Perhaps I have given the wrong impression by making such a big deal out of my pursuit to inhabit the human world; as if all the werewolves shave themselves off from human life.
By requisite, they do not cut themselves off because most werewolves live in the human world.
Short of teaming up and establishing a commune in Quebec City, they do not have much choice because the human world provides them with food, sex, shelter, and other necessary things that they would need to live their life.
Yet, irrespective of the fact that they may live in that world, they do not consider themselves part of it.
They regard human interaction as an integral evil, with behaviors ranging from resentment to barely concealed amusement.
They are just actors playing a role, sometimes taking pleasure in the role they play on the stage, but usually alleviated to get off it.
I did not want to be like that, I wished to live in the human world and as much as possible, be myself living it.
I did not select this life and I damn well was not about to give in to it, relinquishing every dream of my future, mediocre, ordinary dreams of a home, a family, a career, and above all, peace. None of those was possible trying to live as a werewolf.
I grew up in a foster home, a bad foster home at that. I never had any family as a child, I became solely determined to establish one for myself.
Becoming a werewolf pretty much blew those plans into the dumper. However, even if a husband and children were out of the question, that did not mean I could not pursue some part of that dream.
I was making a vocation for myself in journalism. I was making a home too for myself in Montreal. And I was making a family as well, though not the traditional family, with Nicholas.
We had been together long enough that I had begun to believe some peace in my life was feasible.
I could not believe my luck in finding someone as normal and reasonable as Nicholas. I knew exactly what I was. I was impossible, emotional, contentious, and not the kind of woman someone like Nicholas would want to fall for.
Of course, I was not like that around Nicholas. I kept that part of me, the werewolf part hidden, hoping I had eventually shed it off like dead skin someday.
With Nicholas, I had the chance to properly work on myself, to become the kind of person that he thought I was. Which of course, was the kind of person I wanted to be.
The Pack did not comprehend why I chose to live among humans. They could not comprehend because they were not like me. First, I was not born a werewolf.
But most werewolves are, or at least they are born carrying the blood in their veins and will encounter their first Change when they attain adulthood.
The other way to become a werewolf is to be bitten by a werewolf and it is very few people that outlive a werewolf's bite.
Werewolves are neither stupid nor beneficent. When they bite, they plan to kill. If they bite and fail to kill, they will always tail their victim and finish the job. It is just a simple matter of survival.
If you are a werewolf who has comfortably integrated into a town or city, the last thing you want is some half-crazed new werewolf wobbling around your territory, massacring people, and drawing attention to himself.
Even if someone is bitten and manages to escape, the chances of survival are always tiny. The first few Modifications are hell, on the body and the sanity.
Hereditary werewolves grow up knowing their lot in life and having their fathers to direct them. Bitten werewolves are on their own.
If they do not die from the physical pressure, the mental stress drives them either to destroy themselves or raise a big enough bluster that another werewolf finds them and ends their suffering before they cause trouble.
So there are not many bitten werewolves running around. At last by count, there were roughly forty-five werewolves in the world. Exactly four were non-hereditary, including me.
I am the only female werewolf in existence. The werewolf gene is shifted only through the male line, father to son, so the only way for a woman to come to be a werewolf is to be bitten and survive, which as I have said, is rare.
Given the odds, it will not be so surprising to say that I am the only female werewolf.
Bitten on purpose, turned into a werewolf for a motive.
It was amazing that I survived. After all, when you have got a species with four dozen males and one female, that one female becomes something of a prize.
And werewolves do not settle their wars over a nice game of chess. Nor do they have a record of respect for women.
Women serve two functions in the werewolf world, which are sex and dinner, or if they are feeling lazy, sex is followed by dinner.
Although I doubt any werewolf would feast on me, I am an overpowering object for satisfying the other primal urge. If I had been left on my own, I would not have lived.
But fortunately for me, I was not left on my own. Since I had been bitten, I had been under the protection of the Pack. Every society has its ruling class. In the werewolf nation, it was the Pack.
For justifications that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the status of the werewolf who had bitten me, I had been part of the Pack from the time I was turned.
A year ago I left. I had slashed myself off and I was not going back. Given the choice between human and werewolf, I had chosen to live and be like the humans.