Beauty and the Beast | Embry Call [HIATUS]

quatorze

If he wasn't comfortable with her then fine. If he didn't want the imprint to be the true love, soulmate kind that she felt, then she was perfectly content with harbouring those feelings to herself until the end of her times.

"It's this house, the surprise one for Bella and Edward. I'm trying to sketch it, to draw it not as a blueprint, but every time I do it feels like something is missing and now I'm just worried that the actual house is going to turn out terrible because my design was bad."

He watches her silently, only a second, and it drags on forever. "Let's go check it out, then. Look at it yourself."

"I- I'm not sure it's a good idea."

"Why not?"

"It's, well, it would be just the two of us that would be going," she says nervously, licking her lips as her eyes dart away from his steady, calm expression.

"Why would that be a problem?" he asks, head tilting in a way that reminded her so much of a puppy.

Her metaphorical heart stuttered. "You don't have a problem with us going together... alone?"

Embry shifts on his feet. "It should be fine. Right? There shouldn't be any issues."

Reyna swallows thickly as she nods, putting aside her sketchbook in a flash and darting to his side -- kitten heels pressing into the soft earth.

He stiffens when she appears at his side so quickly and she doesn't press him to be comfortable with her. She wasn't dumb. She knew that no matter how much he pretended to be okay having her around that he wasn't comfortable with what she was. Reyna knew that if he could choose then he would have imprinted on anyone else as long as they weren't a vampire.

"Are you ready to walk now?"

"If you're ready."

Smiling thinly, she takes off at a slow pace, waiting until she heard him following before she began to walk more swiftly.

She didn't want to force him into anything, not when she had made her position clear. Not when she had made so many attempts to reach out to him and he hadn't taken a single one.

The closest she had got was the night that he had been in her room and Bella had called -- still, she wouldn't change any of that for a moment because Renesmee was sweet and precious and she loved that little girl more than she had ever thought she could ever love another a child that wasn't her own.

And wasn't it terrible that it was the closest she would ever have to a child now? Her dream of a job and a family were nothing now because of what she was, but she supposed this was the second-best thing.

Reyna wasn't going to start pitying herself or being pessimistic now. The Cullen's had told her how easy it was for them to fall into the depression that came with the change in lifestyle, the self-hatred that they felt for the things that they've done.

She had done horrible things, despicable things, but she wasn't going to let herself dwell on that when she was better than that now. She wasn't like that anymore, she could do better.

Embry stayed close at her side as they walked through the forest in easy, companionable silence.

She wasn't sure what he was liked usually with the people that he trusted and the people he liked, but with her, he was quiet, more thoughtful than even she was. He wasn't much like his wolf brothers and sister, not from what she could tell, and part of her worried that maybe it was just some sort of front he was putting on to try and fit in with her to make her happy.

Part of her said to just turn him away, send him back home so that he didn't have to pretend and that she didn't have to pretend to be none the wiser. If this is what they were going to turn into them they were better off apart.