Sorry for the lack of update. I blame midterms. And Taylor Lautner's eight pack. These things can be very distracting.

This chapter is not as long as I would have hoped, but I know that some of you were about ready to cut me if I didn't write something. If I promise that they'll be a very interesting development in the chapter after this one, would you forgive me? Enjoy!

Vinnie's POV

Chapter 11

It took me everything I had to hang up the phone on Leah. I had missed her voice so much.

"I still don't understand why it has to be like this," I muttered darkly. "I don't get why I can't even see her, let alone talk to her briefly on the phone."

"It's just the way it is," Sam said irritated. "For now, at least. Are you ready?"

I sighed. It was not as if Sam and I were on the best terms before all this happened; now I was just plain sick of him.

Pending my little explosion –in which I broke the banister at my house, a few picture frames, and the back door –Embry looked like his eyes were about to bulge out of his sockets. He continually kept screaming, "Calm down!" but that didn't exactly help the situation; even though I was not only confused, but felt like my skin was burning and being pulled and stretched in every direction, I still somehow managed to remain enraged from his comment before.

Finally, when my head processed that the golden chunks of color coming from no where were actually me, I got a little worried. Following that, I felt my skin being loosened from its tight stretching and regain to what it was originally.

I did not know what to think at the time. I just sat on my knees –naked –in the snow, which did not feel as cold as it should have, not sure what to do. My eyes stared like crazy on my hands, and I feared I would go back to whatever I was at any moment's notice.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and whipped around quickly to see Embry looking down at me sympathetically.

"Damn," he said, "not you, too."

I did not understand. Why wasn't he running from me? Brother or not, I would be pretty scared if he had turning into a …whatever it was I had just turning into.

"Embry," I said quietly, "what's wrong with me?"

Wordlessly, he offered a hand to me and brought me back to the house. After I put on some clothes, he told me that we needed to go and see Sam.

"Sam? What's he got to do with this?"

"He's like you, Vince. He's like us."

So, between last night and where I was now –camping at Sam and Emily's house with Embry hardly leaving my side –I had learned a lot.

What I was… a werewolf; a shape shifter who turned into a wolf. I had heard the old legends when I was younger, but they bored me so much and didn't exactly pertain to my heritage that I hardly gave them a second thought. I had to control "phasing" by making sure I did not lose my temper too quickly, or I could quite possibly hurt someone.

"I hurt Emily," Sam had explained. "I have never forgiven myself for that."

There was a hierarchy in all this mess, too. "In my pack, I'm the Alpha. I'm in charge, and call the shots. Paul is second in command."

"So, there are other packs?" I asked.

"One other." He didn't seem like explaining further, I guess.

We were currently driving over to see some Elders. Sam was driving, but Embry insisted on coming. For once, I welcomed Em's presence; there was no way to be sure I could keep my proper temper with Sam for very long without someone there to restrain me.

"So, what color is your coat?" Sam asked.

I was confused as I looked down at myself. "This is black, isn't it?"

He grunted, like the world was on his shoulders. "Your fur, I mean."

I glared. "Does it matter?"

"He's got this weird orange-brown color," Embry interrupted. "It's really bright, for some reason. It's just like gold, actually, but I don't know what that means about his personality. There's this weird part on his chest-"

"How close did you get to me?" I asked, annoyed that he knew more about my new wolf body than I did.

"You were nearly attacking me, in case you forgot. Anyways, there's this patch on his left chest. It's dark. Not black, though. I'm not really sure what it is."

Great. Leave it to me to have an abnormality no one else possessed. Not that it wasn't all together weird enough for me to be changing into a different creature, but now there was something wrong with me. Wonderful.

We arrived at Jacob's house, where the two elders had already gathered. I recognized Billy Black immediately. Old Quil was also there, sitting in a chair put next to Billy's wheelchair.

"Vincent," Billy said, "It's nice to see you back home."

"It'd be nicer if I knew what is going to happen to me."

"To be honest, we don't know, either," Old Quil said quietly.

Embry got angry. "What do you mean? He's a werewolf, like the rest of us. What's there to be so conflicting about?"

