Hello Everyone!

Thanks for your interest in my story. This is my first fic so please by all means be kind but helpful. This story does depict real places but any resemblance of characters to real people is coincidental. Anything you recognize belongs to Patricia Briggs.

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He leaned on the edge of the railing with a perplexed gaze slowly scanning the horizon. The wind bit into the side of his cheek as dawn was breaking a new spring day. He had been drawn to prairies just after the fall of the dirty thirties, and had watched the land slowly transform over time while he remained unchanged.

The people of this place had grown old and were replaced by following generations, but all had held the same intrinsic values of hard work, perseverance, and basic human decency that was reminiscent of earlier times. Their hours were sometimes longer, but life's pace was slower, and a handshake agreement may as well be legally binding.

James thought it was the combination of the people and the majestic tranquility of the land that allowed him to find a peace here that he had seldom found anywhere else. While not uncommonly old for a werewolf, the 260 years he had wandered had not been filled with a lot of peace. In his human life, he and all of his known ancestors had been Luch Siúil or The Walking People of Ireland, and he had continued that nomadic tradition alone after the attack that took his family and left him eternally changed.

The restless ways of the man had eventually been accepted by the wolf, until one day 70 years ago they simply stopped atop an esker to the left of where he stood. Both man and wolf gazed at the land before them and each felt a resounding yet calm "MINE" from the other.

Since that time, the kinship and connection to their area had only grown, and it was that connection that told him a presence was circling and waiting, yet not threatening a small area just to the east of his and his pack's lands.

James thought through his current list of projects and decided that all of them could be put on hold a few days, and he would still make the deadlines he had given his customers. He liked the decorative steel and iron work that he did now far more than the tin of his youth, and the gates he made had become more and more well known.

He turned away from the sky now streaked with pink, mauve and orange and headed back inside to the phone in his kitchen. He called his second and on the third ring he heard a mumbled "What?"

James smiled "I either caught you after a night shift, or Dayna finally forgave you for being an overly opinionated jackass about her little brother". James heard movement, a slight snore in the background and the sound of a door closing.

Keith quietly answered "She is still dreaming in Technicolor if she thinks he is college bound at the end of the year. He hasn't got the marks or the drive to make that happen. He's gunna head to the oil riggs like every other young kid does. If she's lucky he will see the pitfalls quick, and find something else in the next couple of years before he gets into too much trouble."

James grinned as he waited, and after a moment he heard a sigh. "However I do accept that she may not want to hear that point of view, however accurate, and that a little too much faith when it comes to her family is probably better than too little. Now as much fun as I'm sure you have been having watching me shoot myself in to foot over this, I doubt that's why you called. What's up Boss Man?"

"I have some wandering I need to do today so I am transferring the pack phone number to you; deal with anything that comes up. If you feel anything go wrong, or you don't hear from me by sunset call it in to Bran. Something feels off out east of the border."

Keith immediately sounded more alert and more than a little concerned "Did you want me to call up Ethan? I think he is working out that way this week; I can find you some backup Boss."

James pushed some power and reassurance through the pack bonds to him. "Not necessary, this is just a scouting mission to see what's setting me off". There was a long pause before Keith replied "I'll be by the phone all day Boss."

"Good" The call ended. James walked over to his cell on the charger and call forwarded it while finishing the last of his morning coffee.

He walked through the house and into the sunroom. There he stripped down and cracked the backdoor and started to change. James like all others more than a few months into this life endured the painful transformation in silence, but he was aided by his dominance and a natural ability that sped the change. Less than 10 minutes later a wolf stood up, and using his nose to open the door wider, darted out into the early morning light.

James's wolf had unusual colouring. He was dark grey with black legs, but his back had a dappled effect more commonly seen on horses. It looked like small patches of sunlight filtering through the trees. He was an average size, but the confidence, power and authority that he had little need or desire to broadcast when he walked as a man, radiated off him more clearly when he ran as a wolf.

James loped up the embankment and stopped atop his esker; pausing to do a final check of his home. His house was entirely logs and brick and had changed very little since he had first built it. It was secluded just south of the moraine and flood plain that caused the start of the Northern Forest. His home was fairly remote, about 20 kilometers north of the nearest town of St. Walburg, but the grid road leading there was wide and well maintained.

All seemed quiet, so James ran north on the esker and was soon hidden among the Jack Pines.