A/N: Some back story for you guys, sorry it doesn't explain everything just yet. Looks like you'll be in the dark with Paul, Sam and everyone else in Washington. And if you say you wouldn't like to be in the dark with Paul, or Sam, or any of the other wolves- well I think you're full of it! ;P

Again, no beta, all mistakes are my own.

Bella's POV:

When I left five years ago, if you would have asked me where I saw myself a few years down the road, I would not have said sitting on Paul's porch with him, knocking back whiskey like it was water.

No, this would have been the last place I would have said. Yeah I knew I wanted to come back but back then, it just didn't seem possible. That was when I still believed that the good guys never had a chance and that the bad guys always won.

When I left I was heartbroken, confused, lost, angry. My own father had told me that I was no longer welcome in his home. My cousin, who I had always been close to, decided that him being Alpha meant more to him than I did and he showed that with the lies he spread. It was thanks to him that Charlie kicked me out and it was thanks to him and his lies that most of the pack here hated me. But I couldn't fully hate Jake for what he did, because it was due to him that I became a better person and was able to come back home and help out. But I don't know if I could ever forgive him.

"So. Are you going to sit out here for the rest of the day and get wasted or are you going to tell me what the fuck just happened?"

Anyone that has ever had a sibling can tell you that sometimes you just really want to punch them in the face. This was one of those times. Yes, I did actually want to sit here and get wasted thank you very much.

"Calm down baby brother, I promised that I would explain. I needed a moment to relax, that meeting was hell. Maybe you should have another drink, have you always been this impatient?" I chuckled to myself. Who was I kidding, of course he always has been.

I saw this eyes narrow and his jaw clench when I chuckled and raised my hand to stop whatever he was about to say.

"Kidding. Yes, I'll tell you everything you want to know."

"Finally. And I'm only seven days younger than you, stop calling me baby brother damn it. Are you staying here with me or are you leaving again?"

"Well I need to stay with you for a bit, until my place is done. I suppose I should go into work with you tomorrow and see how it's coming along."

"Good, you know you can stay here. Wait! You bought the diner? That's your house the pack is working on? Where did you get the money for that?"

"I did and it's our house, not just mine. I was hoping you would live with me and finally move out of this place."

I knew that he would try to say his place was just fine but he and I both knew how much he hated it. It was where he lived with his dad and it had horrible memories attached to it.

"The money ties in to where I've been and what I've done. Are you ready to hear it all?"

"Yes. And I want the full story, from the beginning. No leaving parts out this time."

"Now you better remember to keep your cool, I don't want you to keep phasing every few minutes or this story will take days. I guess the best place to start is at the beginning. When Leah phased Jake realized that I could as well. Since I'm older than him he also figured out that I'd be Alpha instead of him. He wanted it so badly, he didn't see that it was an honor, a privilege. No, he just saw it as a title. Being the jealous child that he is, he went to Charlie, told him crappy lies about me sleeping with you and Jared, that I was pregnant and didn't know who the father was. He told Charlie that I was jealous of Leah, that I told Leah to her face that she wasn't good enough for my cousin, that I made her cry and slapped her. When I went home Charlie and I got into a huge fight. It wasn't pretty. He told me I was a whore, a disgrace, someone who didn't care about her family. He told me that he couldn't understand why I wasn't happy for Jake and Leah. When I tried to tell him that I really was, that I thought Leah was a great girl and would be great for Jake, he said that he didn't believe me. Then he told me that I was never allowed again to step foot in his house again, that I was no longer a Swan, no longer a daughter of his."

I had to take a break to control my anger and pour another glass. Standing up I walked to the edge of his porch and leaned out, trying to push down the hurt, the betrayed feelings. I briefly closed my eyes and when I opened them again I noticed movement at both sides of the porch, just out of view. Sam was coming up from one side, Leah from the other, both wide-eyed and frozen at being caught eavesdropping. I guess Sam didn't want to wait any longer to talk to me and Leah's mom must have told her to come make amends with me or something. Snorting loudly I raised my glass once to Leah and then once to Sam. Fuck it, it wasn't like the nosy assholes wouldn't see all of this later when they phased together. I'd just ignore them and act like it was just me and Paul. I drank the last I had in my cup and turned my back to them.

