Bitten (Armstrong novel)

Bitten, a fantasy novel published in 2001, is the first book in the Women of the Otherworld series. It is Canadian author Kelley Armstrong's first novel.

Elena Michaels is the only known female werewolf, but she grows tired of spending her life pursuing rogue werewolves and trying to control her temper and violence. She decides to leave her Pack and live in Toronto as a human, but the Pack leader calls in a favor, which leads Elena to try to help quell an uprising.

The main character of Bitten is Elena Michaels, a woman who is the only known female werewolf in the world. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and writes for a popular newspaper. She struggles to deal with her other-ness and to assimilate to the human world. She also contends with her terrible childhood and with the man who bit her and turned her into a werewolf.

Elena has settled into a somewhat normal existence, living with her architect boyfriend and ignoring her wolf side as much as possible. However, she learns that her Pack (the governing body of werewolves) is in trouble and comes to their aid, flying to Stonehaven, the country estate of the pack Alpha. It is in Bear Valley, a fictional city in up-state New York. When Elena arrives, she is greeted by her ex-lover, Clayton Danvers, who bit her and made her a werewolf (without her consent). Clayton is also the bodyguard and foster-son to Jeremy Danvers, the pack Alpha (leader). Elena learns that a local woman was found murdered on Stonehaven's land, savaged by what authorities thought to be a dog. However, the Pack has determined that she was murdered by a Mutt, a rogue werewolf. They find out he is a recently escaped killer who was recently turned into a werewolf. Clay and Elena chase him into a rave and after several of the partygoers are killed, the wolf is hit by an SUV.

Soon, the rest of the Pack arrives to help with the problem: Antonio Sorrentino, his son Nicholas Sorrentino, Logan Jonsen, and Peter Myers. The werewolf Pack are the self-appointed governing body of the werewolf world. If they feel any non-Pack wolves (called "Mutts") become noticeable to humans, they kill them. First, Logan is killed. In an ambush Peter is killed and Jeremy, the Alpha, is seriously wounded. Finally, the pack figures out that the "mutts", tired of being governed by the Pack, are trying to free themselves from their rule. To do this, one mutt, Daniel, has started turning human killers and other escaped convicts into werewolves to fight the pack.