((Because I wanted to write one, so I'm working on one :| ))

Warm breathe fogged up the winter air, dissipating in a white cloud of mist. The ground was coated with a thin layer of December snow, the white powder creating a muffling effect for the entire Pennsylvania wood. The sun had sunk beyond the valley ridges now, its final rays of life giving the forest an eerie glow. Winter passerines flutter and chirped as they went, singing the songs of the end of the day, while cautious deer trod around, snuffling under the snow for the last tidbits of grass before the winter starvation arrived. Little did they know, a presence stalked them.

A hulking beast shuffled quietly behind them, standing well downwind from the ungulates. It stood easily at 7 feet tall; however the creature was hunched over, snout pointed towards the ground as its piercing amber eyes locked on a weaker deer. An old doe, she had begun to walk with a limp, possibly a case of mild frost bite after the sudden drop in temperatures and the arrival of snow. That was the quarry of the hidden hunter.

In the glimmer of the sun’s rays, the creature shifted. A wolf, it seemed, only far more large and capable of standing on her hind legs. Her golden eyes were rimmed in the characteristic black, her pelt a fluffy white. The only form of color on the grey-white base was a strip of orange-red on her snout, and the pitch black of her nose and paw pads.

Her nostrils flared, scenting the weakness of the doe, and mouth salivating for a taste. She was hungry, and although large enough to take on the herd leading buck, she respected the law of the carnivore, like the other of her kind did. Take the weak, allow the strong to breed and continue their lines.

The sun vanished, the world suddenly coated in a dark grey rinse. The wolf’s pupils widened, absorbing the faint light that remained, and she stalked closer. The deer seemed suddenly on edge, perhaps by their sudden weakness in the lack of sun, and they looked around warily, large ears raised and listening. A clump of snow dropped of a tree branch, and the wolf held still, pulling one knee forward and resting in a runner’s position. The herd was frozen in time, the only noise was their breathing, and the only movement was their chest and their flaring nostrils.

With a low growl, the werewolf launched forward, her strange hand like paws gripping the snow in a wide gait, and racing forward. The deer bolted on instinct, white tails raised suddenly as they bounced over the snow. Breathing deeply, she surged forward, eager to feel the deer’s blood in her mouth and warm flesh being rend under her claws.

The injured female was much slower to react then the others, and although she went to leap away, she was caught by her injured leg and stumbled as the hulking beast leaped on her. The kill was easy, the female wolf’s weight crushing the lungs and ribs of the deer immediately, and the impact snapping its neck. However the kill alone wasn’t satisfying. With a guttural growl, asserting her dominance over the corpse – despite the lack of any other presence – she tore open the deer, crimson red splashing on her pale snout.

With her snout, she nosed and grabbed the heart and liver of the kill, eating it easily and licked her black lips and bloodied fangs. Delicious, the meal she had hungered for. After eating other vital organs, she ate at the meat, tearing off pieces of the flank and legs, sucking marrow from the bones as she gnawed them clean. Alone, she could eat another doe, although that would make her too sluggish and the last thing she wanted was to regurgitate her meal in order to escape some enemy.

After about three-fourths of the kill was eaten and picked clean, the werewolf consented to lying down and grooming herself. She cleaned between her slightly elongated front paws, which could be used to pick up items as easily as they could be used to run over fresh snow or rend flesh from bone. Once cleaned, she curled herself up, and huffed. The kill had satisfied her anger, her reason for running out here in the first place, but she was still irate, and knew her father would send someone out her after her eventually. Her eyes stayed open as she shifted in the snow. When should she go back? Or should she just wait?

Her question was answered when she heard the sound of paws hitting snow. Large ones. She growled lowly, turning her head to the noise and pricking up her ears. As expected, a werewolf emerged, on all fours; it was a male, a male she did know well. He was smaller than most other male wolves and he whimpered, slinking forward in a crouched human-esque position. His ears were pinned against his head, which he kept lowered as a sign of respect. His coat was brown-black, eyes startlingly green-yellow against the darkness. He kept his tail between his legs as she rose, stretching and yawning.

She wasn’t about to attack him, the Omega of her pack. Even the highest ranking of the wolves couldn’t attack him or be truly mad around him. Growl and snap at him they did, but that was his job, tension diffuser, just like a true Omega in the natural world.

Seeing she wasn’t about to launch herself at him, his mouth split into a grin, his tongue lolling out, and tail unfurling slightly and wagging. He yipped and bobbed his head, the female reading his intentions. With a huff, she shifted.

“Damn it, why do you want to talk now, Matthew?” The naked woman barked. Her deep brown hair hung around her shoulders and she shivered a little. Her body temperature was still adjusting from the Shift. As a werewolf, her body temperature was much higher than that of a human, but it didn’t make her impenetrable from the cold.