Paul came up next to me to refill my glass. I'm not sure if he knew we had company or not, he didn't let it be known if he did.

"Ella, how do you really feel about Leah? You didn't really think she wasn't good enough for him right?"

He either didn't see Leah or wanted her to hear my answer. If that was the case, I would for sure punch his ass later. As I was going to answer he grabbed my right forearm and touched the tattoo I had there, that matched the one he had on the same spot. Did he think that I forgot it was there? I didn't need to be reminded who I was. "No lies between us Ella."

No, no lies. I had already hidden things from him so that his pack wouldn't know and every time I did it I felt awful, even knowing he would understand when I told him. When we shared blood and became brother and sister, we got the same tattoo. It was not easy to agree on something but we did, we got Arrows of Friendship tattoo's with Lahote written underneath.

I took another sip as I thought about my answer. "No, I thought she was perfect for him. I still do. He was so naïve about the world and she was just jaded enough to balance it out. Not trying to be a bitch, but it's the truth. I felt that Leah would be able to control him and his more stupid stunts to keep him safe, brave enough to go toe to toe with him when his stubborn side came out, beautiful enough to stand next to him and still shine, strong enough to carry the weight of being an Alpha's mate if he did fight for the title and tough enough to be the only female protector among you boys."

I couldn't look at Leah to see what she thought of my speech. No doubt she thought it was all lies anyways.

"So Charlie told me to leave, blah blah. I packed up a few things and came straight here. You gave me my birthday gift and I left, you know that part. As you now know, I wasn't allowed to phase here but I knew about a tribe in Montana that had a small pack so I headed to them. It was so great to finally belong to a pack, I felt like I belonged. I loved it. They treated me like I was completely one of them, in their pack and in their tribe. They taught me so much, made me who I am today. For the first two years I was always thinking about the pack laws back here, how much I wanted to change them, how much I wanted to make things better not only for the pack here but also for the tribe. I had no idea what I could do, I felt powerless. Then a day came and changed everything. I received a letter from a law firm, saying I had an inheritance waiting for me. I went to the meeting and found out that Edward and Alice Cullen left me everything they had."

"Oh Bella. What happened?" I could hear the pity in his voice and I tuned it out. I didn't need or want it.

"The Volturi found out that they broke one of their biggest rules, they let a human know about them and didn't kill or turn me. So in punishment they killed most of the Cullen Coven. They didn't plan on killing Edward and Alice, they wanted them to serve in their guard instead. But the two of them asked that I be left alone and offered to die in my place. The kings agreed to leave me alone for their deaths. End of story."

Paul stared at me like I had grown two heads. "That's not the end of the story. Who didn't they kill? Why would they agree to killing them and leaving you alone? Why did they leave you everything?"

"Alice knew what was going to happen, her and Edward wrote me letters telling me that they were deeply sorry for everything and wanted me to live my life to its fullest. Alice wrote that they left me their money so that I could come back here and do what I needed to do. So I took that money, put my plans in motion and a few years later here I am. Can I get back to the story now or are we going to talk about them?"

Based on how he looked at me I could tell that the subject of the Cullen's was far from over. "Was being an Alpha one of your plans?"

I felt my face heat up in embarrassment at his question. "No, definitely not. I never wanted to be one, there or here. It sort of just happened."

"How does something like that just happened? Do they not have an Alpha blood line?"

"They do but none of the Cree packs base how worthy you are based on that alone. To them being Alpha is more than blood, it's how you act, how you treat others, if you can lead, do the others respect you, stuff like that. One day during training the previous Alpha was trying to get everyone to fall in line and it just wasn't happening. It was a long ass fucking day and I had enough of everyone bitching so I told them all to shut the fuck up, listen and do what they were told. It wasn't the first time I had done something like that, but it was the first time that every single wolf listened. Before I knew what was going on, the pack got transferred to me and I was Alpha Lahote. It was that simple and that complicated."

