If there is one thing that seems off about the Women of the Otherworld series, it's the time table in which everything happens within the Pack. As werewolves, they are able to maintain more youthful appearances for many years and in reading a short story such as this, it's hard to imagine Jeremy as being a baby boomer.
Set in 1946 - 1947, the story begins with Malcolm and the current Pack meeting at a local pub. As Antonio's father, Dominic, announces his name for his future son, Malcolm finds himself the butt of everyone's joke, because of his inability to produce an offspring of any kind. He internalizes this and focuses his anger towards his father, who is wiser, yet far weaker than Malcolm.
In attempt to prove his Pack brothers wrong, he decides to bed the barmaid, who is an attractive, young Japanese girl. Though he doesn't accept it initially, she drugs his drink in order to ensure he impregnates her and promptly moves away the next day.
However slim the chances are that he impregnated the girl, Malcolm takes no risks and manages to track her down. Having been burnt in the past by a woman who wound up pregnant with another man's baby, he proceeds cautiously and observes the girl until the night she gives birth. As he watches the scene unfold, the symbols and chanting bring clarity to the night of Jeremy's conception, when he witnessed a similar event. Though he tries to deny it to himself, he is able to smell the baby boy as his own and yet, he decides to leave well enough alone. For he knows this baby is more than mixed-racial, but also mixed with that of what Malcolm deems to be a lesser supernatural race.
It is only when his father confronts him about the baby, that he reluctantly agrees to return to take the baby. But in a moment of sheer defiance, he chooses to murder the girl and her grandmother brutally. Especially after learning, he was only chosen because he was his father's son and his father was deemed too old. Thus setting the stage for Malcolm's resentment for his father and his son, Jeremy.
This story helps to shed so much light onto the Malcolm situation and even helps you to understand how and why he's the way he is. He's cruel and vicious in order to be completely opposite from his father, whom he deems as cowardly. His hatred for Jeremy comes not only in his intolerance for Jeremy's mix-breed/race, but also because Jeremy is treated as a son by Malcolm's father and there's a bit of a jealous lash back because of that. In truth, Malcolm feels as if he's a lone wolf and much like a desperate animal who has been cornered, he turns to malice and cruelty in order to prove himself superior.