Funny thing is, without Tara’s cell phone and Tiergan’s concern for fingerprints, I just would have dated the story older in my head, as you don’t come out and say “2009″ or a location, either.

Or maybe I’m just bloodthirsty.

• rubs hands together *

Thanks for commenting!  Don’t worry, I had no trouble understanding what you wrote, and I really appreciate you taking so much time to do so.  I’m going to refrain from commenting on what might happen in the future because, well, I’m a nasty writer.  :-)  That said, the WR54 I have right now has to be rewritten, due to the changes I made in WR53 before posting it.  It’s cool — I know what’s going to happen, and I think it will be fun to read.

Again, thanks for commenting.  I’ll try to continue to make things unexpected. 

Chris.

Also, I don’t doubt that Tiergan intends to kill these four men, but he’s clever enough that I won’t be surprised if he surprises me.  But I do wonder how he’s going to manage it.  He and Brennan are both clothed, so I can’t imagine them changing.  So far, I haven’t seen much to indicate that werewolves in human form are particularly lethal, and they don’t have good odds on this fight.

Then again, this story has been making very understated revelations about the nature of werewolves, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is something lethal about human werewolves that I haven’t seen yet.  There is certainly room for it: the only physical conflicts we’ve been witness to (Tiergan and Conlan, Tiergan and the gunman) were (perhaps) both conflicts between werewolves rather than between werewolves and mortals.  Also, everything we’ve seen of combat hasn’t anywhere excluded the possibility of something strange.

Tiergan seems much too fast and strong and athletic to be treated like the runt at the bottom of the pack, but he’s definitely the sort of person that would end with status lower than he deserves, so this may or may not pertain to the general physical prowess of werewolves.  Biting out somebody’s throat is not something I think a normal human set of jaws and teeth could do easily, not being built like a predator’s jaw, but the writing doesn’t really make it clear how easy it was or how exceptional Tiergan’s effort was.

Perhaps I like speculating as I read far more than is healthy (I’m certainly considering not posting all of this), but all this leaves me expecting to be surprised in the next chapter.  I’m just not sure which surprise I should be expecting.  I could just as easily be wrong on both counts.  Also, in case I haven’t made it clear, I’m am a huge fan of the understated revelation of information about werewolves.