This story is set in the same "world" as LadyDragon623's stories about werefolk, vampires, fae and other supernatural creatures.

I have her express permission to use the "world" and characters she has mentioned in her stories if I feel they would fit into this story.

We're an odd bunch, about thirty of us all told. Most of us were raised somewhere not too far from here, a few from the east coast.

Where is here, you ask? Well, that's easy, the closest recognizable place to us is Petrolia, although there isn't much there. Not that it really matters to us, we're quite capable of surviving in the wilderness, hunting for whatever food we can find nearby.

Hunting? Oh, we're werewolves, not like those weirdos on American Werewolf in London and similar shows, though. We tend to prefer to find our own communities and get away from the insanity of the city when possible. The stench in the cities is enough to make me puke!

Anyway, we made our own little camp on the edge of a creek north and west of Petrolia, not far from the Mattole Road. At the point where we started setting up rough tents for housing while we were building actual houses, the creek turns to the northeast away from Mattole Road.

We're about a mile from the coast, a fairly easy walk to get there for us, although we often cycle around or run around in our were forms.

Hey, any exercise is good, and believe me, after a good five or ten mile romp around that area as a wolf, we're ready to relax for a while!

Well, we finished making about twenty moderate sized houses (three to four bedrooms each with en suite bathrooms, large living room, kitchen and pantry for dried herbs and vegetables) last year and most of us moved into them, some alone, some with one or more housemates.

I ended up getting one of the four bedroom houses, I suppose because the folks here decided I should be the pack leader.

Well, that's not quite true. There was a series of mock fights in wolf form, and I ended up being the eventual winner over everyone else.

Yep, so I ended up with one of the three four bedrooms as I said. I share it with my girlfriend, Tanya Shoreham, she's the female alpha.

Silly me, I didn't even introduce myself! Sorry about that! My name is Matt Darnavy, I'm 37 years old, blond hair, blue eyes, tall, handsome...

Can I help it if my girlfriend almost drools any time I walk near her? Not that she isn't a hottie herself, oh, she is! She makes me drool!

Anyway, the one thing that ties most of us together is that we like to surf, to ride the waves, and California has tons of places to do that.

There is a sort of mini bay or inlet just to the south of where the creek meets the ocean. That's where we usually go. That little bay or inlet has a few rocks scattered across the width of it, so we have to watch where we are in order to avoid being thrown into the rocks there.

That gives us a way to do some simple practice, but when we really want to get serious, we head for Mavericks at Half Moon Bay.

What can I say? We're werewolves and we like to surf!

Hmmm... I don't like to mention it much, but the truth is, I'm a second cousin to Cain, the alpha of the Montana pack. My mom's mother is his great aunt, or I should say was, some idiot in a jacked up pick-up truck ran her over when I was very young, two or three maybe?

You know, even with my being related to Cain, I honestly never expected to become the alpha of a pack myself.

I've only been doing this for about a year, but I'm already beginning to hate being the boss. Something goes wrong, I get half the pack asking me when it's going to get fixed, then complaints when they don't like the answers. Something good happens and life just continues as usual.

Well, at least there are some decent folks here that I can set in specific roles within the pack hierarchy.

There's Tom Conaver, he's my security boss, and decides who to train as his subordinates. So far, he's picked Elaina Janist, one of the few female timber wolves in the pack, as his second in command, then Alphonse Milano, Wilfred Bonham and Saffron Porter as trainees.

I can't forget Penny, the youngest sister of Lady Joyce, Cain's pack healer. Penny followed in her big sister's footsteps, it seems. Yep, she's got the gift, the ability to use her mental power to examine someone in order to optimize the healing process as they recover from an injury.

Then there's Jimson Bell, our lore master, the keeper of all the information regarding our pack and its members. You don't mess with Jim. When it comes to keeping track of and protecting our lore, he's meaner than a Kodiak grizzly that hasn't eaten in a week or more.

There's Vince Garten and Delia Simbas, a couple who act as roving guards for the pack, seconded by Philip Avery and Anson Blackleigh. Vince, Delia, Phil and Anson are all required to train right along with Elaina, Alphonse, Wilfred, Saffron and Tom on a daily basis.

Tom's a hard old bugger, although he doesn't look a day over 45. He served in WWII as a tank driver and was lucky to make it through the war alive. From the stories he tells now and then, he watched his mates from three different tanks die while he lived due to his ability to heal.

There's Silvia Lamberts, who is even older than Tom apparently, she acts as a mental health consultant for the pack and some others.

Last but not least, we have Sharlene and Sharmaine Johns, twin girls, both of whom were bitten by a were tiger about ten years ago. They were in their mid teen years at that point, and their family basically just threw them out to the curb, with no chance to take anything with them!

Yep, they are both big cats when they shift. In fact, they are the only feline weres in the pack, you, see, I adopted them back a few weeks after that happened. It was a bit odd, honestly, as I wasn't mated to Tanya then, and the pack hadn't yet formed. I did know Silvia, though, and Jimson, and they talked with someone from a pack somewhere in Nevada, I think, before I received the approval to adopt the twin girls.

And yes, when I said adopt, I did mean a full were adoption. It's kind of funny to see two huge tigers displaying some of the odd traits I have.

Oh, we can't forget Arnie Coltrane, he's a little bit soft upstairs, but there's no one better to have at my back in a knock down drag out fight. Arnie doesn't have an actual day to day role, simply because he forgets what he's doing and will wander off without any warning at all.