Prologue

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JUNE 2022 UPDATE: Go read "Lucy", a spinoff of the Masked SheWolf trilogy, now updating on Wattpad, and its "Behind the Scenes" companion book that includes character profiles and a complete recap of the trilogy, as told by the characters in interview format.

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I want you to do something for me. Everything you think you know about my world, throw it out the window. As of now, you know nothing. You will eventually learn everything.

Here's my first revelation for you: werewolves are real. They have existed for longer than people can remember. I know, shocking, right? But there aren't that many of them, which is kind of a bummer because they're pretty awesome. They used to be exposed to the world, and at one point, humans even hunted them down.

Ever since those days of persecution, werewolves have lived in secret communities called packs. Today, an average pack would consist of around thirteen to sixteen members, all of whom are related somehow –over eighteen, if they're a really big family. We like to live in small numbers, to avoid suspicion among humans, but not small enough to leave ourselves unprotected.

Very few packs have the means to provide for a large number of members while remaining safe, but there are some known around the world to have more than fifty. Those are usually the ones who give themselves a name, like they're famous or something. They're the closest thing werewolves have to royalty.

Their numbers give them an advantage over other packs. Plus, they own most of the lands ideal for shifting without being detected by humans. Other packs need their permission to shift on their land. Therefore, they become an authority figure that smaller groups go to in time of need.

Sadly, this can lead to a few pain-in-the-ass packs, which are all about amassing power and forcing their authority on others. Werewolves who choose to live on their own among humans create a problem for those power-hungry. It's like a mob, in a way; join us, or die.

To be fair, not all big packs are like that, but enough of them are. They're hard to contain by the other more powerful big packs, but luckily not impossible, which is why we haven't had any conflicts among our kind in decades.

That's not all; you should also be aware that werewolves stopped having daughters about five centuries ago. No one knows why or how this happened, which means no one knows how to stop it, either. But it caused a panic among every pack in the world, big and small. They called it the pandemic. It got to the point where only male werewolves are born now, and they have to 'mingle' –if you know what I mean– with human girls for their species not to go extinct.

The result of a werewolf-human union is a male werewolf who is not as powerful as one born from two werewolf parents. Back in the pre-pandemic days, werewolf-human relationships used to be a shameful thing because they dilute the bloodline, but now they're necessary. What else are werewolves supposed to do? Let the race die? Besides, humans are not viewed as though they're beneath werewolves. Not anymore.

Once a male chooses a girl as his mate, he can tell her everything about our world. Back when there were female werewolves, everyone had a significant other, magically predestined for them. Humans call them soul mates, but werewolves just call them mates. Unfortunately, the only way for werewolves to find their truemate is to see each other when they're shifted to wolf form. Humans, sadly, can't do that.

Now imagine what the reaction would be if a female werewolf was born in the twentieth century. Every child she might have with a male wolf, boy or girl, would be as strong as in the old days. Any pack interested in making stronger werewolves would definitely want to steal her. Those who were reluctant to do so would, at the very least, be afraid of other packs getting stronger because of her, and would do anything to prevent that.

Either way, I don't think they would be so casual about it, like "Hey, let's meet her and hope she falls in love with one of ours and makes babies with him!" No, it would be more like "Snatch her and go, go, go!" Maybe that's effective for them, not so great for her.

There's only one solution here; no one can know she's a girl. Pretending to be human doesn't work, since her scent would give away her animal gene. Pretending to be a boy, however, might be effective, because there's no difference between female and male werewolf scent. She just needs to watch out who she shifts in front of, because then they would be able to tell that she's actually a girl just by looking down her stomach.

Now, you're probably wondering where I'm going with this. See everything I just told you? It all comes back directly to me; I am a female werewolf in hiding. It's why I was given a boy's name when I was born; Michael Dylan Connolly. No one besides my parents and four brothers know the truth, and that's the way it has to stay, or else I'm in serious trouble.

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