They weren’t her pups. Hers were a year and a half old now and didn’t need watching anymore. She’d been particular in choosing a mate, settling on a passing wolf who hadn’t stayed to raise the litter with her. She hadn’t expected him to. He was a handsome old loner, but her choosing him had more to do with the spirit voice that was so strong in his head. His blood, combined with hers, had made sure that her offspring had strong voices, too.

Cousins, they called themselves, these creatures with the spirit voice like she had in her head, like her wolf. Or sometimes they would say the People, which seemed funny, since most of them were like her—unable to shift to a two-legged, five-fingered shape. But while they couldn’t walk upright, there was more to them than the beasts who had no spirit voice. What set them apart came from that old blood of theirs—not solely from the air of the otherworld, although the very air here was potent as well. The longer she stayed in these lands, the more she felt the changes.

Her spirit voice was stronger than it had ever been. She could shape words with it now so that anyone could understand her, not simply the pack. The voice had also created a new kind of wisdom inside her, a knowing that filled her mind with concepts beyond survival and simple physical comfort, and then allowed her to articulate them. She was fascinated with these new concerns—concepts of right and wrong and her place in the world, as well as the responsibility she owed the world for the gift of her own life. They were things that she had already known before, but they had simply been a part of her being. What had changed was that now she understood the reasoning behind them. When she made an ethical choice now, it was informed rather than by instinct.

And it wasn’t only her voice that had changed.

She should have been past her prime, not so quick on her feet and stiff from the years she’d fought in the ring and the wounds she’d sustained. Instead, she felt young and vital, her muscles firm, powerful. She could run for hours without tiring. She could bring down prey many times her size in the hunt.

It was very good now, but it had been hard at first.