Page 43 of Rogue Wolf

“Exactly that,” said Roan. “Never think about it, really. It just is.”

It just is. She rolled his words around her head. Maybe that’s why Kodiak found it hard to tell her the information she craved.

“Like in the movies, I guess,” Roan said. “Truth morphed into fiction once supernaturals were forced away from humans and into the shadows centuries ago. They think they forgot us, but they remember us in movies. They think it’s all fiction, but it’s not.”

She nodded. “So, no special way to kill them?”

“Not really…sounds like you’re keen to kill one,” he said.

“Of course. Aren’t you?” She looked at him in surprise. If she was going to kill Amdis, then she needed all the information she could get.

“Yes, but only on a need-to-kill basis. I don’t go around hunting them. No one in the pack does.”

“Apart from pups with something to prove,” Ash said.

Kodiak laughed. “Pups always have something to prove.”

She wanted to laugh with them, but somehow it make her feel more of an outsider than before.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Roan said, “we need to stop them from doing whatever they’re doing, and we’ll fight them to the death.”

Tamaska had fought vampires herself with the few karate moves she’d remembered. But as she went over all they were saying she wasn’t sure if she meant it about killing one. She hated them yes. Hated them for killing her friend. But maybe her knee jerk reaction of death and destruction just made things worse.

Or maybe it just showed the wide gap between her and shifters yet again. Even if she did have shifter blood, she’d been brought up human. Thought human. Shifter ways still seemed alien.

And really, would she be able to do that? To kill like the wolves did on the night of the attack?

Pain shot through Tamaska’s head, and she inhaled sharply. She was overthinking. There was so much to process, and she’d barely scratched the surface. If only her headache would go away so she could keep questioning Roan.

Another bolt of pain cut through her head, and she winced.

“Here, I have something for the pain,” said Roan. He rummaged through the medical bag, which rested on the floor between his feet.

Roan passed a blister pack back to Tamaska. “They’ll help.”

“What is it?” She turned the foil package over in her hands, noticing two tablets inside but no writing on the outside.

“An old herbal blend I put into tablet form.”

“Not anything illegal?”

“No!” he exclaimed. “For that, you need to go to Moki.”

“Is that right?” Kodiak didn’t sound happy.

“I don’t want those kind of drugs,” she said.

Tamaska didn’t take recreational drugs these days, not since she’d decided to grow up and work to having her own business. Not that that would be happening.

Did shifters even have regular jobs? They had a security business, but just normal jobs? And then would she be allowed to get or start her own business if they did all work?

It seemed unlikely. Her kind of job meant attention, they operated in the shadows. The other side to the vampire coin, she supposed. Security gigs were always less is more in the being seen department. What would her role in the pack even be?

“I’m going to have to talk to that idiot. Drugs. Since when do we dabble in fucking drugs? Evey pack member needs to be ready to fight vampires. We can’t afford to be under the influence at any time,” said Kodiak firmly. “And, like Olcan, I will enforce that. Or if he’s been doing that under Olcan’s nose, step hard on his stupid neck and stop the pup.”

“As expected,” said Roan. “I think Olcan had other worries. Not that you don’t.”

Tamaska popped the tablets out of their pack before dry-swallowing them. “Will these work?” She closing her eyes to endure more shooting pain in her head. The increased throbbing ripped the rest of her questions to shreds. Tiredness weighed on her, and she fought to keep herself alert. She wanted to witness Kodiak become the alpha.

---