Infusion by Kelley Armstrong

Infusion by Kelley Armstrong is a short story in the Otherworld series, and chronologically comes second in the list, and is one of the prequel stories to the first full book in the series. If that was a little confusing, there is a list of the reading order here.

This short story is told from the perspective of a werewolf named Malcolm and how his son, Jeremy, came to be. Now, I had a little bit of an idea of some of the characters before reading any of these books or short stories, and Malcolm is, in my opinion, the classic jerk. Isn't big on the alpha of his pack, thinks poorly on his own father, and well not really a character I liked much, though I think that is the point.

The story starts off with the alpha of the pack, Dominic, boasting about his third son, who seems like he will be the strongest of the three. Malcolm himself has no children yet, though it isn't for a lack of effort. He wants his own son to be stronger than any of Dominic's sons so he could brag himself. However, despite all of the women he has slept with, he cant seem to conceive, at least not until he beds a small Asian woman working at the bar.

So far this has been the shortest story I've read from this series, but it was one of the best written short stories I've read in quite awhile. I came across this series after watching the show Bitten, which I quite enjoyed, and found out it was based off of a book series. While this story definitely isn't necessary to read before getting into the main books, I was curious about it since Jeremy happens to be one of my favorite character. This particular story gives good background in seeing Malcolm's personality, and kind of how the relationship between the father and son started, and I feel like it does this without ruining any mystery of the main story of the series, which is something I think some prequels can do.

And while this story is short, it did a fantastic job of giving insight into the history of the pack and Malcolm. Overall, I think if you are interested in the series, which I definitely recommend you read, you should give this short story a shot, though I think it wouldn't matter much either way if you read this short story before the main book or not. The short story drew me in and I simply couldn't put it down.

This short story used to be available online, though now it has been published into the Men of the Otherworld anthology.