You had visited the cozy, grey house near La Push countless times, even though you weren’t part of the reservation.

The scent of freshly baked muffins always greeted you the moment you stepped inside, clinging to the warm wooden walls and wrapping around you like a soft blanket.

Today, the kitchen smelled especially sweet as you and Emily moved around the counters, flour dusting your hands and forearms.

Emily, Sam Uley’s wife, moved with practiced ease — yet you couldn’t help noticing the claw-mark scars that ran across half of her face. She’d brushed it off as the result of a nasty fall: but something in her serene smile told you there was more she wasn’t saying.

You whisked a large bowl of eggs, milk, and flour — trying not to spill a single drop — when you caught him out of the corner of your eye. Seth Clearwater.

He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, skin tanned like the others of his age from the reservation. But there was something different about him: his gaze lingered on you longer than any casual glance warranted.

It was strange. Unsettling almost.

With Emily’s guidance, the two of you mixed sugar into the batter for the second batch of muffins. Your shoulders brushed against hers as you leaned in, and lowering your voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Don’t you think Seth is acting… weird?” you asked, eyes flicking toward him again.

Emily’s lips curved into a knowing smile. She had forgotten, for just a moment, that you weren’t a wolf. That made you utterly, and completely clueless.

You didn’t realize, not yet, that Seth’s strange behavior, the intensity of his gaze, the way his presence seemed to tether him to you wasn’t just curiosity.

He had imprinted on you. And nothing in your life, or his, would ever be the same again.