Chapter 1

The first known werewolves were located in ancient Greece, the result of a curse. One man killed and ate a child; his crime was so heinous, no simple punishment would do. So a great king laid a curse on him, turned him into a wolf, so that the predator he was inside would show on the outside.

The king was tricked by his advisor, though, and the cursed man took on two forms: his wolf form, just like any other wolf, but with a human’s intelligence and a human form. And in his human form, the man was stronger than any other man; he was faster, his senses greater. The curse had made him not a wolf and not a man, but some combination of both

The second werewolf was an accident. He attacked a woman one night, and she survived, but she had been bitten. The first wolf soon realized that if he bit or scratched a human and did not kill them, they would be cursed too. They would become like him.

The wolves ran together at night and lived in tribes by day, in their human form. It was soon found that the children of the bitten wolves were born as werewolves, and the tribes grew and hunted together, with their own rules and laws. Young wolves would be taught to hunt animals, and then on their sixteenth birthday, when they were viewed as adults, they were taken on another kind of hunt. They started hunting humans.

In many places, werewolves remained a myth, but in others, people believed—and much like witches, there were trials. The werewolf trials occurred between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, and then once again werewolves became nothing but stories—grim fairy tales that few truly believed.

But although werewolf numbers had lessened greatly during the trials, they were not gone. They simply learned how to hide. There were those who still knew of the werewolves’ existence and took it on themselves to protect humans from the werewolves and other supernatural things—that, for most, only existed in legend, but in fact were very much real.

* * * *

Joshua Aberhamson knew a few things about life. He was the son of Katharine and Jeremy Aberhamson, both of whom had been killed by a werewolf when he was nineteen. Which was when he met the Jarvi family; they had been hunting the supernatural for years. Henry and Joki had killed the wolf that killed Joshua’s parents, and their daughter, Adelina, had picked up the pieces of his life.

Adelina had saved him, and when he didn’t want to go back to his old, ignorant life, she had taught him about her world. She had trained him to be a hunter, and after her parents retired, they had hunted together. Joshua had fallen in love with Adelina, and was lucky to have her love him back. He had lost his parents, but she gave him a family again—a son, Elijah.

Two years ago, his wife went on a hunt alone as she sometimes did. She never returned; he’d lost Adelina to some unknown monster. It could have broken him; he was sure it would have if not for his son, so he went on hunting.

Elijah is eighteen now, a man, and they hunt together. Elijah wants to hunt alone, to take on his own cases, but Joshua’s fear has been holding Elijah back. He doesn’t want to lose his son, but if he holds on too tightly, he could lose his son anyway.

Werewolves kill. Some occasionally, some frequently, but every wolf will take a human life at some point. It’s what they’ve been doing since the moment of their creation. Some they turn, but most they kill.

So when he started hearing rumors of a pack that only hunted animals, he didn’t believe it. But the whispers grew.

Joshua had been planning to investigate after he found out where this tribe was because he needed to know if it was true. He would have gone to Ohio with Elijah anyway, but they’d ended up going sooner when they’d heard several packs of werewolves were not pleased with the supposedly peaceful tribe. Joshua wasn’t about to let anyone be hunted, least of all a tribe espousing peace and change.

“So, what? Are we just going to go up to the door, knock, and ask if they eat people?” Elijah asks as Joshua pulls his car to a stop. They’re down the road a little from the large cabin rumored to house much of the pack. Even from here, Joshua can see lights. It seems even though they arrived unsociably late, the wolves are still awake.

“Smart-ass, and no. Normally we’d research the area for disappearances and deaths, but we might not have time if we want to earn them about the attack so we’ll wing it.” Joshua shrugs. He’s been trying to think of what to say to these people, but he hasn’t quite figured it out yet.