Kakashi Hatake's evening had just begun in the little bar in the farthest corner of Arizona where he worked as a bar tender, serving beer and other drinks plus a small variety of foods to his patrons. He had just handed one of his friends a beer, a shifter by the name of Genma, a feline and second in command to the panther alpha.

Asuma Sarutobi.

"How's it going Gen?" Kakashi asked as he moved to pick up a glass that another customer had left a little while ago without drinking all of his drink.

"It's going fine. How's it going on your end?"

"Same old, same old." Kakashi said as he tossed back the drink that he had just picked up, he didn't see any use in letting the whiskey go to waste since there was no one around to drink it. And since he didn't have to worry about catching any human diseases, then he had nothing to fear from downing the drink that a stranger left behind.

"Really? Hn, I thought that you would be a little on edge with a human moving into the neighborhood-" Genma said as he tossed back his drink. Kakashi started to laugh and say something when Genma's words sank in and his grip on the glass in his hand loosened causing the glass to fall to the floor at his feet and shatter into tiny little slivers as Kakashi turned wide mis matched eyes to his friend and croaked.

"W-What?" What the hell did Genma mean there was a human moving into the neighborhood? This was Shifter town for fuck sake! There weren't suppose to be any humans living in Shifter town unless they were mated to one of the shifters.

And most shifters didn't like humans. Not since they had been forced to move out of the cities and onto the state land that the alpha's had bought for them to live on in peace, away from the human populations; since they had been declared a threat to others.

Genma looked at the silver haired lupine with a bemused expression on his face. Kakashi looked shell shocked. Weird since he normally knew all of the goings on in Shifter town. But then Genma only knew about the human, because the former lupine alpha, Sakumo Hatake had mentioned something about the human moving into town several days ago and had asked several of the other alpha's to keep their men away from the human for two reasons.

1) The human was a mature female.

And 2) There were so few females to mate with that whoever saw the little female might instantly decide to make a mate-claim.

Which might lead to fighting among others who might take a liking to her as well. Sakumo had been very clear about his request, and had even gone a little further and mentioned that since the female would be living in the lupine's territory, she would be considered a part of their pack and under their protection. Which meant that any male that was seen sniffing around the female without permission from the her, would be dealt with painfully.

Genma was guessing that the only reason that Kakashi didn't know about the human before now was because he had been out of town on lupine business until a few hours ago and simply hadn't had the time to check in with his father yet. "What human?"

"The one moving into your territory." Genma said evasively as he tossed back another drink. He didn't know much about humans, but he did know this. Any human female crazy enough to leave the cities and towns that she was born and raised in for an entirely different city full of creatures that were more animal than human, was either completely and utterly insane or incredibly brave.

Kakashi made a strange throaty sound that could have been a growl, maybe, and fisted his hands at his sides as his finger nails lengthened into claws and fur bristled along the back of his hands as his eyes started to glow an eerie deep blue and deep red to match the color of his eyes. Anger etched into his sinful, savagely beautiful features.

Genma made a funny sound in the back of his throat and mentally went over what he should and shouldn't say to the lupine alpha. Either way he looked at things he was going to have a knot jerked in his tail. If not by Kakashi then by his father, Sakumo.

Both of which he wasn't looking forward too, but as the current alpha of the lupines in the area; Kakashi had the right to know who was moving into his territory.

Kakashi made another throaty sound, this one louder, the sound vibrating in the lupines chest as he took several deep breaths to calm himself down. He needed to listen with a clear mind. "What human?" Kakashi asked again, more softly this time, his mind abuzz with questions.

"I'm not completely sure but I think the human is Iruka Umino's adopted sibling." Genma finally said. Kakashi blinked and tilted his head to the side a little bit, his silver hair falling in his face, partially hiding one of his eyes as he tried to recall hearing anything about Iruka's adopted sibling.

Iruka was a panther that had mated one of the lupine males, Kotetsu.

About a five years ago, before he had been mated. Iruka had gotten into some trouble with some humans outside of Shifter town. He'd been found out as a shifter, drugged and dragged into an abandoned lot late in the middle of the night and was beaten severely by a group of human males after which one of them had pulled a knife and had started to cut the shifter up when someone had intervened and saved the panther from being skinned alive and left for dead.

The rest of the details in Kakashi's mind were fairly sketchy, but because Iruka had been saved by a human and couldn't be treated in a human hospital. The human had carefully moved him to a car and had driven him all the way back to Shifter town, risking life and limb to save him from bleeding out from his wounds.

Once Iruka had healed, he had left Shifter town once again this time to look for his savior and had found the human and established a bond with them. Adopting the human as his sibling which in itself was a risky process for obvious reasons.

Shifters just didn't do well with humans. Having humans around was bad for them as a collective whole.

Because if anything happened to the human, the government would not hesitate to attack them and wipe them off of the face of the earth. Kakashi remained quiet for several heart beats before asking, "Who approved the human to live in Shifter town?" Because it was impossible for a human to move out of their territories and into Shifter town without permission from an alpha or two.

Genma cringed. Not really knowing what to tell him because he didn't know who had approved the females presence. "No clue."

"When does the human get here?" Kakashi asked curiously, he needed to know so that he could meet the fool and lay down some ground rules for living in Shifter town. Genma was quiet for a second. Weighing the pros and con's of telling the lupine that the woman was already in town and was currently busy unpacking her things and settling into her new home, which was coincidentally in the house right across from Kakashi's own.

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Well here is the first chapter of my latest story.

Can you tell that I'm feeling a bit better? I've been writing like mad.

I've updated my stories.

Animals

Craving Touch

Blackmail

Immortal Guardian

And I think a few more. Isn't it pathetic that I can't recall them all?

Anyways as always, please read this and let me know what you think. I was sort of making myself dizzy with all the thinking that I had to do to put some detail into this chapter and it will only get better (or worse) as I go along.

I'll also need some help coming up with a name for this story. But I'm not sure what to call it just yet so any input you all can give me would be awesome.

Thanks and later.