taciturn / paul lahote

"local leeches"

Don't you get tired of cooking and baking all the time? Daisy asked Emily, holding her whiteboard in the air to gain the scarred girl's attention.

Emily had been flitting around the room, fussing over the lack of precooked food inside the pack's home. Daisy didn't understand why the girl was so worried about it - there was never really any food in the house anyways. But if there was, it wouldn't be for long.

Wolf thing.

"The boys are doing double time lately, with all the vampire drama happening," Emily says. "Which means that they'll be extra hungry when they return from patrolling."

And extra cranky. I roll my eyes, huffing.

"You've been here for a month and you already know how the house works," Emily chuckles but Daisy can sense the nervousness behind her smile.

I'm pretty awesome, I know. Daisy shrugs casually, leaning back against the kitchen counter with a smirk.

"Damn right you are," Issac says, waltzing into the kitchen with an almost smug smile on his face.

"Why so smug?" Emily asks him, taking a seat on one of the bar stools next to Daisy.

"Another Quileute phased," Issac says, reaching over Daisy to pick an apple up off the counter.

Who? Daisy asks, leaning forward.

"The names Quil," another tall, lean dark haired boy waltzed into the kitchen.

That was the one thing about the pack - they all looked alike in some ways. Tall, mostly lean, tan skinned, and dark haired. They looked like they were related and in a way, they all were. Each cousins - distant cousins or first cousins.

"Well, welcome to the family, Quil," Emily smiles at the boy. "I'm Emily, Sam's fiancé, and this is Daisy, Issac's sister."

"The infamous sister," Quil says, surveying Daisy up and down with a small smirk on his face. "I've heard so much about you through the other boy's and their thoughts don't put you to shame."

"Quil . . . " Emily warns, stiffening when she sees both Issac and Paul standing in the doorway, Sam and Jared standing behind them with wide smiles - they knew what was coming.

"What was that?" Paul asks, his voice low as he steps into the room with Issac flanking him. Daisy's eyes widen at them, the way they're moving in sync with one another.

"Just admiring Black's lovely sister," Quil says - who has clearly not been informed about imprints.

"You better watch what you're saying," Paul inches forward, his hands slightly trembling at his sides. His hand reaches up, grabbing Quil's shoulder before yanking him backwards.

Daisy watches, as Quil and Paul begin to bicker, Issac's face turns from anger to a look of pride. He seems prideful that someone, other than himself, has come to his sister's defense - and this makes him happy.

Daisy is shook out of her thoughts when she sees Paul storm out of the house, leaving a red faced Quil in his wake. She is standing and moving towards the door before she even realizes what has just unfolded in front of her.

Paul is roughly running his shaky fingers through his hair, letting out a loud sigh as his feet carry him into the surrounding woods.

It's easy to see how agitated Paul is. He body trembles as he takes a seat at the trunk of a tree, clenching his hands in attempt to sooth the trembles. If this was a cartoon, steam would be blowing from his ears.

Daisy snorts at the thought, abruptly gaining Paul's attention.

"You shouldn't have come out here," Paul rockets off the ground, quickly moving to Daisy's side as he looks around the tree line.

Rolling her eyes, Daisy snorts. She would've been fine, with the amount of wolves surrounding her, nothing could possibly have gotten her from the short distance she travelled.

"I'm serious, Daisy," Paul says, gently guiding her back towards the house. "You haven't seen this vampire yet — they're ruthless."

Pulling her phone from her back pocket, she types a quick text, her whiteboard laying abandoned on the kitchen counter.

How? She asks, showing Paul her phone screen.

"They've killed countless humans," his tone is hard as he stares ahead, his only focus being to get Daisy back home. "Guards, hunters, fishers, you name it."

How many people? She asks.

"Too many to count," he shrugs. "With the local leeches gone — which, trust me, I'm not complaining — it seems as the nomads have taken their place."

What were the Cullens like? Daisy feels herself typing, her curiosity getting the best of her.

"Stuck up, entitled, pompous," Paul lists off. "Just a bunch of bloodsuckers who think they're 'too good' for anyone."

Daisy quietly chuckles at his face, hardened with disgust. You don't like them.

"They're the reason I am what I am," he shrugs. "This life isn't the worst life — because who wouldn't want to be as badass as me — but it's not the life I would've chose for myself."

Do you like being a shapeshifter? Daisy liked when Paul talked about himself. He seemed to have never opened up to many, not even all the members of the pack.

"Give and take." Paul's mood lifts when they see Sam's house in the distance. He removes his hand from Daisy's back and picks her hand up instead, lacing their fingers together.

"I don't like following orders or the late night patrolling, I don't like having people hear my thoughts or listening to theirs," he continues. "But I like having a pack, I like being strong and fast, I like never being cold, and I like having an imprint."

Rolling her eyes, Daisy types. Weren't you the Res's infamous womanizer?

"I won't lie, I was." Paul admits. "Like I told you at the bonfire, I didn't think imprinting would happen to me. And I wanted it to. So I looked."

You went looking for your imprint? She questions.

"I did. Yet here you are, popping into Washington when I wasn't looking." Paul says, looking at the mute with a smug smile. "Here, gimme your phone."

Why? She types before willingly handing her phone to him.

Paul begins typing away. "To put my number in, obviously."

•••