I made it home in plenty of time to turn around and head out to the Silverwolf's. I found Eric upstairs in his bedroom. "Are you coming with me to the Silverwolf's?" I asked him, standing at his doorway, so I wasn't technically entering his room without permission. I'd also be perfectly fine going by myself, but that would never happen, especially with a vampire pendant around my neck. That was too far to go without an escort, especially since I was meeting with other shifters.

"Let me finish up this stupid assignment. I'll be downstairs in a sec to take you," he replied, not looking up from his computer. He was in his first year of college this year. He had picked a school close to home so he could be near us. He had been expecting to need to be near me, to be my escort. He hadn't been expecting me to be Chosen any more than I had.

I bounded down the stairs and waited for Eric by his car. I hoped next year when I turned 16, my parents would get me a car. It would make coming home to see them every week easier. I doubted it would happen though, since anywhere I'd want to go by car, they would deem unacceptable for me to go without an escort. That was an argument for next year, though. I had enough on my plate without borrowing trouble from the future.

Eric came down shortly and the car beeped as he unlocked it. I hopped in the passenger seat, impatient to go see Katie. If I was being honest with myself, I would admit that seeing Caleb would be pleasant as well. The trip over to their house was short. They lived close to us.

One of Caleb's brothers opened the door when we walked up the steps. Katie was peeking out from behind him. "You came!" she cried and ran running out to greet me. I swept her up into a hug and swung her around. I set her down and she grabbed my hand. "C'mon, we're almost ready to go run!" She dragged me into the house.

"Hi Carl," I greeted Caleb's brother as he stepped aside to let us in. Eric followed behind, but waited for an official invite inside from Carl. I was female and welcome in any shifter house without question, especially since I was unmarried. He was male and needed an invitation.

Katie dragged me through the house and out to the changing house near the woods. It was a small cabin originally designed for Katie's mom to shift in to run. She had been weirdly afraid of nudity for a shifter, so her husband had built her this cabin. Katie and I, and mom when she came over, shifted there. Katie's dad was waiting outside of the cabin for us. "Hello, Mr. Silverwolf. Thank you for inviting me over," I told him formally. He nodded.

"Thank you for agreeing to come run with Katie. We will be waiting for you two just inside the treeline," he told me. He turned to go join his sons. Carl and Eric were coming now to join them. I turned to head into the cabin.

"Sam!" I turned to see Caleb waving to me from the door to the house. He jogged over to meet me. I took a few steps toward him, to show my interest in speaking to him, but I also wasn't going to leave Katie alone. Caleb skidded to a stop in front of me.

"Aren't you coming on the run?" I asked him. He shook his head and looked sad by it.

"Dad won't let me. Haven't finished my homework for the weekend yet." He grumbled. "He doesn't care that they gave me a shit ton of homework. He won't let any of us go on a run on the weekend until the homework's done." I smiled at him anyway.

"We'll miss you out there, but we'll see you for dinner, right?"

He nodded. "Wouldn't miss it," he told me. Katie was peeking her head out of the cabin, still in human form. "You better get going," he chuckled. I nodded and turned to join Katie.

"See you later," I called to him.

"See you, Sammi!" he called back. I stuck my tongue out at him, vowing to give him a stupid nickname to annoy him with as I ducked into the cabin and closed the door behind me. Like all shifter dwellings, the cabin had doors that could be opened with paws in animal form. Katie and I stripped and shifted into wolf form. I shifted faster than she did, but I had more practice at it as well. Her wolf form was still a fluffy puppy, maybe a 6 week old wolf pup in nature. My wolf form was almost fully grown. I made sure she had caught up to me before I opened the door.

We stepped outside and I found Caleb was still there, waiting, and guarding. Katie bounded up to him, barking. Caleb chuckled and knelt down to pet her. "Good job munchkin. I'm sure you're going to have a lot of fun running as a puppy," he told her as he pet her. Puppies needed praise, even if they were human most of the time. I followed Katie from the cabin over to her brother, but didn't rush. I knew she wasn't in any danger from her own brother. He looked over to me, then reached out and gave me a scratch behind the ears. I wagged my tail for him, appreciating the attention. "Now that you two are shifted, I need to get back to my homework. Go have fun." I licked his cheek and Katie and I ran off to the woods to join the boys.

The boys circled around Katie when she broke the treeline, greeting her with licks and puppy barks. I stood back, not part of this greeting. Just because I treated her like a little sister, didn't mean I was actually a part of this family. Eric came over and rubbed against me. We weren't natural wolves, so we communicated a bit differently than real wolves. I licked his nose. I was grateful for him coming up to make me feel better, and feel more included.

