Chapter Four:

Even though I had met some of the local residents earlier in the day, I couldn't shake the horrible anxiety that ran through me as the crowd stood and sat around the fire, eyes momentarily shifting toward my siblings and I every so often, even though we weren't being discussed at the moment. "As we sit around the fire tonight, know this: these protectors are not just legends to us. They are a part of us, our strength, our legacy, our courage." A man spoke and I was grateful for the story he had told.

He had been talking about a legend of protectors that were given the spirits of wolves in order to protect the tribe from enemies and though I worried that the tale would give Noah nightmares, I was thankful for the distraction.

"Tonight, we gather as one people, one family, bound by our ancestors to welcome Tobias Lark's children, Aria, Benjamin, and Noah with open hearts into our family once again. Welcome home." The speaker said suddenly and it was soon after he was finished speaking that people began to navigate their ways to us. It was overwhelming of course, the many introductions of names that I wouldn't remember and the well wishes. Considering that Noah was still very young, he seemed excited by all of the attention and I was thankful for it because it kept a little bit of the attention off of me but finally the introductions fizzled out and people went back to conversations amongst other attendees.

"There's Seth! I'm gonna go say hi." Ben announced, parting from my side and rushing off to his friend.

"I want to play with them!" Noah insisted, tugging on dads jacket as he pointed out toward a couple of children his age seemingly playing tag away from the fire.

"Go ahead," Dad insisted, just as a man approached him with conversation about an upcoming fishing trip.

Just as I was about to excuse myself to step away from all of the conversation around me in favor of watching how the moonlight reflected off of the waves in the distance, I heard a feminine voice calling out for me. "Aria!" It was Leah, waving me over as she stood beside Emily.

"Hey, were you just trying to sneak off?" Leah teased, causing for my cheeks to darken with embarrassment.

"No, I just felt a little overwhelmed for a second. There's a lot of names to remember and I actually used to live here when I was a kid, I guess it makes me wonder if people remember me me that I don't remember or what they must think of me." I admitted as the three of use began to walk further from the crowd.

"What they think of you? I can promise that no one thinks anything negative of you." Emily stated as if it was a ridiculous thought.

"You're telling me that no one has ever said anything about my mother?" I asked sarcastically.

"I mean, that's a completely different story but no one thinks badly of you because of what happened between your parents. You can't help that it didn't work out." Leah commented.

Feeling a wave of courage swim through me, I decided that I would push further. I both dreaded and wondered how my mother was perceived by people here. My parent's relationship went much further than simply not being able to work out. "Is there ever conversation about what happened between them here? Like… what went wrong?" I asked.

We had stopped walking at this point and Leah gestured for us to sit on the sand. She sat tucking her legs beneath her while Emily chose to sit with her legs out in front of her and crossed at the ankle while I sat criss-crossed.

"We we're both still really young back then, I remember my parents wanting for you to get the opportunity to play with me and Leah growing up since you were only a few years younger than me and so close in age to Leah but I remember your mom not really wanting that. She was extremely protective of you and your brother from what I could remember." Emily explained with a sigh.

"I remember overhearing a conversation between my parents and your dad about it after she left. From the way that he explained it she didn't trust any of us, she was afraid of-" Leah started but Emily finished for her.

"Us." Emily said, glancing over at Leah. The two seemed to hold one another's gaze for a long moment and I wondered if suddenly, I was missing something. I wasn't quite sure of what words were going unspoken here but immediately my mind went to the place of wondering if they felt that my mother didn't accept them because of prejudice but I had never known my mother to be like that. In a weird way I just took relief in hearing that they were seemingly unaware of just how insane my mother turned out to be.

Just when I was about to open my mouth again and speak, a figure dropped down behind Emily and a man extended his long legs on either side of her while wrapping his arms around her. With a wide grin on his expression, he pressed a kiss to her cheek as if they were the only two in the room and won a giggle out of her. "Guess who." He mumbled to her but instead of greeting him, Emily smiled up at me.

"Aria, this is Sam. He's my fiancé." She said without even having to turn around make sure that some random man hadn't decided to just sneak up and catch her, as if she could just tell that it was him by the feel of his skin or the scent of him. "Sam this is Aria, Tobias' daughter."

