Chapter 4

The full moon is a holy time for werewolves. Much in the way humans might dress nicely and congregate at a house of worship, a werewolf pack gathers for their own ceremonies together.

For the Toronto pack, the place we gather is about an hour and a half northwest of Toronto. Long before Canada was New France, back in the days when our ancestors fled northern Europe in longboats, a pack inhabited a small village in the area, on what is now two-hundred acres of unspoiled land we can safely roam as the creatures we become every full moon.

The transformation ceremony takes place in the ancient circle of standing stones built over five centuries before Columbus could erroneously claim the first European steps onto the North American continent.

The three stones bear tributes to the gods of our pack: Fenrir, the wolf who will devour Odin at Ragnarök, Lycaon, the cruel king punished by Zeus, and Lupa, she-wolf mother of Romulus and Remus. Once, the circle stood in a forest clearing.

Now, i