Katie came bounding back over to me. She barked once. I turned to her and nipped at her tail, keeping my teeth plenty far enough away from her that we both knew that I was just playing. She took off running and I knew she'd be giggling had she been in human form.

The boys were running through the woods too. Two of them, Eric, and one of Katie's brothers, stayed near us as we ran. I finally slowed when we were deep in the woods and took off down a trail much more slowly. It was time to teach Katie a new skill. I growled at the boys to warn them to keep their distance. Katie wouldn't learn with them around. I knew the boys would stay close enough to help if danger materialized, but they would let me teach Katie.

I knew Katie wouldn't want to learn this skill, but she needed to. I sniffed the trail until I found the scent I was looking for. I pointed it out to Katie with a paw. She sniffed it and gave me a look that was both interested and a bit confused. I stuck my nose back to the ground and we followed the scent. Once we were close, I stopped Katie and smacked her gently on the rump so she would sit and watch. I rushed into the brush and grabbed the rabbit whose trail we had been following. It tried to run, but I had snuck up well and it didn't stand a chance. I grabbed it and shook it so it would die quickly of a broken neck instead of a heart attack due to fear. I dropped it on the ground in front of Katie. She whined. I knew she wouldn't want to learn this lesson, but she had to learn how to feed herself if something happened and she was stuck in the wild alone. Once I tore the rabbit open for her and she smelled the fresh meat, though, animal instinct took over and she was happy to eat it.

While she ate, I searched for another trail for us to follow. I found it and went back to her, getting her attention, I showed her the trail, then nudged her forward to follow it. She whined at me, but I was firm. She needed to learn how to do this.

We spent the afternoon following rabbit trails and practicing sneaking up on them, until she was able to catch one for herself. I shifted to human form when she had, ignoring the fact that I was naked in the middle of the woods. "You did it!" I exclaimed, so very proud of her. She shifted back too, though it took her a few minutes and she had tears in her eyes when she was human again.

"I-I killed it," she sobbed at me. I wrapped her in my arms.

"I know sweetie. I know. It's hard the first time. We usually don't have to hunt to eat, since we're human so much of the time. It's something you had to learn how to do though. You might not always have your brothers and dad around to help you. If you got lost in the woods all alone, you have to know how to eat." I explained to her. "Your dad is going to be so proud of you," I promised her. She stopped crying, taking in my words. It seemed to calm her, and make her feel pride in her actions to know that her father would be proud. It was just as I expected. "Wanna head back so we can tell him how awesome you did?" I asked her. She nodded and we both shifted back to wolf form.

As we headed back to the main trail, I heard the howls. I knew in an instant that they weren't our wolves. I snarled, then turned to Katie. She was my charge. I raised my head and howled an alarm. The boys would come running. I ran over to Katie and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. I took off with her down the trail, heading back for the house as fast as I could. It wasn't enough. We found ourselves surrounded by strange wolves. One of them shifted freakishly fast into human form. He looked like a biker. I realized that these were wolves who had been kicked from their packs. They all looked like fighters.

"Look boys, two females for our pack," the biker man told the others, who howled their approval. I set Katie down and stood over her protectively, snarling at the wolves who surrounded us.

Moments later, Eric and Katie's brother rushed biker man. I grabbed Katie again and ran through the gap they had made for me. I didn't look back as I ran. I trusted them to be able to take care of themselves for a few minutes until the rest of the boys could reach them. My job was to get Katie to safety. So I ran. I threw all of my strength and experience into that run, into gaining as much speed as I could. We were father out from the house than I had planned. We had wandered most of the way, though, so I could take a much shorter route back. I didn't stop running when we broke through the treeline.

I didn't slow until I reached the house. I opened the door and carried Katie inside and upstairs. Her room was the farthest from the stairs. Any intruder would have to get passed all of her brothers and her father to reach her room while she was sleeping. I stood in the hallway in front of Caleb's door whining. We needed his help. He burst out of his room. "Sam, what's wrong?" he asked. I was panting, so out of breath from my breakneck run through the woods. I lifted Katie higher and he reached out to take her from me. I turned to head back out to the fight. I had to help. Caleb grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me into his room. "No, you're not going back out there until you tell me what's wrong," he slammed the door closed and stood in front of it, physically blocking me. I huffed at him. I didn't have time for this, but I knew I wasn't going to win without physically hurting him, which I wouldn't do. I started to shift back so I could talk to him.