"For one thing," Billy said, "he isn't Quileute."

That was true. My dad was… well, not here. I'm not at all too sure who he was. My mom's college sweetheart, from what I hear, who skipped out on her when she was pregnant and went with another woman.

"But that's impossible," Sam said. "You have to be Quileute. Maybe…"

"Sam, she didn't even live here when she became pregnant. She went to school in California. There was no way that anyone on this rez could be his father." Billy sighed, exasperated. "He doesn't even look like anyone except his mother."

"Well, what else is the problem?" Embry asked.

"In case it has slipped your mind," Old Quil said, "all of your brothers changed when they were about sixteen or seventeen, with a few exceptions, like the new ones and Seth. It hit at puberty. Why –at his twenty one year old age –has he changed now?"

"Maybe those bloodsuckers have something to do with it."

"Bloodsuckers?" I asked, perplexed. They could not be talking about what I thought they were referring to.

"You know," Embry rolled his eyes, "vampires."

Oh, I guess they were. "They're real?"

"We're here to protect humans from them," Sam explained. "They are our enemies."

"With a few exceptions," I heard Embry mutter.

"That's another story in itself," Billy said. He turned to me. "Vinnie, did you feel ill before all of this happened?"

I shook my head. I did not feel sick, though I was suffering now. My everything hurt, from my head to my skin to my oversensitive eyes.

"Most, if not all, become ill before they change," Billy pointed out.

"Well, maybe he's a different breed or something," Embry shrugged.

Old Quil, Billy, and Sam all glared at him, as if it were the dumbest idea anyone had ever come up with.

Embry got defensive. "What? It's possible, isn't it?"

Billy shook his head. "There has been no account of anyone else being like our tribe. It's impossible."

"Maybe it's in my mom's blood," Embry speculated.

"The Makah tribe condemns and frowns upon our use of magic. They want no part in it. Why would they do that if they themselves have magic in them?"

"Well, I don't know!" he screamed. "But you can't just shove him somewhere. What's going to happen to Vincent?"

Old Quil sighed. "We'll try to proceed as we usually would. He'll be in Sam's pack until something else is figured out."

"Sam's pack?" Embry asked. "Why can't he be with me?"

"All the new wolves go into Sam's pack, Embry."

"But he's my brother!"

"That doesn't matter. Jacob has his, and Sam has everyone else." By this point, I was confused. Did Jacob have a pack, too? He was in on all this? Seeing as how his father was, it didn't seem too farfetched to assume that to be true.

Sam nodded solemnly, as if he meant business. "I'll get him on track, don't worry." He looked over to me with a serious look and said, "C'mon," as he turned to leave the house.

I left with him, not sure still what to do with myself. Everything was happening so fast. In a twenty four hour period, I went from some average guy defending his love to some messed up magical creature. I could hardly keep up.

Sam led me back to his car, and Embry soon followed behind.

"So, what's going to happen first?" Embry asked. "Shape-shifting? Defense practice?"

"Defense practice?" I asked confused.

Embry shrugged. "It's more like Fight Club, actually, except we're wolves."

I just stared at him.

He rolled his eyes. "We aren't typically known for being docile."

I chuckled. "I didn't even know that word was in your vocabulary, Em."

He glared at me, but said nothing as he sat back in his seat.

"First and foremost," Sam said as he drove, "we're getting his hair cut."

"My hair cut?"

"Everyone has to do it. If your hair is long, so will your fur, which can be pretty inconvenient."

"So, a trim, right?" My hair wasn't that long. It didn't even reach my shirt collar, and definitely couldn't be pulled back into a ponytail. But it did have some length to it. It had been styled in the boyish haircut since I lived here. I wasn't one for imagination or change.

Plus, I had a feeling Leah liked it, seeing as how she ran her hands through it while I was half asleep just the other night. That was something worth saving.

"Well, actually, we're shaving it all off. A buzz cut is customary."

I shook my head. "You've got to be joking me."

Right at that moment, I was almost regretting coming back to this small town. I had no time for shifting into magical and mythical creatures to protect from vampires which were roaming the world, and could barge in on our reservation at any one moment. I was starting to think that I should have stayed in good ol' LA, where the sun never stops shining.

