Welland was less than a slave. Slaves are human, and he was wolf,  allowed to assume human form only when it suited the sorceress Daria.

Daria kept an army of changelings -- mostly wolf but some lynx or weasel, a bear or two, and at least one rat. She used them to hunt and kill. And sometimes to pretend to be human, so she could pretend to be a lady.

Weiland hated the lie almost as much as he hated the truth. Then he met a burglar, a thief named Shile, who offered to help him steal what he had never owned. His own troubled soul...