A Story of Us

Krissi stopped and sniffed at the wind. His scent was there, as tantalizing as it was elusive. She sighed. She knew he existed, but she didn’t know if he knew of her, or even if he was of her kind, though by his scent she would guess he was. Lycanthropes weren’t common in the more populated city areas as most humans found them too disturbing to deal with. It was even odder to see a pack the size of the one residing at her college campus. Packs usually ran from 3 to 5 members, due to their volatile tempers and often dramatic existences. Krissi’s pack had 7 members and Krissi hoped their number would soon swell to 8.

She moved along the border of her pack’s territory. They were supposed to patrol in groups of 2 or more, but the others usually patrolled with their mate and Krissi felt bad if she interrupted any of the time a mated pair had together. As Beta of the pack she was generally in charge of organizing the patrols. It made it easy to tell her pack mates that she was going with someone else, especially since there were always a couple out somewhere unless there was a pack function planned.

Meredith and Isaiah, the Alpha male and female were usually busy dealing with some of the more… dramatic members of the pack, as well as dealing with defense plans in case of poachers. Poacher was a polite term for another pack that was encroaching on a settled pack’s territory. Unfortunately a lot of loners inhabited the area around Krissi’s pack. Sometimes those loners tried to start something, though being faced with a pack of 7 was a fairly good deterrent for even some of the larger packs. The Alpha pair had a lot to deal with so Krissi didn’t mind taking on some of the load. It helped the pack run smoother if everyone had something assigned for them to do. So Krissi was in charge of organizing patrols, Christian and Rebecca took care of any injuries that pack members got, and Leah and Mason were in charge of making sure people got their homework done. Despite being a werewolf pack, they were still college students. Sometimes it was hard to forget that.

Krissi finished her section of patrol and made her way back to the school campus. The pack patrolled in 2 sets. One group patrolled the northern half of the territory line in the morning, and another group patrolled the southern half in the evening. They didn’t patrol the middle as often because if a strange werewolf had crossed into their territory, the easiest way to tell would be by the scent markers along the border. Once a week the whole pack went out and renewed those markers. It was a sign of their presence; and a warning.

The school knew of the pack’s existence and had granted the pack a small house off of the beaten path of the college’s campus. The house had 2 floors and a basement. It was on the outskirts of the main campus so that the pack wouldn’t be bothered much by random students. The top floor had 3 bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms was the master bedroom with an attached bathroom. The ground floor had 2 bedrooms, the kitchen, dining room, a library, another bathroom and a large sunroom. Finally, the basement had a master bedroom, the laundry room and the TV and game room. The house had previously been used for boarders who didn’t want to live in a dorm room. It worked well for the pack, and the school was grateful for their presence as a stable pack kept away lycanthropes that would have caused trouble. Any lycanthrope that wanted to go to school there had to adhere to the rules that were set by the pack. The pack was notified by the school of the werewolf’s presence and made sure to keep an eye on the others. There were 3 new were’s this semester. The human identities of the pack and other lycanthropes were a well kept secret by the school board. They had no wish for trouble from the other students, and left it up to the werewolves to decide who could be trusted with that information

Krissi ‘changed’ before she left the safety of the trees. Even though normal humans were getting more and more used to the idea of lycanthropes living among them, it still made many of them uncomfortable to see one ‘change’ in front of them. She moved into an easy lope and made good time to the student union where the rest of the pack would soon congregate for their weekly board game. Sometimes other students joined in depending on what game they chose. The union was almost always packed with students no matter what time it was, day or night. Thankfully the pack had had the foresight to reserve a table on Monday nights since they were regular in their scheduled game.

Everyone trickled in as the appointed time neared. Christian brought the game; Monopoly this week, and his mate Rebecca brought snacks with her. Mason and Leah came in a few minutes after that. The last to arrive were Meredith and Isaiah. A student had seen one of the new were’s ‘change’ and they had had to remind the newcomer about the rules and penalties. Newcomers got one freebie when it came to breaking a rule. After that they had to deal with the consequences.

They got set up and started the game. It was a flurry of activity as people bought and traded properties, and built up their empires of plastic and paper. Finally, an hour and a half into the game there were two people out, Leah and Rebecca, and Krissi was almost catching up to Christian. Meredith was barely hanging on and Isaiah had long ago given up attempting to win. Mason was trying to get back on the good side of his mate as it had been his property she had died on. A fresh burst of students entered the union, and with them the wind brought the scent that Krissi had experienced near the border.

She sat up straight and looked around trying to figure out the source of the smell. In the midst of the students that had just entered the union trying to escape the cold was a tall boy with grey blue eyes and sandy brown hair. He turned slightly and their eyes met. Krissi felt a jolt, like a bolt of electricity running through her body as their eyes met. He cocked his head and frowned, though his gaze had now slid past her. He turned and walked back out into the cold evening, leaving his friends confused. Krissi hear a low keening sound and realized it was coming from her. The others in her pack had stopped talking and were all looking at her. The sound had been pitched too low for a normal human’s ears, but the pack had picked it up immediately. The intensity of their gaze was unsettling, but Krissi hardly noticed it. Her mate was here! But… her breath hitched. He had noticed her… and walked away. He didn’t want her. The keening started up again and her eyes closed for a brief moment.

Meredith shook her shoulder and asked what was wrong. “Krissi? Are you ok? What’s going on?” Krissi’s head snapped up and she focused her gaze on the worried Alpha female. “I need to go home now.” Krissi stated before grabbing her bag and pushing her way through the throng of people, leaving behind her thoroughly confused pack.

This story has 2 bases. The first is that it was based on a weird dream I had. The second is a challenge my friend instigated. She gave me the title and said, "write a story". We will compare them on Febuary 14th and see what, if any, similarities there are between her story and mine. So we'll see how this goes.

Please review, and I always welcome constructive criticism. If you want to flame, kindly go find a box of matches to play with.