Guest Blogger: Terry Spear

The winner of Terry's book is: Anna Lisa! Congrats, Anna Lisa! I'll send your email address to Terry. Thanks so much to everyone who participated.

Which comes First, the Wolf or the Man?

Let’s say the man. He’s easier to maintain. And what about this man? I think of shaggy, a little stubble, some hair on the chest. After all, he IS part wolf.

So what do you think? Does he look like he could be a wolf masquerading part time as a man?

Now here’s the wolf.

Does he look like he could make a suitable mate when in his human skin?

But which comes first, the wolf or the man? Or does it really matter as long as you get both all in one?

To Tempt the Wolf is about a man just like this, who has wolfish interests in the woman who rescues him off a cold Oregon beach. She’s a professional wildlife photographer, although her interests are mostly in photographing wolves. Only she learns not all wolves are the same.

In Legend of the White Wolf, the man comes first, because he is not a wolf at all, at least in the werewolf sense. But that changes when he attempts to rescue the heroine, and now finds that the Arctic wolves living in this Maine wilderness are not exactly wolves, either.

In Heart of the Wolf, Destiny of the Wolf, Seduced by the Wolf, the hero and heroine are werewolves. But in Wolf Fever, the heroine was not a wolf in the beginning, so becoming one has been a trial, particularly since she’s gifted or cursed, depending on her mood at the time, with psychic abilities on top of that. How can anyone deal with the problems of having no control over “seeing” future happenings, then not being able to control their physical state when the urge of shapeshifting becomes too much to handle?

But if an infected wolf bit a man and changed him, and the werewolf man changed another human, and so forth and so on, originally, a wolf would have changed the human population into werewolves. Once werewolves began mating other werewolves and did not have to change human populations to maintain their small numbers, we would have royals, or those whose lines were mainly werewolf, not diluted with human genes. They have more control over shapeshifting and can change during the new moon, when newer werewolves can’t.

Some werewolves would argue that man came first. That if he hadn’t had the predisposition to turn in the first place, the first wolf bite wouldn’t have affected him.

I say that wolf or man, he’s the perfect mate, committed, loyal, family-oriented, loveable, and protective. So then the question is, which came first? Red wolves or gray?

In Heart of the Wolf and Destiny of the Wolf, the red females speak their minds. Red wolves came first, of course. Gray wolves are of another mind. They came first, and will not be convinced of anything differently.

From Heart of the Wolf:

“You’re so arrogant. No female could ever put up with you.” She pulled the comforter over her shoulder. “I bet if you could get away with it, you would say the original lupus garou was a gray.”

“He was,” Devlyn said with conviction.

She looked over her shoulder at him. “You can’t be serious.” But his expression was completely resolute.

“Sure. The first was a gray. I can’t imagine you’d ever heard otherwise. Somewhere along the line, a smaller gray female turned a redheaded Scot and he started a pack far away from any of the gray clans. Their pups were smaller, some gray, some more red. The reds began to turn other redheads until they were able to find mates among the lupus garou.”

“Bull. Ancient Scots were big men, not small.”

“No, really.”

“You know, just because you’re bigger and stronger doesn’t mean you were first. My grandfather said the first lupus garou was a red — that he was a berserker, a Norseman, who prayed to Odin, the Scandinavian god of war and death but also of poetry and wisdom. Odin could change into any form he liked, but a bear and a wolf were his best known forms. He was thought of as the ultimate alpha wolf when he turned into that beast.

The berserker human was a redhead, and after losing his wife and children to a raiding party of Norsemen, he beseeched Odin to give him the power to right the wrong done to his family and his people.

“Odin took pity on the Norseman and gifted him with near-immortality by extending his longevity, and the ability to change into a wolf — a red wolf — whenever the moon made its appearance.”

Devlyn kissed Bella’s ear. “All right, same story, except the Norseman had dark brown hair and amber eyes, and he was a hulking brute of a man. Big, not small like a red.”

Bella grunted. “He was a red.”

Devlyn didn’t say anything for several seconds, and she thought he’d fallen asleep. But then his hand slipped under the covers and caressed her shoulder. “Is that why Vernetta knocked out your baby teeth? Because you tried to convince her that the first lupus garou was a red?”

***
So you see, the real question of men and wolves still remains today. Was the first werewolf a red or a gray?

What do you think?

Thanks to Lynda for having me on her blog, and hope everyone tries on a hunky werewolf or two for size!

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Terry will give away a copy of her book to one commenter. Her winner will be selected and posted on Tuesday evening. Stop back by to see if you won.