Gabriel nodded. “You see, there was a time when my pack lived close to society. We intermixed like normal people. I even tried my hand at being a priest for a while—not quite the same as a monk. But our alpha at the time—his name was Ulrich—let the werewolves in our pack hunt at will. They were discreet at first, but many of them got out of hand. They believed that we, as superior creatures, should rule the countryside with terror. Ulrich started to believe that he could overthrow the government if the peasants were afraid enough to revolt. Many of the pack took pleasure in attacking women and children and leaving their disemboweled bodies near roads and forest paths for others to find. They’d sit in the town’s square and joyfully listen to the wails of the bereaved and the cries of the frightened.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. This was worse than the account in the book.
“King Louis XV eventually listened to the concerns of his people and raised a bounty on the head of the supposed beast. He conscripted peasants as soldiers to kill wolves, and sent his greatest noble huntsmen into the surrounding villages and forests. The king’s men pillaged many of the peasants’ homes for food and supplies, raped their daughters, and decimated their farms—all in the name of finding the beast. It became a very dangerous time for anyone suspected of knowing anything about wolves. Many in my pack were shot by the hunters while in their wolf forms. They all survived, of course, but it was still a very unpleasant way to live. Yet Ulrich and many of the wolves in our pack continued to kill—even at the risk of exposing us all.”
“That’s terrible. What did you do?”
Gabriel rubbed one of his fingers, which had a lighter band of skin on it than the rest of his hand. “I was concerned for the townsfolk. Heartbroken to see so many innocents die for sport. I was the presiding priest at so many of their funerals. Luckily, I was not the only one who was disgusted by Ulrich’s ways. My mentor, Sirhan, who should have been the true alpha of our pack, had not claimed the position out of respect for his father, Ulrich. However, he feared there would be no pack left for him to inherit if he waited too long. He and a couple of other pack mates devised a plan. I refused to take part in it directly, because it involved killing, but as a priest, I did bless a handful of silver bullets for them. Sirhan then waited until Ulrich turned into a wolf, and when he was just about to attack a peasant hunter, Sirhan shot him through the heart with one of my silver bullets. He then told the peasant that if he took the body of the giant wolf to the king and claimed he had killed it, he’d be rewarded handsomely.
“Sirhan became the true alpha of the pack and put a stop to the killings, and when the time was right, we moved the entire pack to the Americas. We’ve lived here in seclusion ever since. Sirhan puts the preservation of the pack above all else. And I, as his beta, Keeper of the pack, encourage them to live in peace. Some may call that being a coward. I do not.”
“And the pack has been peaceful ever since?” I asked. That didn’t jive with what Talbot had told me about wolves from Gabriel’s pack attacking his family.
“Many of them still hunt in our territory—animals mostly, but there have been a handful of unfortunate humans who have wandered onto our lands in the past couple hundred years.… But we live discreetly. However, a little less than twenty years ago, there was a group of relatively young Urbats in our pack who did not understand the things Sirhan and I tried to teach them. They were a new generation who reveled in the tales of Ulrich and the Beasts of Gevaudan; they thought the pack should return to what they thought of as the ‘golden age of the werewolf.’ One of them desired to be the new alpha, so they attacked Sirhan, mortally injured his mate, Rachel, and took their killing spree into the nearest town and attacked at least five different households.”
The image of a three-year-old watching his parents die flashed in my mind. “And you did nothing to stop them?”
“There was nothing I could do.” Gabriel slumped his shoulders and again rubbed at that light band of skin on his finger. “When I first turned into a wolf, I went on a killing spree of my own—until I killed my sister, Katharine. When I came to my senses and realized what I’d done, I swore off all forms of violence. I haven’t willingly injured anyone since then. I do not raise my hand, no matter the cause.”