The gray male approached the silver-gray, growling under its breath with its maw half open and all of its fangs and teeth exposed.

The prone silver-gray did nothing in response to the gray male’s advances…as if it had already given up.

As the gray male neared, it began sniffing at the former leader, perhaps to check on how close to death the older, larger wolf really was.

Still the silver-gray did not move.

The gray male got closer, and closer and—

The silver-gray suddenly struck out at its rival, catching the younger gray male solidly in the throat, knocking the wolf over and sending it sliding across the forest floor.

The rest of the pack recoiled in fear.

The blow had been so hard, and had come so fast that it seemed…unnatural.

And in the moments that followed, the pack realized why.

The silver-gray had struck the gray male, not with its teeth or paws, but with something else entirely.

Where the silver-gray’s right front paw should have been, there was an arm, a human arm that stuck out from the wolf’s right shoulder and ended in a hand…a hand that was presently clenched in a large, tight fist.

Without sound or movement, the pack watched as the silver-gray wolf, their leader, rose up on all fours. It remained there for several seconds before it stood up on its hind legs—half wolf, half man—then let out a blood-chilling cry that cut through the forest for miles …

And miles…

And miles…

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank the following people for lending their names to a worthy cause—Maggie Baird, Nicholas and Noah Del Zotto, Jesse Borges, Porter Oakland, Patty Watters and Duncan Norquay, Kiera Kennedy, Robert Allen, and Narinder Datta. I’d also like to thank my wife, Roberta, without whose love and support this book, and all my other books, would never have been possible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Edo van Belkom is a Canadian author of some 35 books and over 300 short stories in the genres of horror, science fiction, fantasy and mystery. His short fiction has been published in countless anthologies such as Year’s Best Horror Stories, Year’s Best Erotica, Robert Bloch’s Psychos, the Hot Blood and Shock Rock series, as well as several anthologies based on RPGs. His story “Rat Food” (with David Nickle) won the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association, and “Hockey’s Night in Canada” won the Aurora Award, Canada’s top prize for speculative fiction.

More recently, his Silver Birch and Aurora Award-winning young adult series Wolf Pack has served as the inspiration for the new Jeff Davis supernatural TV show Wolf Pack, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, which premieres worldwide on Paramount+ in January 2023.

ALSO BY EDO VAN BELKOM

Wolf Pack Series

Wolf Pack*

Lone Wolf*

Cry Wolf*

Wolf Man*

Standalone Novels

Wyrm Wolf

Lord Soth

Mister Magick

Army of the Dead

Teeth*

Martyrs*

Scream Queen*

Blood Road*

Battle Dragon