Little wonder then, that none of them had truly understood the danger until it was too late. The Dire Wolves had been in his pack’s territory, staking their claim almost before the Grays ever knew they were there, or even what they were. Blaine’s pack of Grays had heard the legends of the Dire Wolves, of course, but had thought the stories were just that—stories and myths. There were those who talked of an ancient line of wolves in the far North, one whose bloodline had survived through ten long centuries, but no one really believed it could be true. Dire Wolves were said to be massively built, much larger than their own wolves, with shaggy gray fur and wicked fangs as long and wide as a man’s thumb. They lived and hunted in packs, just like modern-day wolves, and when they shifted to their human forms, they were huge and hulking, making up in brawn what they lacked in brains. These were the rumors, at least, though how a pack of ancient werewolves could possibly have existed so long without superior intelligence never made sense to Blaine.
