Way of the Wolf: Shifter Legacies 1 Read Online Free Page A

his little jests.”
    Elliot was shaking, but he gripped the hilt of the knife and pulled. Morgan grunted as the knife grated on his sternum, and a trickle of blood escaped his lips.
    Morgan took a deep breath as the blade came free. “Thank you, that feels much better.” He used a handkerchief to clean the blood from his chin and dabbed futilely at his sodden shirt. “Disgusting stuff, blood. I’ll never get the stain out.”
    Elliot held the bloody dagger and stared. “May I see?”
    “Might as well see the entire show,” Morgan said opening his shirt. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Peter did this last time. I didn’t know it would hurt as much as it did.”
    He didn’t know what to say to that. The gaping wound in Morgan’s chest was bleeding heavily, but it wasn’t pumping the blood out of him. He reached to touch it, but glanced up at the last moment for permission. Morgan nodded to go ahead, and Elliot fingered the edges of the wound. It was no trick. The knife was an inch wide and had penetrated Morgan’s chest for its entire length—about four inches. It had done massive damage. By rights the man should be dead. Not only wasn’t he dead, there wasn’t really that much blood. It was messy, and Morgan’s shirt was sodden with it now, but for this kind of wound it should be gushing.
    He swallowed as the wound slowly closed before his eyes. It was already half as wide as it had been. He knew what Arcadian’s so-called cure had to be, and it was evil.
    “You’re a vampire. I should have known it was all a trick. Vampirism as a cure for my daughter... you have a sick sense of humour.”
    “I’m a man, not a vampire,” Morgan said but then cocked his head. “Well, a man with a little something extra, courtesy of the Arcadian.”
    “How are you responsible for his healing?” Elliot said.
    Arcadian reached to relieve him of the knife, and he didn’t resist. He held up the knife then slowly pushed it through the palm of his own hand. He held the hand out for inspection then pulled the knife out. A small puddle of blood welled up in his cupped palm, but then it seemed to evaporate. It hadn’t of course. It had simply been absorbed via the wound back into his body. The wound closed and faded. It was gone in seconds.
    “Please take your seat, Professor, and I will explain what this means to you and your daughter.”
    Elliot collapsed onto the sofa.
    Arcadian put aside the bloody knife. “I am what you would call a vampire and my birth people would call a revenant. It doesn’t matter what term is used, they mean the same thing. Basically, I am immortal.”
    Elliot couldn’t let that stand. “Vampires are already dead and can therefore not be called truly immortal. Stasis is not immortality.”
    Arcadian scowled. “Semantics. I had hoped for better from you. Some would have you believe vampires are not alive. I ask you, do I look dead?”
    Elliot turned to Chani and Peter. “Both of you as well?”
    “Afraid so old chum,” Peter said and Chani nodded.
    “And you?”
    Morgan shook his head. “I’m something else.”
    “He is my human servant,” Arcadian explained. “He’s my friend, my confidant, my aide if you will. He’s a man who will not age. Neither will he die unless I do. Even by your narrow definition of such things, Morgan is immortal.”
    Morgan might be immortal by Arcadian’s definition, but was he even human? He had no data to prove things either way, but he did have past research of shifters to guide him. Like Morgan, shifters began life as humans but they underwent huge physiological changes when infected by lycanthropy; their DNA itself rewritten by the virus. Vampire wannabes underwent similar changes when they submitted to the blood exchange and infected themselves with the vampire virus. That was fine and proven data, but what of a vampire’s human servant? Was Morgan still human on a biological level? How could he know? He needed to get the man into his lab for