2

"My uncle wants me to stay here permanently. But I don't know if I could handle your guy's... rules." I grinned. The rules of never being allowed to steal, cheat, or lie for another person other than one alpha. Definitely too strict."My pack is a lot more lenient."

"It's not as bad as you think. It's just a little training at six. Bed by Ten. You have to show up at every pack meeting. You get used to it." SJ gave me a wink, laughing at my face.

"Six? In the morning?" My eyes widened at just imagining the pain of trying to wake up that early.

The pack members who were around laughed at my expression, nodding their heads. My face went blank. I sure as hell was not sticking around for long if he thought I was going to wake up anytime close to six o'clock.

"So you don't like to train?" A young female wolf asked. Her eyes narrowing at me. Not in a 'you suck' way, but a 'what kind of pack do you come from' way.

"Oh, I do. Just not in the morning. Never in the morning." I shuddered at the thought. "I love to run. That's my main form of training."

"Nice, I hate running. It makes me feel like I'm just trying to run from my own death." I laughed at the tall wolf on the other side of the room because most of the time, I was running from my death.

"Do you shift V?" One of the members who had come up the stairs asked me. It wasn't a strange question to ask a new female in town. For some reason as powerful as wolves seemed to be, their bloodline was not that strong. It was very rare for a female to have a wolf form. The non-shifting wolves still had the body of a shifter -strong, fast, smart- but no wolf body to shift into. Only 2 out of 10 females can shift, but when they did shift their wolf forms were usually tougher than the males.

"No, unfortunately, I don't." That was my cover, so in case I 'decided to stay', as Soren said. An excuse for me to never reveal my true identity.

Which was another reason Soren was stupid. I loved to shift. I loved my fox form more than I loved my female form. I did love to run, but only when I was in my fox form. I would never give that up. Not in a million years.

"Neither do I." The female who was standing beside me said. She was a lot taller than me, with her hair styled in two thick braids going down her head. We looked at each other in the eyes, she had a slight ache in hers. My eyes had their own ache for the female. Not because I knew the pain, but I had seen the effects it had on females. I couldn't imagine what it would be like not to shift.

Your animal form was what made you a shifter. It wasn't the super strength or speed. It was when you could change your body into something else. That fact that you can just be something else for as long as you wish. Not having to deal with human drama, but be completely controlled by your animal instincts. Not having that made females feel like dirt, like they were nothing, they weren't special. It sucked.

The silence in the room got thick as a few other females nodded their heads. SJ sensed the silence growing in the room. Cutting through the awkward air, SJ smiled and looked at me, quickly changing the subject.

"Are you going to come to our game?" SJ asked me.

"You should! Most of the pack is going to be there." Christan spoke up, getting the hint.

"What kind of game is it?" I furrowed my brows in question. I already knew the answer, but they probably shouldn't know that. Might think I am creepy or something.

"American Football. We are playing the Viribus Pack. Their territory connects with ours to the North. Have you ever heard of them?" The whole pack looked at me expectantly. They seemed like they really weren't sure if I knew who the Viribus Pack was.

"A little bit." Shrugging my shoulders nonchalantly. Everyone has heard of the Viribus Pack. They were the largest pack on the continent. They might be the strongest pack in the world. Until the past couple of years, they no doubt were, but the late alpha really messed them up. The new one was trying to build it back up, but there were a lot of challenges. Regular folks didn't know that part. "Do the Alphas come to the games?"

"Dad might, but Alpha Cassar won't go." Good, he would just make things more difficult. "He never has before," SJ assured me as if I was scared of just the Alpha's name. Most would be.

The Alpha of the Viribus Pack was Cassar Salvateer. He had been alpha only for a couple of years, but he was already famous. Famous for a bad attitude, and a quick temper. He never showed mercy. They said he was just as wicked as his father. More so considering he killed his own father. They said that if someone ever pissed him off, he would personally gut them with his own claws. He turned his enemies inside out. If someone wanted to join his pack they had to break every bone in their dominant hand to prove their loyalty. He's the kind of guy that cuts the heads off of dolls. A real asshole from what I've heard.

"Will you come?" SJ looked at me hopefully.

"Maybe. First I want to call my family back home, let them know everything is going okay." Another way of saying I was going snooping when most of the pack was gone. When no one could disturb me.

"No worries, if you can make it, great. If you cant, that's great too." SJ smiled at me. So nice. They were all so nice.

"I can try. I would have to meet up with you guys later though." I smiled knowing that I was going to that game. I have a plan to follow after all. "What positions does everybody play?"

"Well, I'm obviously the quarterback." He replied while puffing out his chest mockingly. "Christan's our running back, and..."

He kept saying who did what, but I didn't care about those guys. I just needed to know who the running back. Poor Christan. He wouldn't even know what hit him.

As SJ explained what positions everyone played, I nodded along pretending like I was actually interested. They had about thirty players in total. Eleven were female, five of whom could shift. The game was strictly male and female forms. All the players were between the ages of 16 and 35. It was a decent size team for the small pack.

The Algoren pack was only about 106 wolves, not including anyone that didn't shift. Which were women and young children. Adding them the pack was 173. A very small pack compare to the Viribus Pack with 727 members. It was my job to know these things.

We all continued talking for a couple of hours until it was time for the game. They piled into cars and vans leaving for the northern part of their territory. SJ made sure to leave me a red Volkswagen in case I had time to come to the game.

Most of the pack was going to watch the game, the ones who weren't were on high alert. There had been a group of rogues that got through their border on the southern side last night. I heard they made a big mess.

The Alpha and Beta were there now hunting for the rogues along with some of their best warriors. They would be busy for hours. It was safe to say they weren't going to find any rogues.

The only mildly interesting thing I found was that the Alpha and Luna had some weird things in their closet. Some things that would make their son shudder and instantly vomit. It made me instantly vomit, and I barely know them. It was a shock to me that they only had one child, and that he was born normal.

I decided to not take the Volkswagen to the game. Instead opting for my fox form. I wasn't sure how long I would be in the area, the opportunities to shift would be few and far between.

I would just tell everyone I ran here. It wasn't my fault if they assumed I ran in my female form.

When I got close to the clearing that all the football games between the Algoren and Viribus Packs played, I could hear the cheering and booing of the fans and teams.

With a bright flash I shifted into my female form. My limbs altering from paws to arms and legs. The white and silver fur changing into tan skin and long multi-shades of brown hair. My fox's ears and snout transforming to human ears and a small pointed nose. My eyes were the last to change. My glowing silver eyes shifting back to normal sky blue.

Every species of shifter had a different eye colour. Foxes were silver. Wolves were black. Bears were auburn, lions were gold, and so on. For all shifters, the eyes were hardest to hide. With any small emotion they could easily flash into their true colour, giving away their true form, and true emotion.