Never Give Up Hope
Chapter 1
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Collin
The waves wash up against the shore at his feet but he doesn't seem to even notice. His mind is a million miles away. Collin had finished patrol once again and he's walking along the beach trying to calm his mind before heading home. He couldn't go straight home after a busy night of chasing vampires. His parents wouldn't understand why he was burning up to the touch or why his eyes had a bit of a yellow hue. His wolf still lingered at the surface so he had learned to take an hour or so to relax before heading in. However, lately, his wolf didn't want to let go of him after he phased back. If anything, it was quite the opposite; he was beginning to claw at the surface wanting more, but Collin couldn't figure out what that was.
After the incident with the Volturi, life on the Res had become much calmer and time carried on, weeks turned into months and even years. There was still the occasional nomad vampire that would unknowingly wander onto the Tribal lands but the Pack had grown to the point that there were more than enough Protectors to cover the shifts. This left Collin with more free time on his hands and a restless wolf to deal with. Most of the older members of the Pack had settled into imprint bliss with happy homes, weddings and a couple of children on the way, but not Collin. He felt as though Life had moved on without him. He had no one to call his own.
As he kicked the random rock along the shore, he ran through his short comings once again in his head. He wasn't the largest wolf in the Pack. He was shy and unassuming, prone to staying at the edge of the group rather than in the middle. He had a stutter that he felt was his stumbling block. It got in the way anytime he tried to talk, but it was worse whenever he tried to talk to a girl. How would he ever find his Imprint if he couldn't even talk to her? Sighing, he sits down in the sand, ignoring the soothing sound of the waves, lost in his own thoughts.
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Raven
When she was given the chance to get off of the Res by graduating high school early, she jumped on the opportunity. Raven went off to Seattle to study art at the University of Washington with the belief that she would never again return to the Res. She wouldn't look back. Her life there had been filled with confusion and heartbreak. She wanted, no needed with every fiber of her being, to move on with her life, to find herself.
As a child, Raven had always been the shyest of them all. She could very easily stay in a corner drawing and coloring, ignoring the world around her, safe in the made up world in her imagination. Her mother had died when she was four and unable to truly cope with the loss, Raven had withdrawn from the world and had no real desire to rejoin it. If it weren't for Aunt Sue who helped raise her alongside her own children Leah and Seth, Raven would have happily spent the rest of her life in her room, locked away from everyone and everything.
As time passed, Raven grew into an introverted teenager who rarely spoke to anyone outside of her family. She kept her head buried in her artwork so that she wouldn't have to interact with anyone with other than her art teacher who eventually convinced her to submit her work to U of WA. Much to their surprise, she had been accepted into the program and was on her way to the escape that she desperately felt she needed.