She crossed her arms over her chest, although not out of insecurity, more to keep her heat in. She was raised around men all her life, and gave little care if they gawked at her. She wasn’t a busty beauty; in fact her breasts were small for female werewolves, who were naturally all about attracting the attention of the alpha male. She had a genuine women’s body though, that she could attest to. However unlike the other females in her pack, she was not trying to attract her father’s attention in that way.

The black wolf shifted as well, revealing a well-toned teenager. Well, he looked like a teenager, but he was around his mid-twenties, the same as her. His messy hair was black, and his eyes a bright green. They still exuded a peaceful calm. He smiled a little, also as relaxed as she was in his nudity.

“Because we need to talk, Mal,” He said with a small smile.

“About what? I was going to go home, I was just waiting for someone to come find me,” Malory said with a snort. “‘talking’ me into or out of anything isn’t necessary.”

“Look, eventually you need to decide about what your father said…” Matt replied. Mal rolled her hazel eyes.

“I already made my choice, and Im not going to stand here in the snow, naked, and discuss it with you,” She growled, her eyes flaring. Matt flinched. She carried the same alpha air as her father, and when she got mad, the air crackled like electricity, an emotion sometimes even felt by humans.

Her father wanted her to become mate to another pack, one that was a neighbor of theirs and who were running out of space. America was full of werewolves, but every so often, a pack would need to join another to expand their land, be it from loss of woods, increased suspicion from humans in the area or straight out werewolf hunting. Although still believed to be a mythical creature by most, there were quite a few humans out there – seen as senile or deranged by others – that geared up for hunting werewolves, vampires and witches. The latter two, Malory felt no care for; vampires were pains in the ass and the neck, and were tricky and sly, while witches and their male counterparts, warlocks, were too deeply involved with demonic magic to tailor to the werewolves, who cared for the land, and the humans living on it. They wanted nothing to do with demonic forces, ghosts or poltergeists.

“Mal, I’m not going to talk you into it, but you honestly need to think about it,” Matt told her gently, daring a few steps forward. She hunched her shoulders, growling at him and causing him to freeze in his step.

“And why should I?” She snapped.

“Because the NorthWestern pack is losing their blood lines,” Matt said. Mal looked to the ground. Losing blood lines was a rather sad fate indeed. Wolves tried to keep their blood lines clean, wolves with other wolves from the same area, however eventually this had to stop working, because when inbreeding was mixed in, you got a child that look something along the lines of An American Werewolf in London. It had happened before, which is where the original ghastly interpretations of a man wolf were taken from.

That was another reason packs joined, although it often also resulted in the female of one pack switching over to the males pack. The idea made Malory lose interest in their dilemma. She would stay with her pack, regardless. They could find a few members from an outside pack or a lone werewolf to join in and stand in as their new alpha. Eventually, traditions had to break.

“So what, let them solve their own problems,” Malory said with a shrug.

“Look, let’s go back to the Den. You still have a while to think about it,” Matt said. Mal grunted and shifted into her were form, taking off past the Omega, who shook his head and followed.

~~

The Den as it was called, was actually a manor on a large estate of forest that was owned by the Alpha family. AKA, Malory’s parents. Well, father and step mother. Her original mother had died from a misplaced bullet with a hunter saw her and mistook her for a real wolf. A huge, real wolf. Understandable from a humans’ perspective, but a tragedy for the rest of the pack.Malory wasn’t fond of her stepmother, but put up with her bitchy attitude and helped raise her twin brothers who were still very young.

Malory padded up to the back of the house, standing on her hind legs and reaching her true height of 7 feet tall at her crown. She walked with ease on her hind legs as she did on all fours, shifting at the door and walking in.

“Malory! For heaven’s sake, get decent!” Came a shrill voice. A bouncing blonde head of honey curls appeared from the kitchen, deep blue eyes glaring like daggers. Malorys stepmother, Anissa. Higyl attractive in human from, she was a bitchin’ were in her beast form. Taller than Malory with brown, cream and blonde fur, she reeked of power and beauty. It was obvious why she was the choice her father had made. But that didn’t make Malory like her any more.

“Why? Not like anyone here’s gonna care…” Malory said lowly, looking away from the Alpha female’s strong gaze. Even she was affected by it.

“Not yet, but when the NorthWestern alphas and their son pop over, I don’t think you’ll want to be pushing anyone’s libido through the roof.” Replied Anissa, as she went back to her cooking. Malory crinkled her nose and walked into the kitchen, welcomed by the warmth and overwhelming smell of savory venison steak. Her meal from earlier still held her full though, and she preferred her meals bloody at best.

