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

wouldn’t be a very good aide if I couldn’t go about in the day time. I eat and drink in the human way, though I could abstain for longer than a normal human if push came to shove. I don’t drink blood,” Morgan made a face. “Nasty stuff.”
    “You get used to it,” Chani said with a smile.
    “Hypothetically speaking, let’s assume I say yes to working for you and that Susan is agreeable to becoming what Morgan is, how would that work?”
    Chani answered. “One of us, me probably as I do not currently have a servant, would bond with Susan. She would agree to let me feed from her, and then later she would take blood from me. It may only take one feeding, but three is the usual method. She will become like Morgan shortly after that. For this to happen, you both have to agree to live and work here with your colleagues. You will have no outside contact for an indefinite time, and will work for us as we direct. You will not discuss any of this with anyone.”
    “I can’t agree to an indefinite time. Your research may never be realised. I would be signing the rest of my life over to your project.”
    Arcadian nodded. “Let us say a minimum of two years with options for renewal of the contract.”
    Elliot nodded slowly. “I need to speak with Susan. I can’t go ahead unless she agrees.”
    “Excellent! I’m sure she will agree, Professor.” Arcadian smiled slowly. “I’m certain of it in fact.”
    * * *

2 ~ Lephmann
    “Am I boring you, Doctor Lephmann?”
    David frowned at the mockery. “Not at all. I was considering your choice of subject. I don’t know about you gentleman,” he surveyed the others, “But talk of this nature… troubles me.”
    Jan nodded her agreement, but it was already obvious that the others agreed with Hoberman. A cynical man might think to charge them with toadying—and be right. Doctor Hoberman was senior to them all and he was in tight with those that mattered. Jan was relatively new in her position, just as David himself was. Both of them were still on the outside looking in. He hadn’t been able to make friends with Hoberman’s little clique, and if he were honest with himself, he didn’t want to. He saw the wall growing ever higher between him and the others every time he opened his mouth, but it was not in him to keep silent when he heard such bigoted trash expressed by professional and well respected men. They should know better. Opinions voiced in private were one thing, though the smell of such hypocrisy turned his stomach, it was better than the alternative. Saying such things where others could hear and perhaps act upon them was irresponsible in the extreme.
    “Troubles you in what way exactly?” Hoberman said, playing to his audience.
    “To differentiate between patients for such petty reasons as his or her race is abominable. I became a doctor because I believe in helping people. It doesn’t matter to me whether the patient is human or something else, and it shouldn’t matter to you gentleman.” He tried to catch their eyes. “There is nothing in the oath we all swore that restricts our practice of medicine to humans.”
    One or two of the others did have the decency to look abashed, but they didn’t have the moral courage to agree with him. They looked away trying not to meet his eyes.
    Only Jan had the guts to speak up. “I agree. You must admit the situation has changed, if not, we are nothing but frightened peasants hiding from the bogeyman.”
    Hoberman glared. “The times have indeed changed and not for the better. Your bogeyman is as real as you are. We knew how to deal with such creatures as they deserved back then, but now we cuddle up with them and pretend not see what we’ve taken into our beds. Your peasants may have been ignorant savages beset by superstition, but they knew the folly of trying to live with these animals!”
    Jan hissed in shock. Even the clique was shocked to stillness. Hoberman had called them animals. They weren’t animals