"Quil...have you told Claire yet?" Great. On top of the pack, and Claire herself, who was painful for me to say no to, her mother was bugging me to tell her. Luckily I would have to in a few hours.

It was Claire birthday. Well, not quite. She would turn thirteen in a few hours, and my head was already pounding.

"I will. I promise." Like I couldn't not tell her. I rubbed my temples. I just wanted to curl up into a little ball--preferably as a wolf--and hide. Along with my head, something I didn't need at all, because I had decided to tell her anyways, my heart was pounding. Painfully. I was scared...so scared I wouldn't even admit it to myself, and the pack were the only ones who knew. But even they couldn't understand. What if she hates me? What if that...boy...Jack or whatever his name is, pulls her into his influence, and turns her against me? He already is. I can see it...she's always talking to him, and I just...I mean...I wouldn't object, except...he's bad for her. I just know he is. I'd decided to tell her because...well, I just don't think she should suffer for my selfishness. I need her not to suffer. She can't. It hurts me more than it hurts her. I hate to be something that causes her pain.

"Good." Megan walked away. I sighed in relief. I needed to prepare myself before Claire got home.

So, I went running. Jared and Embry were out too, and I was instantly assailed by some horrible singing. It was Jared, and he was trying to hide something from me. Embry was hiding it too, but using much less painful tools to do so.

They added their "good luck's" and their sympathy to the huge pile already there from the others. But I could tell their relief was just as much as their understanding, just like everyone else. Had I really been that annoying?

"Yeah, you have, Quil." I flinched. "Sorry," Embry added. "It's okay, Quil. She won't hate you. She can't. Remember, soul mates, right?" Jared snorted, and I stayed quiet. I didn't know what to believe...

"So, just a few hours now, huh?" Jared said through the blaring music, if you could call it that, in his brain.

"Not much longer...though I don't know if after is going to be any better." Embry.

"You guys are supposed to be supportive," I complained.

"Oh, deal with it." Jared was suddenly impatient. He grumbled in his thoughts, and the song became choppy. He was loosing it. What was up with him?

"Nothing is up with me, Quil. Nothing at all." He phased before I could respond. Now it was just Embry and me. And no singing. Phew.

"What was up with him?" I asked Embry.

"Nothing really. Just some problems with Kim..." I could tell that whatever it is it must be pretty bad.

"He'll tell you if he wants to." Embry. Always so helpful.

"I'm serious. Hey, if he was hiding it from you it means he doesn't want you to know! Just leave it alone. He'll tell you when he wants to." Yeah. That song he was singing in his head sure did the trick. It gave me a headache close to the one Sam's order is.

Embry did the wolf equivalent of shaking his head in his brain. "Poor Quil... but thank god for Sam."

"You know what? I think I'm leaving." I growled at him. He didn't need to be so mean. Was it me, or were all my friends against me today? I phased, and the pounding in my head increased. Claire was home from school; I had no more excuses now. After getting dressed, I walked slowly to her house, despite the pain, which was morphing closer to agony with each step.

"Claire?" My voice was weak, wavering.

"Yeah?" She called from the kitchen. I walked in and sat at the table, the pain in my head making me dizzy. I'm telling her, all right? I am, just stop that! Nothing happened. I didn't think it would.

"Are you okay?" She asked me, concerned.

"Yea--No. No, I'm not. Happy birthday. I need to tell you something."

Claire's POV

He was going to tell me. Finally, after all this time, he was going to tell me! I couldn't believe it. "Really?" I asked eagerly.

"Yes." He sighed, and rubbed his forehead hard. He looked like he was in pain. "What's wrong?" I asked him.

"Nothing...No, Claire. Sam made me tell you." He mumbled. Uncle Sam? Suddenly my mind flashed back to where the big black wolf crashing into the pale man...Quil, saying something about Sam, Sam's got it...

He was part of this too. He was part of this secret. Were they all? Leah, Sam, Quil. My friends and family. I wouldn't be surprised if Annie suddenly told me she was part of it too.

"Sam's part of it too, isn't he." I said to Quil. It wasn't really a question.

