Cities Of The Shifters ( Book Cover Done And Credit Goes To @MeowSniper Thanks)

The Joy of Coffee

"There's a she-wolf in your closet; open up and set her free...."

The one thing Ashliya was soon coming to love about Phoenix, Arizona was the warm spring, blistering summer, warm fall, and frigid winter. The spring was her favorite season though. Everything was bright and beautiful. The trees and flowers coming into bloom. She especially loved the fashion. Stepping out of her house in a blue green dress paired with killer wedges, she felt like a movie star, even fixed her hair in, what they called vintage now a days, fashion. The simple waves and tons of the "I-wish-this-was-around-back-then" hairspray. Things such as hairspray astonded the seemingly twenty two year old woman. In actuality she had been through both world wars, seen the craze of the first model T sold at a little over $850, listened to the news of the Titanic sinking, both world wars, the great depression, a near world peace, and now she was here watching chaos happen. She was a whirlwind of history locked up into a young body of twenty two. But she was not a human, she was shifter, a wolf who could live in the future more than the past. She'd had friends die, mourned them, she'd seen the start of the shifter prejudiced and for how long she had lived she felt as if she was going to see the end of it. In one way or another.

For now, she was living off retirement money, a few times over; playing as the receiver of a nice sum from her dead mother "Ashliya I", and driving a brand new lime green Ford Escape. Travel had been made easy thousands of times over but while she could live in the future she still couldn't figure out the new radios and just popped a CD into the CD player and turned up the music. In her soft voice she sang along, "Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies. . . ."

Music might be the best thing to have progressed over the years and she had a vast CD collection. Her home had a huge wall lined with nothing but cases and cases starting with old records, cassette tapes, and CD's some just repeat's but couldn't face tossing the older cassette's. She knew that for some of her things she could make a pretty penny off it. Well if she ever felt the need to she might. Now a days she realized people had little music devices, if she knew someone who could show her how to use them she might have to upgrade again.

Tapping her thumbs on the steering wheel she made her way to a place she forgot had grown. Starbucks coffee. She had her laptop in her backseat and had to send some emails to her other professors. Luckily she had email down pat, everything else she could live without. If the damn internet crashed today she'd love to see everyone run around as they wouldn't know what to do. She herself would shift into a wolf and disappear as a wolf only to resurface again when the coast was clear. Oh the ways of keeping yourself safe was one in a million. Pulling her car to a stop, she casually got out, carefully taking the keys out, and grabbed her laptop case before locking everything back up. Drawn by the thought of a cool cup of coffee and pumpkin spice bread she walked in and breathed in the deep wonderful smells of coffee.

Her favorite was the original simple cup; tall, lowfat vanilla, frappuccino in the spring and summer, or latte in the fall and winter. While it wasn't always that she used that as her go to drink. Ordering everything up the nice lady called out her name and brunette smiled. Luckily her wolfish features blended in with society. Her long think nails just looked as if she went to the nail salon, her thick reddish brown hair was gone unnoticed, and her sweet green blue eyes were not uncommon in humans. She was more like a coyote than a wolf blending in when she needed to and standing out when she wanted to. Setting down she smiled nicely at a man who caught her eye and began to work on the emails she needed to send. Casually taking a bite of the pumpkin bread or sipping out of her frappuccino.

Will you recognize his eyes when you know not his form?Let the darkness consume you!

BlackCloud had just went on his break from work. He was not one who liked to sit idle for extended periods of time. He had taken up a job working a lead mechanic at the local body shop and auto repair. As much as he hated Starbucks it was the closest thing to his job. He kick started his 1935 knucklehead and pulled out of the garage parking lot. It took him a little under five minutes to make the drive with traffic. BlackCloud's mind always seemed to be in his past and studying the mistakes he had made to try and be sure he never repeated them. He liked like your normal 25-30 year old man. However the reality of it was that he was actually one hundred and sixty one.