Living in A Pack (Book One)

Chapter One

I stare at myself in the mirror, it's my first day of school ever in my whole entire life and I need to make sure I don't blow it. I drag a comb through my thick but short white hair. I've always hated my hair long, so I keep it short, only just long enough to cover my ears, but still short. Or at least where my ears should be, if I wasn't a polar bear shifter. No, instead my ears rest on top of my head, and of course they're polar bear ears which means I have to wear a hat all the time in public, it's really quite annoying.

I finish fixing my hair and grab my back pack and CN Tower baseball hat and run out the door of my apartment. I live alone because my parents died about 2 months ago. We'd been out on the Arctic ice in our polar bear shapes when it had happened. My family had been very traditional, we'd lived in a small Arctic village as humans but we usually hunted in our animal forms for our own meals. That's why my ears were always showing. Most bear shifters or shifters of any kind for that matter keep their ears hidden but because of how I was raised I couldn't, they stayed out.

My parents had died while hunting, both dragged into the murky depths of the icy ocean by orca. I was powerless to stop them. My mother had managed to fend them off long enough for me to get safety back on the ice but she couldn't save herself. Before she died she told me to come to find a pack. Bear shifters don't usually live in packs because bears are solitary animals, it's rare to see a bear shifter pack so it's better for me to look for a pack that takes all shifters. That's what brought me to Toronto.

After walking for about 15 minutes I stopped outside a large building with dozens of teenagers filing into it. School. My school, first one ever. I adjusted my back pack and began to walk towards the school. I wonder if I will find a pack here, there's one around here it's just a matter of finding it.

Suddenly I feel myself falling forwards. My hands smash into the ground in front of me sending small shocks of pain through them. Quickly I stand up and whip around, instinctively getting into a fighting stance. Three girls stand in front of me, the one who looks to be the leader grins evilly at me while the other two laugh. She has long black hair pulled back in a high pony tail and I can tell just by looking at her that I'm going to hate her.

"You new here or something?" She asks, in a voice that clearly shows how highly she thinks of herself.

"Yes, obviously" I reply, rolling my eyes.

"Oh so you are a girl." she sneers, ignoring my answer. "Me and my friends couldn't tell, with that ugly short hair and stupid hat you're wearing."

"Lots of girls have short hair. All of them having better hair then that stringy mess of top of your head." I shoot back

"You little bitch!" The girl lunges at me. I side step easily and she falls to the ground. One of her friends grabs me from behind and I begin to twist around to slap her. What a great first day of school.

"Valerie, Jasmine, Alicia, leave the new girl alone." A voice interrupts before I can slap the girl behind me. Her grip instantly drops and the black haired bitch from before stands up quickly.

"Sorry Dylas" the black haired girl apologizes quickly, clearly showing that she likes this guy

"Shut up Valerie, take your friends and leave." The guy speaks to the black haired girl. Valerie nods, and her and her friends run off in the direction of the school. "Sorry about that" the guy Dylas turns to me, and holds out his hand. I turn my attention on him to shake his hand and the smell instantly hits me, I didn't notice before because I wasn't paying attention but now I do. He's a shifter, wolf by the smell of it, he must belong to the pack around here. I shake his hand and I can tell by the look on his face that he just realized I'm not human either. He also looks confused which tells me he's never met a bear shifter.