The ride into the heart of the city was unlike anything I had experienced back home. Lucien was transformed. The brooding, silent man at the castle had vanished, replaced by a man who seemed revitalized by the very air of France. He spoke incessantly, filling the cabin of the car with stories of the architecture we passed, the bloody history of the revolution, and the subtle nuances of French werewolf culture.

This was the most I had ever heard him talk. I sat there, tucked against his side, ...