Excerpt from chapter 1:

The fur on the back of my neck stood straight up. We were racing down the mountain as fast as English's jeep could take us on the cracked and worn asphalt.

The road was already a hundred years without any maintenance, and the earthquake that had just shook us hadn't improved it any. V-town, Vancouver, lay off in the distance, I still couldn't see it. The world hadn't taken kindly to it when the Cataclysm had hit a century ago, wiping out most of the human populations and leaving us half-beasts in their wake. V-town was one of the only cities left in North America.

There was hardly and room in the jeep with the five of us crammed in here, and the rough surface of the road didn't help any.

English was driving, he was the only one who knew how. I could just see around his brown mane to the muscles bulging on his arms as he tried to keep us on the from flipping over. Beside him, in the passenger's seat, sat Amstys. The massive wolf was almost as big as English. Amstys wasn't as twitchy as the rest of us. He'd never even been to V-town before, but he kept glancing back to me every few minutes, taking cues from the fear that must have been written all over my face.

On my lap sat Rebecca. She was the only human amongst us. Without enough room back here for a proper seat, she was on my lap, my brown fur her only cushion. I had my arms wrapped around her, my nose pressed into her dark red hair.

"Don't worry, Wolfy," she whispered to me, "V-town's ridden out quakes before." Her words were a comfort, but we all knew that the massive shifting of the earth we'd just felt was far beyond anything we'd ever seen.

The last person in the vehicle with us was Jon, a German Shepherd and a member of the V-town police force. He'd been sent with us on our little excursion to the prairies in an effort to protect me.

"Bugger it all!" I heard English swear from up front as we screeched to a halt. A moment later his hands came down to smack the steering wheel so hard that I was afraid he was going to break it right off. "Okay, folks," He popped the car door open, "We walk from here."

Unlatching my own door and setting Rebecca on the ground outside, I followed. Well, it was obvious why we'd stopped. The road ahead had been torn to shreds. There were shards of pavement that shot up a good three feet into the air. Not even English's beloved jeep would be able to make good time on that.

I didn't bother to wait for everyone as I pulled open the trunk of the jeep and began throwing the packs on the ground until I'd found mine and Rebecca's. Mine was sky blue, and twice the size of her smaller human one. I handed Rebecca's pack to her and helped her settle the weight on her shoulders before I quickly shrugged into mine.

"Hey Mate, why does she get all the special attention?" English quipped as he reached in and pulled his own massive pack out.

I just rolled my eyes at English as I began walking. "Because she's got stuff you don't, English." Rebecca elbowed me in the gut as we headed out. "And because she'd not a dude!" I dodged Rebecca's elbow this time, only to get smacked upside the head by English's paw.

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Thanks to everyone who read and commented. It's great to know you enjoyed the story.

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