really looking for—"

"Then I really shouldn't have told you anything," he resorted. I winced into a frown while his hands dropped from my face. He took a small step back and that distance was irritating me. Him wanting to pull away was angering me. "I know you're confused right now, but...ah, goddammit, I just ruined everything."

"You're a werewolf, so what?" I blurted and he looked at me like I was crazy. He wasn't expecting me to be accepting. I didn't even need to tell him why I was so accustomed to the werewolf secret. I think he knew of my family lineage by now.

"If you were anyone else, you would've known to plunge that silver blade through my heart to save yourself," he said.

"Save myself from what?" I questioned. From me most importantly, I heard him thought. "You really think I'd have the power to do that? I can't even touch that blade without the disgust of knowing it could hurt you. I didn't even mean to find it, okay? I swear, I didn't." He was shaking his head. "I—I'll put it back if it's what you want. We won't have to deal with it."

"I don't care about that blade, unless you're going to use it against me, which you probably should considering the circumstances," he told me and I felt slightly more offended than confused. Suddenly, he walked around me, grabbed the blade and I tried to search his mind for his motive. I uncovered nothing and when he pointed the blade at me, like he did once more, his body gave up and surrendered by pointing it at his chest again—not without my hands making contact with the blade to make sure he wouldn't impale himself. Our eyes locked and his softened just a touch before he removed his hands and handed me the knife. "Point this at me."

"No—"

"Just do it, Ashlynn," he ordered and then I was feeling a risky side of me raise my hand with the blade in it and attempt at pointing it at him. He stood, looking down at me without crossing his arms or posing any ounce of protection over his life. I found the blade grow heavier and heavier the more the angle became lethal and then suddenly I expelled a breath and when a force would turn it on myself, Ryder scoffed before taking my hand roughly in his and directing the dagger at himself once more with a sigh. I let go of the blade altogether and then he threw it on the ground, making it slide a few inches. He sighed. "Blade's useless."

"But you just said—"

"I know what I said," he raised his voice. "You can't kill me with it, unless it's by my force or you've come to drastically want me dead."

I was broken at the thought of him ever killing himself. Even standing in the same room with the blade which my hand held up to him was making me sick. My head was spinning and I actually wanted to puke. My hand touched my stomach as my temples throbbed and then I held up a hand to him.

"Can you just give me a minute...?" I said while starting to crouch over and wanting to leave the room. I even took a step out of it and started to feel the queasiness go away while the burning from the box slightly returned to my hands. Once I made it to the stairwell and bounded down the stairs, I was normal except for my breath speeding up.

Ryder caught up with me and searched my eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked with complete concern. That's when I snapped.

"No, I'm not okay!" I yelled. "You freaking told me you're a werewolf which is extremely dangerous, but then you tell me the dagger that's meant to kill werewolves doesn't work with you—and I didn't want it to in the first place, but it's the principle of the thing and it makes me sick to my stomach at the thought that I just nearly killed you—or thought I nearly killed you! And—"

My rant was cut short when he dipped his head down and kissed me. My knees weakened, thankful that his arm was there to wrap around my waist. I kissed him back and my pain and sickness cleared away. The only reason my head was spinning was because Ryder Ramon had passion to back up that kiss in two seconds that was equivalent to what I watched build in romantic comedy movies for two hours. Only this was real. And the passion was deriving from something other than the sexual tension between us.

"That's why that blade won't work on me," he whispered on my lips. "You can't find it within yourself to even raise a threat against me, just like it's in my existence to offer my life anytime you're in a position to get the slightest bit hurt."

"Why is that?" I muttered, separating our faces by just inches. He slightly looked up and twisted his mouth.

"Don't hate me or anything, but..." he began. "I imprinted on you."

"You did what?" I asked, repulsed at first. I glared at him as his fingers played at my waist. He laughed at my reaction.

"I tell you I'm a werewolf and you're not repulsed about the beast I turn into, but when I tell you that my entire life is devoted to you, you're revolted," he noted with a laugh and mocking wounds to his ego. I still looked at him strangely. He was still jovial about it. "Okay, I guess you wouldn't really know about it...but apparently there's a legend that werewolves—especially bloodline werewolves—have a mate in this world that is the sole reason to why we're here and that bond is stronger than any possible link in the magical world. As soon as we lay eyes on them, bam, our life has purpose."

"So that means...?"

"We're mates," he shrugged and I crossed my arms. I noted the space between us and then actually checked him out. He wore a tight t-shirt and some nice fitting jeans. Nothing he wore was special but each feature of his body was attractive to me and the knowledge that some supernatural force put us together was making me feel very lucky.

"So what you're saying..." I said, taking a very slow step towards him. I stopped right before my arms would touch his chest. "...is that you're mine...?"

"I've been yours for the taking ever since we met by the lake," he said, his eye lids lowering along with his head. He wanted to kiss me, but I wanted to flirtatiously toy with him.

"And I don't have a say in this?" I questioned, even though I knew my choice about him as soon as I saw him. Now, he knew I was flirting with him and playing hard to get. He released his neck from bending down and smirked at me.

