"Good girl." He glanced over my shoulder. "I told you she"d be alright with this. You shouldn"t underestimate her."
"Ok. Ready?" Kyle asked, still clearly exasperated but willing to cooperate.
"You"ll come tomorrow?" I grabbed Caleb"s shirt front and felt strange for doing so but I had to. "To see me?"
His thumbs caressed my cheeks sending embarra.s.sing shivers down my arms.
"I"ll come get you tomorrow," he corrected. "You are very special, Maggie. My family will be anxious to meet you."
I nodded.
"Ok."
"Just remember. There is nothing to worry about."
"Ok."
He kissed my forehead and I closed my eyes at the pleasurable burn, feeling him. Letting his pride at how well I was taking everything wash over me in waves of warmth.
"I"ll see you soon, Maggie."
I nodded and bit my lip as Kyle grabbed my hand and towed me to his dad"s silver Audi. My body felt like it was being split. I didn"t want to go. I so didn"t want to go. But Caleb said I would be fine.
Kyle buckled me in and we started to back up down the driveway. The whole time, my significant"s eyes were locked on mine.
Three.
"Significant? What does that even mean?" I asked Kyle after about five minutes of silence.
He"d been driving around, not going anywhere since we left his house, his thumb beating an angry rhythm on the steering wheel.
"And why am I ok with all this? I mean, you just told me you"re not human? I think I would normally freak out about that."
"You"re one of us now," he said quietly.
"What? You mean I"m an Ace or whatever?"
"Yes. Look." He looked at me quickly. "I"d explain it all to you but Caleb was right. You can"t handle it right now. Your body is going through enough just being away from him."
"I don"t understand."
"You"re his mate, his one, his partner, his companion, his soul mate, the person you"ll be with forever. Take your pick," he waved his hand in the air.
"But I just met Caleb. I don"t even-"
I was about to say I didn"t even feel anything for him but that was a lie. In fact, just saying his name was bringing on a little round of hysteria all on its own. My heart clenched, my palms were sweaty and tingly. I had the strange need to grab the door handle and make a break for it.
And I knew that was crazy but I couldn"t stop thinking it.
"Why do I feel like this? Why do I-" I stopped and tried to breath through it.
Caleb told me everything would be ok. I knew it would, but I had no idea how or why.
Kyle grabbed my hand.
"Why do you want him? That"s what you were going to say? It"s because you imprinted. It"s like...both your souls saw each other and decided they wanted the other. It"s something that"s always happened in the clans. We"ve always imprinted to find a wife or husband. Usually it happens when you"re older, like about twenty two or three. I"ve never heard of it occurring this young. And it rarely happens with a human but sometimes it does."
"So what does that mean? I have to marry him now?"
I thought about getting married at seventeen and what everyone would think of me, that I was loony or worse- pregnant.
"No, silly." He laughed. "You just...belong to each other, now." He chuckled again sadly and squeezed my hand. "Just when I finally got you to go out with me, too."
"I"m sorry."
"You don"t have anything to be sorry about. You can"t control it." He sighed. "Ok. Let"s stop talking about this. You don"t need the stress and it"s sure depressing me. What do you want to do?"
"I don"t know. I"m pretty hungry."
"Ok. Pablo"s it is."
We pulled into the restaurant parking lot and he got out, running to my side to open my door for me. He grabbed my elbow to help me and I thought, he"s sweet but going overboard, but then I started to wobble. I felt lightheaded and he grabbed my other arm to steady me.
"What"s wrong with me," I croaked.
"It"s like withdrawals. You just have to bear through them. They"ll get better."
"Withdrawals from what?"
"Caleb," he said and curled his lip like it was disgusting. "Come on. You"re with me. You"re fine. We"re gonna have fun but we gotta stop talking about him, alright?"
"Alright."
His hand slid down, his fingers locked on mine and I had a strange sense that I was doing something wrong.
"Stay close, ok?" He opened the door to the restaurant and we went in, wafted by a strong sent of delicious pasta and garlic.
Pablo"s was the best half Italian half Mexican place in town.
"Hey, look. There"s Rebecca and the guys."
I pulled him to a stop.
"Please no. I don"t want to see anyone tonight," I begged.
"Because of what happened? You"ll be-"
"No, not because of what happened. I had a fight with my dad and I don"t feel like being in a crowd. Ok. Please?"
"Ok. Let"s go sit back here." He towed me to the back and we sat in a dark booth. Our waitress came over immediately. It was a junior from my Lit cla.s.s. "Hey, Callie, I"ll take a root beer. What do you want, Mags?"
"Sweet tea."
She eyed us both with a little smile.
"Congratulations on graduating, both of you. I can"t wait."
"Thanks," Kyle muttered and she went to fetch our drinks. "You ok?"
"Yes."
"What"d you and your dad fight about?" he asked as he fingered his silverware.
"He"s a jerk."
"Aha."
"My mom left last summer. Did you know that? Right before school."
"Yeah, Chad said something about it."
"He did?" I said with surprise.
"Yeah, he was pretty strung out there for a while after you guys broke up. Course, I only really saw him at football practice and lunch."
"Yeah."
"So why did you break up with him, anyway?" he asked and I looked up to see that he was serious.
I started to tell him the truth but Callie came back with our drinks.
"What"ll you guys have?"
"I"ll have the...parmesan eggplant," he answered.
"Cheese ravioli."
"Ok. I"ll get that right in for you. No appetizers?"
"No thanks," I answered and as soon as she was gone I turned my glare on him. "Chad broke up with me. He didn"t want to date anyone his last year because he knew he was leaving."
"What? Then why was he so upset about it? I just a.s.sumed it was you...I mean, that"s why I kept asking you out, because I thought you broke it off with him which meant you didn"t want to be with him anymore."
"We had talked about it. He thought it"d be easier that way but I didn"t want to. He did it anyway."
"Ah, man. What an idiot. I actually felt for sorry for him, moping around."
"Well, I mean, he had a point but I guess I just thought it"d be better to spend our last year together than apart, even if it would be hard for him to go, ya know?"
"Yeah."
"Ok, enough about Chad. Where are you going to school?"
"Good old University of Tennessee."
"So, is that where all your family goes?"
"Pretty much. We try to stay together as much as possible."
"So, where"s, uh..." Just thinking his name made me feel shaky all over again. "Where"s Caleb from?"
"From here, well two towns over. His family lives there along with the rest of our clan. We"re the black sheep who decided to live somewhere else."
"Why?"
"This is where my mom"s parents were from. She and my dad are the last members of our clan to be imprinted. Something is wrong and it"s stopped happening. There are a lot of single people in our clan right now."
"So, n.o.body in your family has gotten married since your parents?"
"Well," he took a long sip of his drink and leaned back. His feet touched mine under the table, I scooted them back. "My uncle got married but it was a big scandal. He wasn"t imprinted, he just married someone from a clan that he fell in love with, big no-no."
"Because he could imprint with someone while already being married to someone else," I said, understanding.
"Yep, I mean, he was thirty one when he got married, no one ever imprints that late, but still. Why chance it? You can"t control it. Think about what his wife would feel if he imprinted with another woman. He wouldn"t be able to control the way he felt."
"So you can love someone even if you aren"t imprinted with them?"
"Yeah," he said softly and looked down quickly so I tried to act like I didn"t notice.
"So, what happens after you imprint? Caleb said something about abilities."
"Nuhuh. That"s his territory. He has to explain it to you."
"Another no-no?" I asked, sensing there was probably gonna be a lot of rules.