"Nice to meet you Aria." Sam said with a grin and before I could respond, a couple of other figures also approached us directing my attention to a man that easily found his seat beside me and another that stopped in his tracks as my eyes met his.

It was a strange thing that happened next, something difficult to describe altogether. It felt like electricity was moving through me in an odd way that made goosebumps spread over my arms and legs. I didn't know if this was meant to be interpreted as a sign that I needed to get away or if my body was telling me that I was meant to be here experiencing this moment. Heat flooded my cheeks as the man's gaze went from one of momentary curiosity to some form of annoyance following the furrow of his brows.

I figured that expression alone was one that told me that I was in fact not meant to be here.

"Why are you guys sitting so far away from the fire?" The man beside me asked and instantly, as if that was enough of an escape, I stood up abruptly causing for all eyes to turn to me in confusion as my eyes stayed on the man standing.

"I actually don't know, I'm regretting it though." I announced, finally tearing my gaze away from his angry one and looking at the other's in the group who seemed to take on a quiet as they looked between us that I was growing uncomfortable with. "I'm not feeling well, I'll see you all around, okay?" I said and walked away from the group without waiting around for an answer.

Paul

Why her?

Imprinting was supposed to be a rare thing. Something so rare that I had somehow just imagined that it would never happen to me and yet, it did and multiple other pack members could attest to that.

Tonight was supposed to be about getting the opportunity to relax, eat, and drink without worrying about my duty as a pack member or shapeshifter in general but now I had to worry about this?

"Well, that went well." Jared said with a grin, glancing across from himself at Leah who also seemed to smile to herself in amusement but dropped her gaze down to the sand that she used a finger to draw in.

Annoyance began to bubble up inside of me—far before Jared opened his big mouth to comment on what had just happened but even more now that he had. I didn't know the girl but I had overheard Emily introduce her to Sam and knowing that she was Tobias' daughter made fear course through me the second that my eyes landed on hers and I began to realize what was happening because I could see that we were bound to have the same fate as her parents. That was when the frustration settled into place.

"You have to navigate this carefully, Paul. She's been through a lot and she just got here a couple of days ago. She's still settling in." Sam said and despite the seriousness of his tone, he wasn't speaking to me as an alpha, he was speaking to me as a friend.

I didn't know the girl's mother personally but I had heard plenty about her before. You couldn't get away with living on the reservation without hearing the precautionary tale of Tobias and Mae. Tobias being the tragically in love boy who fell for a girl outside of the reservation, getting her pregnant twice and then disclosing that he was capable of shifting into a wolf. From what I heard, she hated him for it. She hated everyone around them for keeping the secret from her to. She even went as far as to leave him, taking her kids with her because she couldn't stand what he was—the man that she had sworn for better or for worse with at some time. I'm not sure how he managed to have another child with her years later. Honestly, no one knew about that last kid until recently.

Really the only thing that I had going for myself right now was that her father had never imprinted on her mother like I had.

"I'm not even sure if Tobias was planning on telling his children about any of this." Leah admitted, "Mom's been trying to convince him that it's the right thing to do but he's really worried about doing it."

"Why? Because he let some woman make him feel ashamed about what he is?" I couldn't help snapping at the woman. "It's an honor to be what we are and he stopped shifting altogether because of some bit-"

"Easy." Sam said, his tone shifting as if he was ready to give an order.

"He just doesn't know what stories she's fed to them this whole time. They could be afraid of all us because of her." Leah clarified, remaining calm as I now struggled to keep my body still from trembling.

"Why are we even talking about this? She's going to reject me anyway. Let's just never tell her lie her father wants." I said, hardly able to get the sentence out due to the feeling that I was losing the fight with my body, when I looked out toward the bonfire to see that she was now leaving the gathering on foot, I was certain that I was going to lose control entirely.

"Go take a walk." Sam ordered, and it took everything in me to wait until I reached the privacy of the trees to phase.

I felt like I shouldn't care—the woman wouldn't care about me at all but it calmed me the slightest bit that this order at least helped me to see to it that she made it home safely.

A/N: They've officially met!

Thank you guys so much for reading up to this point, I know that it has taken a while for them to meet and I apologize for that.

I do think that from here on I am going to wait for the story to get a little more traction before posting the next chapter. So please leave some feedback, favorite and follow the story, thank you!