A long, long time ago, a little girl and her Granny had played a trick on a wolf and had him killed.  But the wolf was no ordinary wolf.  He was the Alpha of a werewolf pack.  The pack had fallen into disarray with the death of their leader.  By the time a new Alpha had risen to power, the little girl had grown up and started a family of her own.  Slowly but surely, the pack had hunted the descendants of the girl and her grandmother, making them pay for what they had done.<br/><br/>Over time, the pack found it harder and harder to track their foe for the humans had grown wise to what the wolves were up to.  They went underground, using false names and moving frequently until all traces of the family had virtually disappeared and the story became a simple fairy tale meant to scare children.<br/><br/>The years passed and the older members of the pack began to die.  Some met violent ends.  Some died of natural causes.  For these werewolves were not immortal.  They simply age very slowly.  Eventually, there came a day when only a handful of wolves remembered the true story of Little Red Riding Hood.  Amaris had grown up hearing whispers of the tale and had even helped track down some of the family.  It was her duty as the murdered Alpha had been her grandfather.  She remembered a serious old man who had treated her sweetly and missed him terribly.  Despite that, she only hunted the family out of a sense of duty because it was something she was supposed to do.<br/><br/>Over the years, the pack had given up living in the forest and had done their best to assimilate into human society.  They chose to live in apartments or homes, always close enough to each other that they felt like a pack.  Most of them lived with at least one other pack member, even going so far as to sleep in one bed to maintain closeness.  Amaris was one of the few who chose to live alone.  Despite making their homes in the city there was still the need to connect with nature, to roam the forest to satisfy their feral instincts so they made use of the large national park nearby.<br/><br/>It was on one of these sojourns out of the city that Amaris heard the sounds of pups crying and whimpering.  Lifting her nose to the air, she began to track the pups, intending to figure out what was wrong and if there was anything she could do to help.  As a wolf, she was slightly bigger than a gray wolf, her fur a solid black with eyes of amber that shone with human intelligence.  Her paws were silent as she picked her way through the trees, always sniffing and inhaling deeply to ensure she was on the right track.<br/><br/>As she got closer, the whimpers and cries got louder.  The pups were quite upset about being trapped and were crying desperately for their mama.  Her upper lip curled in a silent snarl at the trap, the smell of human polluting her nose.  Just as she was about to change into her human form, a scent wafted through the air.  Human.  And coming close.  With a low growl in the back of her throat, she sank back into the shadows to watch and wait.