Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, but my imagination.

Chapter 01:

"You!" the woman wailed in her British accent. She walked faster than her smaller gait should have allowed, her hand out-stretched with her forefinger pointing straight ahead of her, to the third one in a trio that was crouched quite carelessly by the beach.

The woman cut a fearsome figure with her hair crackling with energy, swinging behind her in a disarray and her eyes blazing with enough fire to put an active volcano to shame.

The trio looked up to see what the commotion was all about and the first two men saw their third comrade freezing beside them. Nothing new there then, they smirked. Paul was after all the man-whore of the reservation and having girls throw themselves at him (for one or another, depending if it was before the act or after) was not really news to anyone anymore.

Sam, the eldest one in the trio, though, gave a long, hard look at his newest brother, something did seem different about him now. Since the day he had come back from his trip to Vegas, earlier than expected actually, he had been different. He looked pained… melancholy even, opting to be by himself, staring at the crashing waves, instead of scouting the beach for his next lay, like he would do before the trip. Sam had been sure something had happened to him during the trip. Now, he thought he had his answer right in front of him. Literally.

The curly haired woman ignored the first two beefy guys and concentrated on the third one who looked stilled at the sight of her.

"You dunderhead! You bound me to you!"

Paul smiled goofily at the woman, as if his world was suddenly put to rights.

The woman twisted her pout this way and that. "Were you hit on the head one too many times or have you always been an idiot?"

Paul only stared at her, as if he couldn't quite believe his eyes yet.

The woman's anger spurned on. "Would you like to know why I am here, instead of living my happy life in London, England?" she asked icily. Sam could swear he felt the temperature drop around them by a few degrees at her tone.

"You see this?" she pulled at the collar of her crew neck t-shirt. "That's binding, you baboon. You bound me to you! How could you do such a thing without even asking me first?"

Paul, and his brothers' gazes slipped to the skin that was now left open for their perusal. And there, right at the base on her long neck, on her pale, ivory skin were the teeth marks she was referring to. A puncturing wound that had broken the skin. It looked a few weeks old but remained unhealed, as if it would stay there for all of eternity.

They stared at it with confusion before they heard a soft growling from beside them. Turning, they realized it was aimed at them! The angry possession and fierce threat that was implied in the ominous sound going missed by neither.

Sam cocked his brow at him while Jared chuckled amused and yet Paul did not drop his angry gaze from either until they looked away from his mate's exposed skin.

Turning back to her then, his heart beat ecstatically at the sight of the mark he had felt compelled to leave on her sometime during their passionate night two weeks back.

Nothing had seemed right to him since the morning after, when he'd woken up alone in his bed. Despite always liking women who knew their place in his life and would leave him alone right the next morning, when he'd woken up in a cold bed, he'd felt empty inside.

Hollowed.

As if all his life's joy had been sucked out.

He had felt so rejected that he had cut his trip short and returned immediately. Though there hadn't been any solace here either.

Something was not right. All felt wrong. He felt amiss, like a gaping hole was left where his heart used to be.

All the girls from his previous encounters and the new ones, they all smelled something rotten, looked bad, their high pitched voices grated on his eardrums, they just felt dirty… Wrong.

He had not taken anyone to bed since the woman in front of him. He didn't want to. Not anymore.

Instead, he had withdrawn from everything.

He knew the elders and his brothers felt the difference in him, wrought within two short days of his Vegas trip, but none voiced it out loud, knowing his volatile disposition.

But now she was there. Blazingly angry but there. Right before him, where he could see her, inhale her alluring scent, touch her porcelain skin. He gulped.

"Hey!" She snapped her fingers in front of his unblinking eyes, making him blink and bringing his attention back to her eyes. "Do you have any explanations you'd like to offer before I hex you into the new year?"

"You're here.." was all Paul could whisper, his tone awed.