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

tests.
    Assuming for the moment Susan could become what Morgan was, she would be trapped forever unchanging in her twenties. No bad thing some might say, but what of the other side effects? What about daylight, and drinking blood? Did Morgan need to drink blood the way vampires did to survive? What of the soul and children? What about that? He frowned as all the old legends and stories of vampires and their servants crowded into his brain.
    “Is Morgan immune to disease like you?”
    Arcadian cocked his head. “Yes. Morgan is immune because I am. It has never come up, but I suspect that should some new plague strike me, he would also be infected through our bond.”
    Elliot’s heart sank. “There is a bond?”
    “When Morgan hurts, I hurt and vice versa. We are linked via the blood bond. When I stabbed him, I felt his pain.”
    He might have felt Morgan’s pain, but he wasn’t actually injured. There was no blood on Arcadian’s shirt. “Let’s be clear. You’re saying that if Susan becomes like Morgan she will be cured?”
    Arcadian inclined his head in assent. “She would be cured.”
    “What about the side effects?” he said and giggled. “Vampirism is one hell of a side effect!”
    “Calm yourself.”
    “Easy for you to say,” Elliot said not feeling like himself at all. He felt on the edge of something both scary and momentous. “How was Morgan… how did he…”
    “How was Morgan made?” Arcadian offered and Elliot nodded. “As always, the secret is in the blood. We know how it works, but we don’t know why. No one does.”
    “That’s what you want isn’t it? Your research is to learn why it works?”
    “The exact opposite I’m afraid,” Chani said. “The project was created to learn why it doesn’t work. Making another vampire is chancy. If I were to infect you right this minute using my blood, you would have a two in ten chance of surviving it and making the transformation, but it doesn’t end there. I might infect your daughter and kill her, or she might have a six in ten chance of pulling through. There seems no logic behind why it works sometimes and not others.”
    “It is mere chance then?”
    “Not quite that bad. We’ve learned that certain techniques will increase the probability of a successful transformation. Repeated feedings upon a subject leading up to his infection and death will double his chances of being turned.”
    Peter butted in. “That’s another thing I’ve never understood. Why does it take three days for some of us to come back, and others weeks? Why do some of us die and stay dead? Why did you die and bounce back before we could even arrange for somewhere to lay you out?”
    Elliot blinked.
    Chani noticed his confusion. “My turning was unusual. I died as we all must, but was back on my feet transformed in a heartbeat. We don’t know why. We don’t know why the blood bond works either, or how for that matter, but it does. We aren’t just strong humans. We look human, but we’re not. Science can’t explain this for instance.”
    Elliot reared back in surprise when Chani’s face changed into one of a stranger and then back. He looked up at Peter in time to see him turn into Blake and back.
    “Goddess bless. I’ve heard of vampire mind tricks but never thought to experience them.”
    Arcadian chuckled. “No trick I assure you. It is true magic, or glamour if you want to get technical. All of us can do it to one degree or another.”
    “The stories?”
    “Are true up to a point. Not all of them, but enough to serve.”
    “I always thought the Shadow was cool,” Peter said and wiggled his fingers like a magician. “Clouding men’s minds you know?”
    He nodded calmly but felt chilled by this development. If they could cloud his mind and make him see things, how could he ever be sure of anything they told him?
    “What about Morgan?”
    “I can’t do anything like that. I’m physically tougher but that’s it.”
    “Blood, sunlight?”
    “I