Page 34 of My Fugitive Wolf
"If any of the Riverstone Pack return before Josiah, won't they smell our scent?"
"No," Leo stretched with a yawn. "The mansion will still stink of smoke. The scent of police, firefighters, and news media will cover up any scent we leave."
"Speak for yourself. I, for one, smell as fresh as a daisy." Stephen checked the compass again but kept their heading steady.
Samara intercepted him, then took an exaggerated sniff. "Ummm, daisies aren't what comes to mind. More like…mint, black licorice, and tobacco. Oh, Stephen don’t tell me you used the hotel’s shampoo?"
"Yes."
"Not me," said Leo. “I brought my own.”
Samara slowed down to walk with Kellen. "How do you expect me to become a part of a brotherhood that condones using hotel shampoo?" she asked, with mock horror.
He laughed. "We all have different appreciations for unique scents, highly developed after a century of using outhouses, smoking cigars, and scrubbing ourselves with soap made from potash and pig fat."
“Ewwww.” Samara held her nose. “Pig fat? Next thing you’ll be telling me is that you put pineapple on pizza.”
“Not my half,” Stephen said.
Leo growled. “Don’t knock it until you try it.”
"We also have unique palates,” Kellen continued, “our taste in fine dining was acquired as wolf shifters, not as humans, which meant eating raw rabbit, deer, and squirrels."
Samara stopped in her tracks. "Wait. You eat raw meat?"
"As wolves, sure." Kellen stopped with her, a concerned look in his eyes. "That's what wolves thrive on."
The others kept walking as they talked. "But not as humans. You don't have to eat as wolves."
Kellen's hand reached her lower back, gently pushing her to follow the other two. "Once we shift, the wolf shadow runs free. It leads us through the hunt. That includes hunting prey. It's no different than going to war. There are deaths that can't be avoided."
Nose scrunching up, she groaned. "There's a big difference between killing rabbits and killing Nazis. And it's not the actual killing that bothers me. I'm not a vegetarian or anything, but raw meat? It doesn't make you sick once you shift to human?"
She followed where he directed, catching up to Leo and Stephen. "Wolf shifters don't get sick unless we're exposed to silver.”
She knew that, but it hadn't registered. The idea of never getting sick had some appeal to it, but the rest did nothing to entice her to accept that there was a wolf running around in her skull.
Without warning, a vague memory surfaced. Something to do with burning her hands? Her father had taken her next door for a birthday party. She couldn't have been more than five or six, but she'd burned them bad enough that her father had to take her to the emergency department. Her mother had thought she'd burned them on the stove, but Samara couldn't remember anything past the pain. Had she been stupid enough to burn her hands on the stove?
Her memory ran deeper. She’d reached into the drawer where her friend’s mother kept the fine china and silverware because it looked prettier than the copper and stainless steel they used at home. Silverware. Had she touched it and burned herself on the silverware? No, of course not. She had been a normal human child, not a wolf shifter. It must have been the stove, and she forgot because everyone was so worried about her.
Why had she thought about that now? She couldn't even remember the details. What did it mean? Was her subconscious warning her about something?
"Hey, are you okay?" Kellen took one of her hands in his and only then did she realize that she'd raised both of them so she could look at her palms.
"Yeah." She pulled her hand out of his because she didn't want them to be touched at that moment. Not with the memory of harsh pain searing them. "I'm fine. I just...it's nothing."
"If you're sure." Again, he put his hand on the small of her back as she continued stomping through the woods, determined to forget whatever she was trying to remember. Even through the heavy jacket, she could feel his warmth there, and it was comforting.
To shake off any further concern, and to kill time while they walked, she decided it was time to learn more about the Winterbourne Brotherhood. "All right, I have questions. If Kellen owns the restaurant, and Stephen owns the gym, what do you do for a living, Leo?"
"I own an apartment complex closer to the highway, but I also work as a jack of all trades," he said over his shoulder. "I can fix almost anything. Roofs, cars, plumbing, air conditioners, that sort of thing. Not computers, though. Circuit boards and software are a special kind of hell I don't have the patience for."
"Okay. What year were you all born?"
"1842," Stephen said.
"1847," Leo said.