"Yes, but let me tell you, Claire, please." His tone was begging now, like he had to, like something would happen to him if he didn't. I nodded.

"Okay. Claire..." His voice was desperate. "Claire...the reason I haven't told you is me, not you. I would have told you that day when you were eleven, when you realized something was off with me." His dark brown, almost black, eyes moved up to my face and found mine. He held them there, and I stared back at him, entranced. "It's all me...If you hate me after this...I'll..." His voice trailed off. "Understand." He finished. His voice sounded full of pain, and he didn't look like he would understand at all.

"I won't hate you, Quil." What could ever make me hate him? But I thought back to what Jack was saying at school, and how guilty I felt when I had doubted Quil. He looked up at me now, his eyes full of hope, and something else. But he was pained, and I could see he was anxious to get his secret out.

"Claire..." he seemed to be struggling for words. "You remember when you were two, I was always here, with you, since you were two. Since the first time I saw you." Yes. I nodded. I don't remember it, but my mom told me.

"Claire...I look exactly the same as I did eleven years ago. I haven't aged a gray hair, or a wrinkle, or anything."

"So is that it? You don't age?" That was kinda freaky, but I was used to it. I knew that much, as much as I didn't believe it.

He laughed humorlessly. "Nope." His lips popped on the "p". "Claire...Me, and Leah, Sam, Jake, Embry, Jared, Seth...all of them. Most of my friends. We're all...werewolves." He cut off. I was frozen. "It's not the kind you read about, Claire. It has nothing to do with the full moon, and we don't eat people." He spoke in a rush, as if he wanted to get it out. As if he wanted to convince me that he was good, not bad. "We actually here to protect people. Against..." He paused, unsure if he should go on. I still hadn't said a word.

"The cold ones." Cold ones? I remembered the myths, of course, about the cold ones that the...werewolves made a treaty with. And the newly added story, about how, about ten years ago, eleven, about how the wolves fought WITH some of their enemies, against more cold ones. Vampires. Ten years ago. Eleven. That's when Quil said he saw me for the first time, as if that held some important thing I didn't understand. My brain was running in circles.

"You were...you were in that battle?"

"Yeah. That was one hell of a fight..." He trailed off, his eyes lost. But he snapped back into focus. He looked at me warily, assessing my reaction. But I still haven't decided what my reaction was. What was I supposed to think when the boy, man, teenager, whatever he was, who had been around since I was two, who I loved--did I?--and who had never did anything to hurt me told me he, his friends, and my uncle were all werewolves? And werewolves who protected people from vampires...like that man I saw? Was he a vampire? And were those wolves who saved me from him...who? Uncle Sam? Embry, Seth...Leah?

"That man..." I said to Quil, who instantly tensed and looked angry. "Was he...?"

"Yes." Quil's voice was soft, and he was looking at me with concern. I looked down and started picking at the table.

"And the...wolf?"

"Sam and...Sam was the big black one who crashed into the bloodsucker." My Uncle Sam. I shook my head. This was getting to be too much. But..."Uncle Sam and who? Who was the other one, the reddish one?"

Quil looked uncertain. "Jacob." He said. Jacob? He was one too? I laid my head against the table. It was cool, and soothed my throbbing head. I don't know why this didn't bother me, other than giving me a headache, but that was just from trying to imagine all of Quil's friends, MY friends, as giant wolves. I mean, it should bother me. Quil, a werewolf?

"What color are you?" I asked him. He seemed surprised that I wasn't more afraid, freaked out, running out of the room screaming.

"You aren't going to run away screaming? You're not afraid to touch me? A monster?" His voice was bitter at the end.

"You aren't a monster." I laughed, but Quil still looked tense. "So, what color are you?"

"Brown. Chocolate brown."

"I love chocolate." I said. Totally off topic, I know.

"I know." He laughed, suddenly lighter.

"So...who knows about this? Does everyone except me?"

"No...just the elders, the pack, and...your mother. Plus the pack's im--girlfriends and wifes. Like Emily to Sam." My mom. My own mom knew about this and was fine with it? I couldn't believe it.