He looked like he was just hearing that I was an Alpha for the first time. I think a part of him didn't fully believe me until now. Which was understandable, heck, at times I still had trouble with it.

"So how many are in your pack?"

I smiled as I thought about them, wondering what they were doing. "We have ten in our pack, just like yours. Dante is my second, Mason is my third. Then there is Lucas, Spencer, Donovan, Noah, Alaric, Diego and Jeremy. Mason and Diego are brothers, Mason is older by a few years. They keep me on my toes but they are a good group of guys, we work well together."

"Hey Bella?" He murmured, soft and full of uncertainty.

Uh oh, this couldn't be good right? I looked at him, waiting for this question.

"Do you think your pack has room for one more?"

At his question I heard out two spies suck in their breaths. No way did Paul not hear them too.

"Paulie," I started gently, not wanting to hurt his feelings but he needed to stay where he was. "You can't join my pack. You belong with Sam."

"What?! I belong with you!" Paul snapped out at me.

"And I'll be here with you, just not in the same pack. Look Paul, our goals are different, what we do is different. Sam's pack just protects the tribe, patrols the boundaries. My pack, along with a few other Cree packs, actively go out to hunt down and neutralize any threats."

At my confession his eyes bugged out and he stuttered, trying to force his voice to work.

"Before you start telling me it's too dangerous for me or some shit like that, let's just stop for the night before we fight over it. I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself."

I ignored his demands that I come back to explain myself, instead marching my way into his spare bedroom to sleep.

Sam's POV:

I had gone to check on Leah first but Sue told me she went to talk to Bella so that's where I went as well. My wolf was urging me on to check on one of my pack and on my imprint, he was glad they would both be in the same place and so was I.

But instead of finding Leah and Bella talking, I found Bella talking to Paul. I planned on turning away and giving them the time to catch up when they started talking about the diner that she bought, I really did. But then he asked for the story and for the life of me, I could not fucking move. I wanted to but it was like something had taken over my body, freezing me in place. To make things so much worse, Bella caught me spying on them, listening to their private conversation. And oh shit, she was anything but happy about it. Damn, I had just imprinted and already I was fucking up.

She told Paul, unwillingly along with Leah and I, everything and then went inside leaving the three of us reeling. Paul stood there staring out at nothing for a few moments before sharply turning his head to glare right into my eyes.

"Her first night here and you can't just leave her alone? You have to fucking come and spy on her? She's no threat. Back the fuck off Sam. You too Leah, leave my fucking property and stay the hell away from my sister." He snarled out at us and stomped inside, slamming the door closed as he went.

Leah made her way slowly to me, as if in a daze. "Mom wanted me to come and talk to her, see if I could maybe start a friendship with her. Said that Charlie asked her to marry him, that Bella and I would be family soon. I don't see that happening any time soon. Did you hear that? The things Charlie said to her. The things she said about me." She trailed off in a bewildered voice.

"I don't think you have to worry about her being family. Did you smell her? She doesn't smell like Charlie at all. She smells like Billy and Paul, like she only has their blood in her now."

"I wasn't paying attention, but you're right. She doesn't smell like him at all. But after listening to her and what Charlie said? I don't blame her. Sam what do we do now? What do I do? I owe her so much. The pack law? Mom's diner? Will she ever forgive me?"

I ignored her rant, knowing she didn't mean for her questions to be really answered. "Come on, head home for the night. We'll try to talk to her later."

She nodded her head and was about to turn and walk away when she suddenly stopped. "Hey Sam, why did you come over here?"

I could have just said I was looking for her to see if she was ok, but that wasn't the whole truth so I went with the answer that I knew would be raising more questions.

"Because I wanted to see my imprint." I calmly disclosed to her before slipping away into the darkness and woods, thankful that my feet knew the way home because I didn't pay attention to anything, my mind full of what I had heard.

Just as I was laying my head down on my pillow I recalled something and shot straight up, stunned and worried.

Did she say that her and her pack go out and hunt vampires?