Of course, my sun was no where near LA. She was right here in this small town.

I sighed. I guess there was no way to escape this. It was either running away from this and losing her or sucking it up and do whatever the hell it is I'm supposed to be doing.

"Just hurry up and find the damn clippers," I muttered.

"I thought I wasn't supposed to lose control," I asked Sam.

He rolled his eyes for about the thousandth time that night. "You're not."

"But you just said you had to be angry to phase."

"You do."

"Don't you lose control when you're angry?"

"Ugh!" he screamed. "You know, I really thought that teaching someone who was older than me would be easier than teaching the younger ones, but you're more clueless than the pups around here."

I guess I wasn't doing all that well.

After not being able to find any of the hair clippers or shavers, Sam decided to simply teach me the basics. Right now, I was trying to shift into a wolf by being in control and channeling the mood I was in when it happened the first time. When I revealed that I was angry as hell, he said to think about that.

"Well, maybe if you weren't such a terrible teacher, I'd actually be able to get this," I retorted.

"Teacher? I'm not your teacher; I'm your alpha."

"Alpha dog from hell," I muttered.

"You know, with being a werewolf, you get really good hearing."

"I wouldn't have said it in the first place if I didn't intend on you to hear me, Sam."

He stomped over to me. He was taller than me by a good three or four inches, but I swear he made it a point to look down at me as he talked.

"You will address me as Alpha from now on. Not Sam. Alpha."

I rolled my eyes. "Look, Sam, you don't intimidate me. You're still that annoying freshman who tried to hang out with the upperclassmen, like you always have been." That was low, I know, and partly true –he was annoying to me and did hang out with the upperclassmen, who for the most part welcomed him –but this guy was getting on my last nerves.

He shoved me in the arm. "I said Alpha, not Sam. Are you deaf?"

I pushed his chest away from me, though he hardly budged. "Don't touch me, Sam."

I chuckled dryly. "You know, to be honest, I don't see why she even hangs out with you. You're hardly half the man I am."

Oh, now he was done.

As I ran to lunge at him, in midair, the process started again. My skin stretched and grew over my bones, though it hurt significantly less than it did for the first time.

Sam had somehow managed to step out of my line of attack and stared up at me as I stood seven feet to him, finally a little taller than his eye level.

He was smiling. "Sorry I had to go there, Vince, but you wouldn't listen. I had to tick you off."

I growled at him, and immediately stopped when I realized what I was doing. Now I was making animal noises? How divine.

He started taking off his shirt and I eyed him curiously.

He must've noticed, since he said next, "Unlike you, the person who refuses to listen to my advice, I'm going to take off my clothes so that I don't tear them to shreds when I phase. You wrap them around this-" He pointed down to the black cord around his ankle "-so that they keep up with you."

After he stripped down to nothing, he suddenly phased. It was the first time I had seen it for myself, and it was odd looking. His skin seemed to explode into patches of black fur, and his face morphed into a snout. By the time he was done, he looked like an oversized dog.

He patted over to me, and cocked his head to the side, looking confused. He then walked around me, though my head followed his so that I knew my back was never to him. I wasn't in the mood for anymore of his jokes.

As quick as he did before, he phased back. The look of confusion still hadn't left. "Phase back," he simply said.

Yeah, I wanted to say, easier said than done.

He rolled his eyes. "Just think of something calming or whatever. Just… change back. Think that you want to change back, and make it happen."

Calm? Well, she put me into this situation, so it was no surprise that Leah was going to pull me back out. The picture of peace went through my mind: her sleeping next to me.

And just like that, I was back in the snow.

Sam still was puzzled. "What's the problem?" I asked him as he pulled on his shorts.

"The problem? I can't hear you in wolf form, that's the problem?"

Another abnormality with me?

How surprising.

He's starting to sound so cynical and sarcastic isn't he? I suppose it may seem a little OOC for him, but hey, apparently in his time of crisis, he's very much like Leah on a normal basis. Review.

Cocoa