"I don't care what you say, really, because any way you want me, I'm still going to be here," he said, arrogantly. We were both seeing who would cave first. It made me want to kiss him that much harder.

"And which ways can I have you?"

"Any way you want, sweetheart," he said, making me feel his breath in my face that I wanted to capture with my own. Suddenly, he reached out and pinned me beneath him on the adjacent couch. My legs wrapped around him, wondering what he was doing, but then he pinned my hands above my head. "My loving is just as good as my fighting, babe. That, I can promise."

"I guess we'll have to see about that," I flirted before throwing my weight to the side. We tumbled down to the floor, but he made sure it was him who hit the wood. I was sitting on his hips, feeling tingling in lower regions that I hadn't ever experienced before. It made my face heat up and I climbed off of him. Slow down, I thought to myself. I was rushing things. Yes, he had told me he was a werewolf, and yes that we were eternally linked together, but this was too fast. As I sat on the couch, he kneeled beneath me and took my hand in his to rest on my knees.

"I'm not going to rush you," he said with a soft voice. He searched my eyes and I brought up my hands to cover the majority of my face and looked at him. His hands locked around my wrists. I wasn't embarrassed; I was cautious. I had never had a connection like this with anyone—that was without talking about the imprinting thing. I didn't have some past love whom I liked to kiss or wrestle with. I didn't know how this stuff worked and I didn't know why it was so natural and easy with Ryder. Especially when he thought: Come on, talk to me.

I removed my hands from my face and they folded in my lap, making Ryder's hands move to the outside of my thin waist and touch the edge of the couch.

"Why do you always say that?" I questioned. He frowned and then relaxed before taking a seat on the couch next to me. He sat on the edge and I relaxed, using the back to rest on. We no longer touched.

"I don't," he admitted with his palms pressed together. Then he looked over his shoulder to see me. "I...I always sort of figured I could use telepathy with you, but I never knew to which extent..." he admitted with a calm voice. "And, no matter how deep this...connection...gets, I always want you to talk to me. Sure, our thoughts are impulsive, but they're not always rational or true. Sometimes what we truly need to say isn't mucked up in our heads as much as it's waiting right behind our lips, and I want us to talk. No matter what it is—even if I piss you off or you hate me, I want you to just talk to me, Ash."

As if to prove that our mouths had impulses dictated by our hearts, I reached over and kissed him briefly, which he accepted and then rested my head on his shoulder.

"But don't extend that privilege onto me," he added.

"Why not?" I mumbled.

"Because even though I can talk to you all day..." he sighed. "I say a lot of shit I don't mean."

"Why's that?"

"Because I have to," he said and then I removed my head from his shoulder. How was he going to sit here and tell me that he didn't mean what he said when he was telling me things that changed our lives? I knew it wasn't extended to me, hopefully, but the logical side of me knew that that posed at least some wall of untrustworthiness. I just wanted him to know that he didn't always have to say things he didn't mean. To anyone. "I know, I know, I should be honest, but given the situation, I don't have time for that."

"Why do you keep referring to it as a situation?" I asked, feeling offended. I wasn't any situation. It isn't as it we could control it.

"Because we're not supposed to be together, do you get that?" he asked me. He meant in other ways than our imprint. "I don't see a problem with it considering—..." I glared at him before he said it and he cut himself off. "But a lot of other people do."

"Like Preston and your dad?" I reminded.

"Yeah..." he said. "But they don't really get a say in it."

"They will after a while," I said. "We can't be together—however you want to define that—with your dad hating me. Every time he sees us together, he's rude to you." And by extension, he's rude to me, even though he hadn't actually seen me and Ryder actually interact. I think he assumed things between us before we had.

"I don't really care; I deserve it," he shrugged, care-free. Suddenly, he got up. I followed suit and he put one unknown key in my pocket and then put the blade (that had been sitting innocently somewhere) in my hand. I didn't want it, and that's why he wrapped his hand around mine tighter. I glared up into his eyes.

"You won't always want me alive, and I'm not the only werewolf to use this against," was all he told me.

"Hang onto it til then," I decided and he lightly smiled with one chuckle, probably at the thought that I could potentially want to kill him. I don't really know.

"Fine," he said and then took it from me. He lifted his shirt, revealing very defined muscles on his hips that made me look away in order not to become flustered. He stuck the blade between the band in his pants and the band of his underwear at his back and I didn't question how he'd manage not to slice himself open. He dropped his shirt that was only raised up to his mid section and then laughed once more. "Stop checking me out."

"I'm not," I lied and held in a sigh. The boy was more beautiful than anyone I had seen. I was nothing in comparison to his good looks and charm.

"Good, because it's my job to check you out, not vice versa," he said before kissing me. His hands found my waist as I kissed him back, sealing this profession of imprinting. The more I kissed him, the more I pressed into him and clutched his shirt with my fists. His grip on my waist tightened as well, which the opposite was of how soft and sweet he was actually kissing me. Just like when we were in his room, I was feeling that uncomfortable comfort that wanted me closer and closer to him. By the time he backed up and was basically sitting on the back of the couch, I knew I could kiss him all day, every day for the rest of my life.