It felt like Collin was leading me to my execution when we arrived back on the Rez. His pace slowed as he slipped a hand protectively around my waist that was now thankfully covered by a shirt he'd had with him. On any other day I would have shirked the gesture but as we approached the Council Building I felt my anxiety spike. I had thought that we were going to meet with the Elders and discuss what happened at the hospital.

"Step aside Collin," But the pack members apparently had different ideas. They seemed to just appear out of the shadows of the building, blocking our entrance, arms folded as they focused on us in the dark. "This doesn't concern you." Collin pulled me closer in response.

"It doesn't concern you either."

"Oh yes it does." Another of Embry's pack decided to speak. "She killed an Elder. She murdered one of her own. You know pack law."

"And who says she killed an elder?" No one answered. "Did you ask her? Did she say it?" The pack members shared a look between themselves.

"It doesn't matter. Quil told us what happened. He was visiting Old Quil, she went in to visit him, she left and his grandfather was dead. End of story."

"Not end of story," Collin snapped back. "Did Quil tell you what happened in that room? Did he explicitly say she killed him? Was he in there? Were you? No! She's the only one that knows what happened in there. So if you'll excuse us we have a meeting with the council-"

"We can't let you do that." Collin looked surprised at his friends, I noticed. Apparently they were acting out of character as well. "It doesn't matter what you say Collin, she's a murderer."

Detrick stepped forward and placed a hand Collin's shoulder. "Listen man, you don't have to protect her. Maybe Embry can find a way to reverse the imprint then you won't have to suffer when-" Collin growled and yanked Detrick's hand away from his shoulder. Detrick put up his hands in surrender as he backed up to join the others.

"Does Brady know you guys are doing this?"

"Brady doesn't exactly see eye to eye with us on this." One tried to explain logically. "But don't worry-"

"And what about Quil? Did he tell you to come interrogate us before –"

"This isn't about you Collin," Someone cut in. "This is about that witch and what she did. She wronged the beta! She acted irresponsibly twice and used her abilities to kill an Elder of the tribe. You can't save her, she has to be punished." I'd had enough by this point, they were arguing over me as if I wasn't there and Collin trying to protect me when it was unwarranted, un-wanted. I had protected myself up to this point, I would continue to do so.

"And what punishment is that?" I snapped as I stepped away from Collin. He looked over at me his eyes pleading with me probably to be silent but I ignored him. "And how exactly do you plan on exacting this punishment?"

"Death," was the only answer. "And we will have the burden of carrying out the deed." I scoffed internally. Burden. Funny. They had been wanting to tear me to shreds for years now.

"I'd like to see you try you bunch of ignorant lazy selfish idiots." Collin reached his hands out as if trying to keep the circle around us from attacking me despite our defensive crouches we had already sank into.

"Wait, just wait!" Collin was begging desperately but no one was hearing him. "You have no grounds to attack her."

"We have all the grounds. Besides the only one who'll be affected is Leah and we can handle her, she can't be any worse than before." I didn't have time to dwell on the fact that they were talking about how she acted when they were all younger.

"If you attack her I won't hesitate to thrash all of you." That statement actually caused the others to pause. A few laughed but one thing I could attest to was that Collin wasn't lying. While these posers were lounging around waiting for the occasional vampire to wander onto their land, Collin was with our pack fighting and training every other day.

He actually could take them on.

But the idiot probably shouldn't goad all of them at the same time.

"Collin, we understand you think you love her but-"

"You don't understand anything. She's not guilty of what you think she is-"

"You can't think she's innocent?"

"I'm not saying she's innocent," he paused to lock eyes with me for a moment before turning to look back at the others, "I'm saying she's not guilty of murder. I'm not gonna be ignorant of other things she's done but I'm not going to stand here and let you hurt her because of me." Everyone went silent. I had known that Collin both despised and needed me. Through the years he'd probably cried to his friends how unfair it was that I hated him but the truth was…the truth was that I did-

"What is going on here?!"


A/N:I fell off the face of the planet again...and I may not make a reappearance after this until the semester ends. Hopefully not. Anyways...next chapter I've been working on and re-writing and deleting and trying again and trying to lengthen and BLAH for like months. It was hard but I hope it suffices.