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It was almost dark when my plane landed, but I had called ahead for a taxi, and had only brought a minimal amount of luggage.

It took less than thirty minutes to cross into Mystic Falls.

A few more to pull up to a large iron gate.

The entrance to the Salvatore's ancestral home.

And current headquarters for the Pack.

"This is far enough," I told the driver, a kind middle aged man with a tired face.

Alaric wouldn't want a human driving up to the front door.

But as the driver looked at me with incredulous eyes, I realized my mistake.

Normal human girls didn't waltz down a wooden path, all alone, this late at night.

"Are you sure?" He asked me, "There's been rumors of some wild dogs in these parts. Killed a girl a few days back."

Hmmm.

Wild dogs. Killing.

Sounded like a Mutt.

Is that why Alaric had called me home?

Was a Mutt hunting this close to our land?

"No, it's fine," I insisted, "The path up is short."

He only grunted and allowed me to grab my luggage, before pulling away into the night.

As his headlights faded, I opened the gate and concentrated on the path ahead.

My eyesight was better than most humans, but nowhere near as good as it was in my wolf form.

I squinted, and made out the house, up ahead in the distance.

Alaric would be inside.

As the Alpha, he only left the area when necessary.

And though they each had a room, the rest of the pack lived elsewhere.

Except for one.

Alaric's adopted son turned bodyguard; the Pack's enforcer, and the bane of my existence.

Damon Salvatore.

He would also be home.

I sighed, but figured it best to get all the unpleasantries out of the way.

The sooner we got to the point, the sooner I could go back to New York.

That was all that mattered.

I'd only taken two steps when the scent hit me.

Like wood and dark spice, mixed with leather and whiskey.

Wild and intoxicating.

A smell I'd recognize anywhere.

I froze, not even bothering to turn, ashamed that I'd walked right past him before even noticing he was there.

Clearly, I was out of touch with my instincts.

But he didn't get to know that.

"Are you gonna hide in the shadows all night, or what?"

Sure enough, a second later, steps crackled from behind me, and I felt his presence as he stepped onto the path.

"I wasn't sure you'd actually come."

I turned, and there Damon stood, waiting for me.

Even in the dark, my eyes told me everything I needed to know.

He looked exactly the same.

The same as he had over a year ago, before I left, the same as he had almost ten years ago, when I'd first met him.

One little perk of our curse.

Prolonged youth.

Our aging slowed after our first Change, so we eventually appeared ten, sometimes twenty years younger than what we actually were.

In reality, Damon was pushing his late thirties, but Physically, he didn't look a day over twenty-five.

I hated him for it.

His flawless looks, his dark features, and eyes so blue, you could drown in them.

I hated everything about his perfect physique.

Of course, in reality, I knew he wasn't actually flawless.

His body was decorated with odd end marks and scars.

Courtesy of the life we led.

Damon smiled at me, "I was waiting for you."

"Oh, so you're the welcoming committee," I gave him a look, "And here I was, thinking Alaric had finally chained you to the gate where you belong."

He laughed callously, "I missed you too, kitten."

A short growl escaped my lips, betraying my true nature.

Damon knows how much I despised his little pet name for me.

He had originally used it to get a rise out of me, but after a while, it had stuck.

And it pissed me off.

I was a lone female wolf in a sea of male instinct and testosterone.

Not a cuddly little ball of feline fur.

Damon's smile only broadened at my reaction.

He reached for the bag in my hand, and I shifted away.

"Just trying to help," he muttered.

"I don't need it."

The "I don't need you" was implied.

As we walked up the path, I tried to ignore how easily we fell into old patterns.

Damon hardly ever walked next to me.

It was always slightly behind, a little to side, flanking me.

It was a safety strategy for when we hunted.

It was habit for when we walked.

We didn't speak until we reached the front porch of the Pack's manor, and Damon hurried in front of me to open the door.

"Welcome home," he purred as I walked inside.

Everything looked the same.

Exactly the same.

As if I had never left.

I sat my bags down in the foyer, then walked into the living room, where a fire blazed under the mantle, and the earthy smell of the charred wood filled my nostrils.

But Alaric was not there.

Damon followed me as I hurried across the room, into the next, the library, side connected to Alaric's study.

"Ric?" I called.

There was no answer.

I sniffed the air.

His scent was so integrated into every piece of the house, it was hard to find the fresh trail.

Luckily, Damon decided to be useful before I had resorted to sticking my nose to the ground.

Not that I actually would have.

"He's not here."

I looked over at him, "What do you mean?"

Damon's eyes flickered toward the back of the house, and I groaned.

The back door opened into a little field of a yard.

The perimeter of which was surrounded by woods.

The Pack, though more specifically, Alaric, owned the five hundred acres of forest that laid beyond the gate and the house.

It was, in a way, a sanctuary for the pack.

Our own private property, to Change, to hunt, to play, to just be ourselves.

A little whine escaped me.

It had been so long since I'd been able to run freely.

Which is exactly what Alaric was out there doing.

He was Changed.

