Free Carpathian Wolf: A BBW Wolf-Shifter Romance (Shift Your Fate Book 0.5) by Cara Wylde

fact, he was born and raised here, and went to this very school until he went to study in Germany. He never looked back.” The old man chuckled.
    “These illustrations are incredible! Do you mind if I take a couple of photos?”
    “By all means, go ahead.”
    Rebecca turned more pages and stopped to take photos of the ones she found really interesting.
    “But most of these animals are… real.” She gave the curator an embarrassed smile. “I don’t know much about these types of books, but weren’t they supposed to depict mythical creatures?”
    “Oh, but they are pretty mythical.”
    Becca turned another page and cocked an eyebrow at the colorful illustration of a griffin. “I suppose you don’t see many griffins these days…” She turned another page and had an “aha” moment when her eyes fell on a detailed picture of a gray wolf. “What about this one? It’s clearly, a wolf.”
    The old man looked over her shoulder and smiled knowingly. “If I may, that’s not a wolf.” His bony finger followed the first line of the German text. “This is very old German, and there are words I don’t understand myself, but I do know the text says it’s a werewolf.”
    “How about this one?” She turned a page and showed him a brown bear.
    “Werebear, my lady.”
    She thought for a second, trying to find a way to challenge the old man’s theory. “So, what you’re saying is that Johannes Kelpius, just as all the ones before him, came across real, absolutely normal animals, and documented them as shape-shifters.”
    “No, I never said that. They were perfectly capable of telling the difference between, say, wolves and wolf-shifters. Or bears and bear-shifters. The wolves you know are no bigger than dogs, while werewolves can grow to the size of a pony. Bear-shifters are always two times bigger than normal bears, and this applies to all shifters.”
    Becca laughed, but the smile died on her lips when she realized the curator was being serious. “But these are just myths, right? Just like dragons, or… or… Griffins. Phoenixes. Centaurs.”
    The old man smiled brightly, and Becca was sure she saw a flicker of indulgence in his eyes.
    “None of them are myths. They are all shape-shifters. Johannes Kelpius, and many alchemists, astrologers, and men of science before him dedicated their lives to the study of supernatural beings. We know for a fact that Kelpius himself spent two years with a pack of werewolves so he would better understand their ways. Not all supernatural people are open towards us, simple humans, but shifters are generally more likely to trust someone who proves they mean no harm. For instance, vampires stay hidden and protect their secrecy with their eternal life. A good call, if you ask me. That’s why they barely suffered any losses through the ages, while shape-shifters were hunted and killed in cold blood. Even today, there is a guild of assassins that still follows the creed of their ancestors, which says they need to clear the world of supernatural people.”
    Rebecca ran both her hands through her long, blonde hair and pulled at the knots in frustration. That story again! She inhaled and exhaled a couple of times, determined to calm down and use her logic to get to the bottom of these medieval beliefs which had no place in the modern world.
    “All right. You said they knew how to make the difference between a normal wolf and a werewolf. That is, a wolf that could turn into a man or a woman, right?”
    “Right.” The curator nodded vigorously.
    “What if the animal they thought was a werewolf was simply a… a bigger wolf?”
    The old man shook his head. “No, ma’am. Size wasn’t the only criterion they used. If you know what to look for, you can detect a shape-shifter even when he or she is in human form. There are a couple of traits which usually give their true nature away. In time, they learned how to control them and perfected the art of behaving like humans, but these small