AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry about the delay. There's just been a lot going on in my life, including but not limited to: unexpected toaster fires, a fever of a 102, other people's wedding showers, final exams involving Shakespeare, and getting my heart broken into a hundred and twenty seven pieces. Hopefully my life has stabilized now. I think it has. Though if anyone has any craft paste, I'd love to borrow it. I hear that works on hearts.

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In the Embry Call Cullen Popularity Contest (or ECCPC for short), Rosalie Hale had always ranked pretty low. At first, of course, they were all down on the same level, vampires who I hated and wanted to kill. Then, as I gradually got to know them, some of them started going up in my opinion, as I found out that they were actually pretty nice or cool, that they made a mean Philly cheesesteak despite being dead and all.

But Rosalie? No, Rosalie had always pretty much stayed right down there at the level of being a vampire who I hated and wanted to kill. The only person in her family that I liked less was Jasper, and not even because of any annoying qualities, just because the guy creeped me out. But Rosalie was second to last. I did not like her. We did not get along.

However, she was now standing between me and my One True Love, which meant that it was in my best interest to convince her that we did.

"Come on, Rosalie," I said, craning over her shoulder to watch Tanya walk away, leaving footprints in the fine powder of ice dust. "I thought we were cool."

"Yeah, well, that was before you started hitting on my best friend."

"I happen to be in love with your best friend," I told her. "It's none of your business."

"Tanya," Rosalie informed me, "is too nice to tell you no. Somebody has to."

"Oh, she's told me no—"

"But she didn't make you leave," Rosalie finished. "That's what I'm here for."

She could do it, too. I mean, in a knock-down-drag-out between me and Rosalie, I'd like to think I would win, but the truth was she could at least keep me where I was, if not push me back. She could do it.

"I just want to make her happy," I said lamely. "She doesn't—seem happy."

"She's not," Rosalie confirmed easily. "She's in love with Edward."

I nearly choked and died, right there. "Edward Cullen?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"You don't choose who you fall in love with, Embry."

This distracted me, if only temporarily. "What, really? Nobody does?"

"You don't choose who you fall in love with," she repeated. "You just look over your shoulder one day and that person catches your eye, and that's just it for you. Just like it happened with Tanya."

God, that sounded a lot like imprinting. If this was what I was missing out on, then maybe it wasn't so bad. At least I knew my love would last forever—which could turn out to be a good or bad thing, really. "Doesn't she know he loves Bella?" I asked logically.

"Don't you know Tanya loves Edward?" she asked right back. "Doesn't make a difference, does it? You just keep hoping."

"I guess so," I said unhappily. "Well, if she's in love with him and he doesn't love her back, don't you think she should move on? To me?"

"No," she said firmly. "I don't. She's still dealing with Edward's rejection, and the last thing she needs right now is men."

"Well, you know, I'm only eighteen, I'm not really a—"

"Embry," she said, and her eyes were doing the hot coals thing again. "I'm serious. Stay away from her."

Here was what I thought: I thought that love was exactly what she needed. I mean, if she was in love with someone who might love her back, then I might have let her go. But I was programmed to do whatever would make her happy, and right now that programming was telling me to keep trying. Because there was no possibility of her and Edward, sorry but there wasn't, if you've ever seen the way he looks at Bella then you know what I mean. That meant that it was pretty unhealthy for her to continue to be in love with him, and that the longer she fixated on him the more unhappy she would be. She needed a distraction.

But not right now. The distracting would have to wait till slightly later, because a) from what I'd heard about the Denali coven, they were mostly a bunch of angry girl vampires, and I was going to have to formulate a strategy for not getting killed, b) I was hungry. This second part was a problem, because there wasn't anywhere terribly handy that I could eat. I was pretty much exiled from the only two places within a hundred miles, and it wasn't exactly like I could just pop off to Burger King. I didn't have a wallet. This was one of the inherent problems with being a werewolf, that you couldn't really take these kinds of things with you. Pants, maybe, if you were really thinking straight, but money? ID? It wasn't exactly like we had pockets.

That left me with one possibility, and it wasn't a fun one. You see, technically, while we were in our wolf form, we could…be wolves. We could run down a deer and eat it, if we had to. If we really, really had to—because as good as it might taste when we were wolves, raw deer meat didn't settle that well in a human stomach when we had to shift back. Just thinking about it made my face screw up in disgust, but I was sort of out of options. Raw deer meat it was.

I jumped into wolf form, hoping that my claws would at least have better traction on the ice—and they did, but I very quickly stopped worrying about it. That was because the instant I changed, I almost blew out the speakers in my brain. It was like when your radio is turned up all the way and you don't notice as you're turning it on—and the first notes you get are so loud they're on the Richter scale, you're scrabbling to turn it down before you have an aneurism. I could have sworn that every single person in the world was shouting at me in my head at the same time.

Turns out, it was only five or six of them. Sam's bass thoughts came through pretty clearly, but it was Quil who was shouting the loudest, and Sam soon hushed everyone up in favor of him anyway. It was Quil who had the most important things to say.

Embry, he said. Embry, you have to come back.

What, to Paskiak? I asked in surprise. Um, I don't think so. I kind of may have gotten into a little bit of a faceoff—

Oh, I know all that, Quil said impatiently, and your dad does, too, and he still wants you to come back.

My dad wants me to come back? Well, color me astonished. Not what I was expecting to hear basically ever, in my entire life. Did he say that? I wouldn't put it past Quil to try to make me feel better.

He told me to tell you, Embry, Quil confirmed. He says he's sorry, and he wants you to come back.

Oh, I said blankly. Still trying to figure out how to react to this. Okay. Um. Is he—not angry, then?

I told him about you imprinting on Tanya, Quil explained. I mean, yeah, he was mad and confused at first, everybody was—did you really get between her and the pack?

Um, yeah, I said, like it should be obvious. They were going to kill her.

Well, yeah. She's a vampire.

Yes, I said, but she's my vampire.

Whatever, Quil said neutrally. I guess I have to leave, anyway.

What?

It seems that this pack doesn't really believe in outsiders, Sam broke in dryly. They're pretty much kicking Quil out.

What? That's ridiculous! So I'm suddenly welcome, and my best friend is out? Man, when I get back there—

Embry, Sam scolded. We have to be respectful of their traditions. This isn't your pack.

We'll see about that, I grumbled, dodging between trees, leaving my oversized tracks behind me.

Now, Sam said. What's this about you imprinting on a vampire?

I don't want to talk about it.

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It was always a strange feeling to be waited for. Whether it was a surprise party or an after-school road trip, it was always weird to show up and find there was someone expecting you, just waiting for you to get there. It was especially eerie, I discovered, when most of them were people you didn't actually know.

When I got back to Paskiak, I found what must have been half the village circled in front of the woods, like a net to catch me when I came out of them. It was a little alarming, to say the least. I almost turned right around and ran the other way.

Embry. I recognized my dad's voice from the huge gray wolf in the middle of the pack—white crescent patch of fur on his muzzle. I'm glad you're back.

Are you really? I said edgily. Because it kind of looks like you're all waiting to kill me.

His laughed in his thoughts, the sound rolling through my head like low thunder. We're not going to kill you, Embry. Don't be silly.

I usually try not to be. What's—um…what's up? What's going on?

Embry, he said seriously. We're staging an intervention.

A what?

We know you're in love with a vampire, son, Kenai told me. We're going to help you.