Way of the Wolf: Shifter Legacies 1 by Mark E. Cooper

said. Make sure everything is working properly, you have to make certain you do it right the first few times. It takes practise. I remember waking up with a tail once—”
    George chuckled. “I remember that.”
    Cassie scowled. “It wasn’t funny. It hurt like hell.”
    “Here,” George said offering David a robe. “I don’t need the competition if you know what I mean?” His eyes flicked down then back to David’s eyes. He grinned.
    David blushed and thrust his arms into the robe and quickly belted it to cover his nakedness. Cassie sighed, but she was fighting not to laugh at his blushes.
    “You’re new aren’t you?”
    He nodded. “I’m David. This was my first time.”
    “Your first change?” Cassie said. “I’m sorry. The first time is always hard, something about changing against your will makes it worse than if you change voluntarily.”
    “I changed on purpose. AML sent people to murder me. I had to change to get away.”
    “But you said this was your first time,” George said glancing uneasily at Cassie. “Your first change is always involuntary.”
    “Always?”
    “Always has been as far as I know and I know quite a bit,” Cassie said with certainty. She shook her head. “That can wait; you need rest and time to heal. You can use our spare room and we’ll talk some more tomorrow.”
    “Will you teach me what you know?”
    “Tomorrow,” Cassie said firmly and George led David away.
    * * *

7 ~ Lost Souls
    “So you’re saying there’s something wrong with me?” David said and took another mouthful of Cassie’s excellent Cajun Lamb.
    She shook her head. “I’m saying there’s something different about your relationship with Mist, something very right if what I believe is true. Look, when a shifter is made it’s always the result of violence. Even those of us born with lycanthropy have an attack in our mother’s past to blame it on. The bond with our beasts reflects that. Danger, fear, anger, blood—violence or any strong emotion can trigger the change, and the first change is always involuntary because of that. Our beasts always come out to protect us.”
    “You said my first change was unusual.”
    “Because you chose it, it wasn’t forced on you. What do you know of natural wolves?”
    David shrugged. “Nothing.”
    “Our wolf form doesn’t make us natural wolves. We may look like a natural wolf, though we’re usually much larger, but we aren’t wolves. We are a mixture. Wolves are pacifists you know?”
    “I’m not sure I follow. I’m sure I’ve read of wolves attacking people.”
    “It’s very rare. A wolf will always run away from a confrontation if it can and will only fight if cornered. Dogs are different. They can be vicious and will fight each other to the death, but wolves don’t do that. There was a story a few years back of a wolf hand reared by a man and his family. The wolf regarded them as his pack including the family pets—a pair of Alsatians. The story goes that these two dogs got into a fight over something and the wolf became very distraught. He was shaking and whining with his tail tucked—he just didn’t understand. Eventually he grabbed one of the dogs by the tail and physically pulled him off the other.”
    “Your point being?”
    “The point I’m trying to make is this: don’t be fooled by appearances. A natural wolf wouldn’t come anywhere near us. We may look like wolves in our other forms, but we are not wolves. We fight and kill over things no wolf would understand or be interested in. Our human side curses us with feral natures.”
    His eyebrows climbed. “Our human side does? I would have thought the opposite.”
    “No. Wolves are very social creatures; they never fight among themselves. Shifters do, all the time.”
    David nodded thoughtfully. Wolves were innocent creatures that had no concept of good and evil—those concepts were labels put on the world by man to explain it.
    “David... when you talk to