“Males are too hormonal. Fuck em all…” Malory said, just as Matt came in, shaking snow out of his black hair.

“Hey, that’s not very nice,” He said with a fake pout. Malory rolled her eyes and walked passed Anissa.

“I’ll get dressed, and I promise not to purposely push anyone’s libido over the edge. Although you may be accomplishing that with that slut-top,” Malory said pointedly at Anissa’s extremely low cut shirt. The alpha female growled, lips pursing at Malory’s backside.

~~

In the comfort of her own room, Malory lazily flung herself on her bed. Apart from the natural splendor that was the Northeastern Pensylvanian woods, her bed was her favorite place. Lush sheets, fluffy pillows, thick blankets, it was heaven on a bed frame. It was here she retreated to since she was a child when she was in a bad mood. Before she was able to shift.

Most young weres didn’t shift until their 13th year, on the full moon of their birth month, and then it was another year until they could begin to control the timing of their shift. Before that, they had to wait on the moon for the glorious freedom that was the wolf. It was murder on Malory, who was far more in tuned with her wolf than her brother Jayden had been. She longed for that feeling of freedom and relished the months as they came. Her brother was a little less keen, not so much in love with his other half. Now he was doing fine, having joined a werewolf pack in Northern Maine and earned a Beta rank.

Malory huffed in her sheets, wishing she had Jayden with her. He’d stand up for her, he always did. She curled up on her sheets, clinging to them. After closing her eyes for a few minutes, she sighed and got up, peering into her closet.

If there was things she detested, pack gatherings were one of them. Get all prettied up, drooled on by males, and you weren’t even allowed to hit them… And her dad would make her change if she wore something informal.

She pulled out each dress, examining the new garments. Her father and Anissa had gone shopping for her it seemed, before she’d come home. And run off again. Most of them weren’t Malory’s tastes at all, and it was obvious who did most of the shopping, Anissa’s scent all over the clothes. She mumbled to herself, consenting to a navy blue dress that had less of Anissa’s taste, and more of her fathers’. As much as he would like to see her with a wolf male one day, he wasn’t about to throw her in some thigh slit, low cut dress that exposed more than she would like.

After slipping into a bra and undergarments, she stepped into the dress. She gave up trying to zip up the back herself, and inspected herself in her mirror. It was good. She actually really liked it. It fell to her ankles gently and glimmered in the light. She tousled her hair, unsure if she should do anything with it, when a knock came at the door.

“Come in, Matt,” Malory said, feeling his emotional skill before anything. She took a brush to her hair as he stepped in, dressed in a semi-formal outfit for the dinner. He didn’t look any more comfortable than she did, tugging at his tie.

“Need some help?” He chuckled, zipping her dress before she bothered to answer.

“Yes, get me out of here,” She stated, putting down her brush and crossing her arms, scowling at her reflection. She hated wearing dresses or skirts or feminine stuff…

Matt shook his head and patted her shoulder.

“No can do, m’am,” He said with an apologetic shrug. “They won’t be here for a bit, although your father would like to talk to you.”

Malory made a sad grunting noise. He would just try to reason with her once again, but she was pretty much set against his plans. Damn the Northwestern pack. Most packs these days mixed bloods across the continent, hell across the world! In Boston, an Irish Alpha, from Ireland, was currently mated to the Boston pack. Granted, Boston had a hug population of the Irish to begin with… But so far none of the crossing had made that negative an impact. It seemed like stuffy nonsense to her. Pride was going to be the Downfall of the packs who thought that they needed to conserve blood lines.

“I’ll go in a minute,” Malory said with a sigh. Matt patted her shoulder again, calming her unease and leaving.

Leaving her room, she headed down the long hallway that contained the bedrooms of most of the Family pack. In truth, the NEPA pack was spread all over the area, encompassing Luzerne, Lackawanna, Wyoming, Susquehanna and Wayne County. But here in the middle of Bear Creek, was where the Den was located.

The mansion was huge and three stories tall. The entire east wing was made up of guest rooms for both familiar wolves and strangers who were passing by, although the latter were often had a closer watch on them. The rest was basically the equivalent of living rooms, halls and bathrooms, with one grand dining hall and large kitchen and storage cellar. Right now, there were not many other members here apart from Malory, her father, step mother, twin stepbrothers, and Matt, who was her cousin. There were several beta members and general pack members here as well, some of distant relation.

Her fathers’ office was at the end of the family hall, however his bedroom was in a totally different area that was somewhat hidden. Being an alpha, he had to take precautions against being killed and replaced. A pack concerned about blood lines had a great fear of rivals killing off the alpha and taking their place in the pack. This occurrence had died down in the past hundred years but was rising again as a new breed of American werewolves rose and grabbed for power.