"So I shouldn't tell anyone?"

"No. You can't."

"But...why do I get to know?"

Quil's POV

Why does she get to know. What a great question. Should I tell her? My head, still pounding even after I told Claire, answered it for me. Of course. Sam wouldn't let me get off with just part of it.

"Claire." I said softly. She was so beautiful sitting there, picking at the peeling table-top. Her hair, above her shoulders, glistened black like her eyes. I gazed at her, and she looked up at me. "What?" She asked, self-conscious. I shook my head. I couldn't...She had taken it so well, how could I ruin it with another piece of news even she probably wouldn't be able to handle? But Sam made that part of the command, too. I rubbed my temples again, but it didn't do anything to the pain, gradually growing.

"Quil...do you have a headache or something?" She was too perceptive...

"Yeah. Well, it's not a normal headache." She might as well know everything about the pack. "When Sam, the leader, the alpha, gives an order, when he means it as an order, we just can't disobey. It makes my head hurt when I don't do what he said when I'm supposed to."

She looked at me, puzzled. "What's he making you do now?"

"You're quick." I smiled at her. "Um...I was supposed to tell you."

"Tell me! So you never wanted to in the first place? You're only doing it because Uncle Sam's ordering you to, for some reason, but you don't want to?"

"Claire...no, at first, when he set the order, a while ago, I didn't. It didn't have to do with you, Claire, it was me. I was...scared. But before I told you...I wanted to. Sam's order was just on top of that. I knew I needed to tell you, and if you hated me...well, then you hated me, and there's nothing I can do about that. Claire, believe me. Please." If she had hated me when I told her... the thought was unbearable, and I guess my feelings showed on my face because it seemed like she believed me.

"Fine." She glowered at me for a few moments, then said, "So what else? You have to follow orders from Sam...what else? Do you change at the full moon?"

I laughed. "Myth. But you've heard the legends."

"Yeah, but I forgot them."

"Oh. Well, no, we change when we get angry. We can also change at will. But mostly when we get angry, when we can't control it."

Understanding dawned on her face. "So that day by the forest..." She gasped. "You turned into a wolf when you ran off?"

"Yep."

"Wow. So what else?"

"What do you mean, what else?" The pain was getting too much, I distracted myself with listening to her voice.

"Like...you know." She shrugged.

"We don't get sick, because our temperatures are so high. One-oh-eight something..."

She put out a hand and touched me. My arm tingled where her fingers brushed my skin. "That's why you're so hot. So it doesn't have to do with a fast metabolism anyways." She laughed at me. "I can't believe I was that gullible."

She stood up. "So, why am I allowed to know this? Why have you been around since I was two? And how old are you, anyways?"

I answered the easy question first. "If you count how long I've been alive? Twenty-something. Really? Sixteen."

"Sixteen? Wow...but you still haven't answered the other question."

"It's called imprinting. It's what happened with Sam and Emily. Jared and Kim. It's like..."

"It happened...to...me?" She asked. Her voice was fainter than when I had told her about me being a werewolf.

"To me, when you were two."

"But Uncle Sam...and Aunt Emily? And Jared and Kim? They're...they're like..." She trailed off.

"I know. It happens with babies, but it's not like that. It's not romantic. Jacob described it as...gravity moves. You're...you're like the sun...to me." I felt my face getting hot as the blood rushed in.

She stared at me, speechless.

"Claire..." I was waiting for the running, the screaming, still. At least the pain in my head had stopped.

She recovered. "I'm not going to go running screaming out of the room, Quil. Relax. I'm just confused. If you don't...love me, like Uncle Sam and Aunt Emily, Jared and Kim...then, what?"

"Oh, Claire, I do love you." More than you know."

"But..." She yanked on a strand of her hair and wrapped it around her finger. Once, unwrap. Twice, unwrap. It was hypnotizing. I reached out and grabbed her hand. She stopped, and I heard her heart start racing.

She still looked confused, but I would explain it to her better later. At least, now, she knew. And she didn't hate me. That's all that mattered.