"He'll be back in a while," Damon assured me, "He assumed you'd be here in the morning."

That got my attention, "And I suppose you thought otherwise? Seeing as you were awaiting my arrival."

He shrugged, "Tonight, tomorrow, I would have waited either way."

I knew he was telling the truth.

Damon's wolf took lead of him better than the rest of ours did.

In a hunt, he could wait for hours, comfortably, for the perfect strike, and think nothing of it.

It was instinct.

It was wolf.

The rest of us had stronger ties to our humanity.

But then again, we didn't have quite the same upbringing.

Before I had been bitten, I had lived a human life.

My parents had died when I was young, my aunt had taken me in while I finished high school, a two year junior college, then saw me off to the University.

Most of the others had had similar human experiences, before their First Change.

Damon hadn't had that luxury.

Alaric had told me the story once.

Of how Giuseppe Salvatore, the Pack's last Alpha, had knocked a girl up.

Under werewolf law, if the child was a male, he was to be removed from the mother after birth, and brought to the Pack to be raised.

Giuseppe had intended to do just that.

But the woman fought for her son, refusing to give him up to his father without explanation.

So Giuseppe had come in the night to take the baby.

He was caught, and the women flew at him.

Not expecting her attack, his body forced the Change onto him.

She saw.

He killed her.

Too late did he realize that the woman had another child, an older boy.

Damon.

Giuseppe had been high on the fight, instinct driven, and had bit him.

Once he'd turned back, he realized what he'd done.

So he took the baby, his son, and fled.

Upon returning to the pack, he'd sent Alaric, the Cleaner, at the time, to fix the mess.

Alaric had gone, disposed of the woman's body, cleared the place out, and looked for the little boy.

There had been none to find, so they assumed the First Change had killed him.

A few years later, a story hit the news, of dead bodies, dog bites, and ripped throats.

Giuseppe and Alaric went.

They had originally suspected a Mutt.

But what they'd found was a feral little wolf boy, that despite all odds, had survived his First Change after all.

Giuseppe understood that the child could not be expected to control the Change, or what had happened because of it.

It was for that reason alone that he let Damon live.

Alaric had cleaned up the mess, made sure a wild dog took the blame.

Then had worked on gaining Damon's trust.

Spending so much time alone, after the Change, had made the child more animal that human.

So Alaric had Changed, gained Damon's trust that way, and brought him home.

Giuseppe feared the Alpha council would frown upon the bitten child.

So despite the fact that Alaric was raising the boy, he claimed him as his own, gave him his last name, and allowed him to play with his son.

The child's half brother.

Stefan, at least, was thrilled with the new friend.

"You look...different."

Damon's voice brought my mind back to the present.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded, not liking the way his eyes roamed over me.

"When you lived here, you let Mason do your shopping," he noted.

My eyes dropped to my outfit.

Slight heeled boots, black leggings, and a long, flowing, maroon tank top, covered with a dark jacket.

I rolled my eyes, "You don't think I could pick this out myself?"

In truth, I didn't even remember if I had.

Caroline navigated most of my fashion.

"I just mean that...you look good," he offered.

I bit my tongue.

Just take the compliment.

Silence fell.

I decided then that I'd had enough waiting on Alaric.

I would go find him myself, in a way that felt too natural, for someone who had been fighting it off for over a year.

But here, in Mystic Falls, on the Pack's land, I could let my humanity slip a little.

I shrugged off my jacket, and started to kick off my shoes.

Damon realized what I was doing, and smirked, before beginning to strip down himself.

My pants and shirt hit the pile at my feet.

Then my bra. And finally, my panties.

Damon was kicking off his boxers as I rushed to the back door.

By the time I stepped onto the patio, he was once again behind me.

Part of my brain realized that I was standing, naked, mere feet from an equally naked Damon, and that this should probably bother me...but it didn't.

Out here, it was easier to silence the human part of my brain, and let the animal take over.

The wolf was all instinct.

Trust.

In my own ability, in my Alpha, in my Pack.

The bond was deep, and because of it, nudity meant nothing.

I'd ran with the Pack for years, hunted side by side with them.

We would Change back, usually miles from where we'd left our clothes, and would think little of it.

And how many times had we all collapsed in a clearing somewhere, after a run or a hunt, and slept upon soft grass, skin brushing, snores echoing, muscles spent?

Our bodies mattered as much naked as they did covered in fur.

If instinct ever pushed one of the males into making a move, I put them in their place.

Or Damon was choke holding them before they got the chance.

It didn't happen often.

So this...this was normal.

Natural.

In a way the city could never be.

Can't have people crying wolf in Central Park.

I felt a pressure on my palm and looked down.

Damon's hand had grabbed mine.

He didn't interlace our fingers.

He just pressed our skin together, letting me know that he was here with me.

Excitement flowed through him, as surely as it did me.

Damon smiled, "I'll race you."

I took off as soon as the words left his mouth, laughing as he recovered and bolted after me.

This was exactly what I had needed.

Something fun.

Freeing.

Chapter 2! :)

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