Caleb moved away from the door when it was obvious that I was going to tell him what was going on. He set Katie gently on his bed. She scrambled off the bed in fear and hid under his bed. Caleb let her be. She was safe. He started digging in his dresser while I shifted. He set a pair of jeans and a t-shirt on the bed before taking up a post near the door where he could pretend that the poster hanging on the wall next to the door was extremely interesting.

I finished my shift quickly and dove into the clothes he had left for me. While shifters were fairly casual about nudity, being naked in Caleb's room basically alone was not comfortable, or casual. I was grateful that he had thought to give me something to wear. He had gone through a growth spurt recently, so he was taller than me now and he was starting to fill out with muscles. So his clothes were too big on me. There were no mirrors in his bedroom, so I couldn't see how ridiculous I looked, but that wasn't important at the moment.

"A group of strange wolves accosted us in the woods. They wanted to take me and Katie. Our brothers are out there fighting them now. I have to go help them!" I told him. I tried to push past him, but he stopped me, standing back in front of the door.

"No, Sam. Call you dad. Ask for backup. We're not going out there. None of us. The three of us are staying in his room,"

"You stay here with Katie, I'll go back out there to help them," I protested. He shook his head.

"No way, it's too dangerous. They want you. You said it yourself. The best place for us is locked in the nice safe house. I'm going to stay here to help you protect Katie." I sighed. I wasn't going to get past him. He was appealing to my desire to help by asking me to help him protect Katie. He was protecting me, but treating me like an equal at the same time. He had to protect us. It was his job as a male shifter, but he didn't have to let me help him. Dad wouldn't have let mom help. "Stay here with her. Call your dad. I'm going to lock up the house and make sure none of them have snuck inside." I nodded.

"Be careful," I bid him. He grabbed a metal baseball bat from beside his desk before he headed out. I touched his shoulder. I wanted to give him some sign that I cared, but I didn't know what to do. He gave me a lopsided grin anyway.

"Don't worry, Sammi, I'll be perfectly fine," he left the room with me still spluttering at him for the nickname. At least he had cheered me up and calmed me down some.

Thankfully, he had left his cell phone behind. Mine was still out in the cabin with my clothes. Even better, he had no lock on it. I dialed dad's cell phone number from memory and dug in Caleb's closet for a belt. His jeans were too baggy on me and I needed something to help hold them up. I also rolled up the bottoms. I needed to be able to move if I had to fight. Or run.

Dad picked up on the second ring. "Hello?"

"Daddy, there's trouble at the Silverwolf's house. We need help," I told him without preamble as expected.

"Are you safe?" he asked. I could hear the stress in his voice. That was his first priority, making sure that his daughter was safe.

"Yes. Katie, Caleb, and I have locked ourselves in the main house." I told him. I could feel his approval in the phone.

"The boys and I are on our way. Stay where you are. Tell me what happened," he told me. I explained the situation briskly.

"You're leaving mom alone?" I asked him, concerned that if someone was coming after me and Katie, they might go after her too.

"No, she's coming to help Katie. Stay where you are," he repeated the instruction. "If it's safe, wait for us on the first floor. I'll honk the horn three times when we get there."

"Okay, daddy," I replied. I heard howls out in the woods and felt fear for Eric and the others out there.

"I love you,"

"I love you too." With that, we hung up. I slipped Caleb's phone into the pocket of my borrowed jeans. I knelt on the floor by Caleb's bed.

"Katie, we're safe now, but we have to go downstairs to wait for my daddy to get here. Your daddy will be coming back soon too. My mommy's coming too, to spend time with you," I told her. She crept out from under the bed. "It's ok sweetie. We're safe in the house," I held my arms open and she ran into them. I picked her up and carried her from Caleb's room back downstairs. Their livingroom was right off of the entry hall.

"Caleb. Dad told me to wait for him down here," I said the words loudly enough that he should be able to hear me wherever he was in the house. I didn't want to startle him by not being where he expected me to be after he had locked up the house. I set Katie down on the couch. I hadn't actually expected her to stay with me, and she didn't. She disappeared to hide in a corner of the room under one of the end tables. She was safe there, so I let her be. I sat on the couch where I could watch out the window for my parents to get here. Caleb came to join us. I handed him his phone. He sat next to me on the couch and wrapped an arm around me.

"They'll all be ok," he promised. I nodded and leaned into him, taking comfort in his touch.