A/N: I am so sorry for not having an update sooner, but as I am writing this on the evening of Christmas Day, I feel like I do have a good excuse. I chose to spend time with my family up until Christmas, and I have been working to plan out the rest of the story, although there are still a lot of loose ends. Think the dark side of Romeo and Juliet.

xxx

I felt my fur bristle, my paws clench tightly into the compacted earth below me. Being a wolf was, admittedly, a completely different experience. The colors that I could now see in my wolf vision, were different to the colors you and I would come to recognize on any normal day. They were all mixed around, and many of them were new, to me at least, and I couldn't imagine names for them. For example grass, which should have been green, and vibrant, looked dull in its new shade of whatever you would describe that gray and brown to be.

My senses seemed heightened as well. I could almost hear the comforting breathing of Paul who stood next to me, and the birds which fluttered noisily a few trees away from us sounded as if they were firing a gun with each flap of their wings, although just by listening, I could still hear the strange sense of distance between me and them. My nose tingled as the new scents around me overwhelmed it's usually poor sense of smell. I could sort of smell the heat vibrating off of my pack mates, and the ground too, smelt warm and dense, and it was like I could sense that if I dug just a little bit, I would reach the grubs and insects which were roosting comfortably just below my paws.

I felt my mind slip into the void of non-reality as shock overtook my body, and made me have an out of body experience within my own head. It was probably the reason behind why I was now recognizing all of these amazing abilities that I had gained with shifting. My mind was trying to balance out the pros and the cons of being a wolf. Knowing that I would be at this heightened sense of realization if I stayed a wolf, I was more than happy to remain in my wolf form for eternity. There was nothing in my human life worth living for anymore.

In my wolf form I could still communicate with Sam, occasionally, but it meant that he wouldn't be on my case any more. I wouldn't have to worry about socializing with the 'idiots' that seemed to circulate my daily life; after all, wolves can't speak. Finding a place to sleep would really only mean finding a nice patch of grass to lie down on. Life would be so much simpler. My mind wandered around in a daze, simply ignoring all that was happening in the reality of the world around me. I ignored the speech, which seemed to fly back and forth between my brother and Jacob. The conversation, which I saw as futile, appeared to be taxing on both of their great minds, and they seemed to be struggling to find one solution for every hundred questions that they unearthed.

Even the thoughts of my pack mates felt distant although I could still make them out. Annoying though it was, it is harder to ignore four mental voices invading my mind than it is to ignore two normal voices, which had yet the break the mental barrier of this haze.

Despite the rather immediate sensation of feeling lost in the numbed shock of my head, I couldn't escape the penetrating eyes of one wolf in particular. He just wouldn't quit staring at me. Any normal girl would start getting overexcited and worked up about how 'he' was totally into 'me'. Unless you are blind as a bat, you've noticed how not normal I am. More than anything, I wanted to go over to where he stood and slap some sense into him. I could not, however for two reason. One is that I would essentially be breaking the treaty by crossing over the line that separated our two territories. Only Sam and Jake were allowed to cross that line without a declaration of war. The second was that slapping him with wolf paws would be a tiny bit difficult, and being surrounded by males, I didn't fancy shifting in front of them.

So I was forced to just let him stare at me, and ignoring it did not help me forget or numb the sensation of his eyes one me. They bore into the deepest parts of me; it was as if his eyes had cut me open, and he insisted upon examining every piece of information about me. I shot him a quick glare, but his eyes held mine to his. Despite the minor inconvenience of the time and place, I couldn't stop staring at his deep, warm eyes. How had I not noticed him before?

Any previous annoyance or irritation I held against him for staring, rather rudely at me, was flung out the door. My irking conscience insisted that I stopped staring, to protect my reputation from being jeered at, and to stop attracting so much goddamn attention. I removed my eyes from his, to look around the clearing, and noted that only Collin appeared to notice my inability to stop staring at … him. I gave him a look which said tell-anyone-and-I'll-rip-your-throat-out, to which he simply nodded, awestruck.

My eyes returned to his for the briefest of seconds, and I shook my head slightly, trying to tell him that, we could never be. Sam would never approve. The pack's would fight, and I really didn't need to be the cause of another burden on my poor brothers back.

The meeting seemed to drag on as I forced myself not to look back to him. My eyes kept on veering back to his, clear, calm ones, but I stuck them forward. He must know that we could never work out. Twenty minutes later and I was practically begging with myself not to look as I followed Paul out of the clearing. No one was thinking anything, not even Collin, although I knew he was dying to say something. My constant glares at him kept him quiet.

Five minutes after leaving, and I felt as if I had a world of pressure bearing down on my mind and body. I tried desperately not to think of him, but it was nearly impossible. Paul and Jared had run off, with the excuses that they needed to get back to their girlfriends. Brady had run off with Sam. They were going back to Emily's for some dinner. Collin remained with me. We simply walked side by side in wolf form. As soon as we felt all four other presences leave our minds, he was the one to break the silence. 'What are you going to do?' he thought.

'Nothing' I replied. I could not afford to fall in love.

'What?! But you love him! I can see it in your eyes! And in his! You can't just ignore it Ave!' he thought back.

'Well what are you suggesting I do? I'm already a burden to Sam and this pack! He doesn't need any more problems, and you know what Jake would think if there was love in-between the packs! I don't want to be responsible for a war!' I thought.

Collin held his tongue for once. He simply shook his head and sighed. We walked in silence for a few moments before he found the courage to speak to me through our minds again. When he did, all he said was, 'You can't fight true love. It doesn't work that way.' Before he ran off into the undergrowth.

He didn't shift back for a long time, but we didn't keep up a conversation. I could see through the pictures in his mind that he was running the border. I knew I ought to be doing the same, but I couldn't think straight. Running away from my problems didn't look like it was going to work this time. I simply couldn't abandon the one thing that Collin had said to me that gave my heart hope. I shifted, changing back into my clothes, and sat down on the cold earth. The moon and the stars fought off the sun, and I knew I had a few hours to think before the others would come looking. 'But you love him! I can see it in your eyes! And in his!'. Collin's words rebounded though my brain.

Did Collin really mean what he thought? Or was he just getting me worked up over nothing? I couldn't decipher his meaning behind his words, although he had been known to tease before, and I didn't have the courage in me to ask … him. I remained at a loss. It was a while before I noticed the silvery tears striking my cheek and dripping onto my lap. I hadn't cried in four years, and now that I was, it was over some stupid boy, who I couldn't seem to get out of my head. This made me angry. How dare he stare at me! How dare he make me feel so confused and lost! 'Four whole years I had kept my true emotions locked away, and one look from him and they are suddenly free to range and cause me sadness! It's not fair!' I thought in my rage. Banishing from my thoughts was hard, but I was determined to keep anyone from seeing me like this. No one was allowed to know that I, Avery Uley, was crying in the forest over some stupid boy.

Collins words yet again rang through my head as I stood up determinedly. 'You can't fight true love. It doesn't work that way.' "Well watch me then." I said, striding forward. No one got to make me cry. No one.

xxx

A/N: Just curious as to who you guys think the mysterious 'He' is. Hope you liked it, and the next update should be soon!