Bitten (novel) - Werewolf Mythology

Werewolf Mythology

In the Women of the Otherworld series, unlike many modern horror fiction stories, werewolves transform into full wolves in a painful transmogrification, while maintaining their hair colour and body mass, making them extremely large wolves. Although transformations have to occur regularly, Armstrong's werewolves are not affected by phases of the moon, can shape-shift at will and, with practice, can learn to transform a single part of their body (as of yet, Jeremy and Elena are the only ones shown to be able to do this though it is strongly implied that Clay can as well). Werewolves can be killed by anything that can kill a human, and have no extra sensitivity to silver. They do, however age slower than humans. For example, Antonio and his son Nick, despite an age gap of 17 years, pass themseleves off as brothers in human company. In fact, Pack sons are raised referring to their fathers as 'uncle' while amidst humans, in order to avoid questions.

While in human form, werewolves have wolf-like characteristics, better hearing, a keener sense of smell and a wolf's instinctive reactions, while in wolf form they maintain their intellect but cannot talk and are more driven by instinct. In both forms they have greater strength and reflexes than a normal human or wolf and heal significantly faster. Hereditary Werewolves acquire these enhanced abilities gradually, following puberty, and have their first change in their late teens or early 20s. Non-hereditary werewolves start changing shortly after they are bitten, and not all survive the process; the bitten mutts took around a month to recover. In the case of Clay he could transform and had the enhanced abilities from when he was bitten around age five.