Page 87 of Rogue Wolf

“I know, Onai, but please…listen. I have a plan. Will you listen? I know I’m an outsider, but you all opened your doors so I beg you’ll listen.” Christ, she sounded pathetic, but she needed to find a way to get them…get Onai…to listen, and pleading worked better than demanding. She hoped.

“Will you?” She asked.

Onai sighed. “Go ahead. I’ll listen.”

“Thanks. Assume I go. Once they think they have me, the vampires will be distracted. Then, you can launch an attack on them.” Tamaska hadn’t had much time to plan. But her desperate need to free Kodiak before the vampires killed him made her willing to propose the half-baked suggestion.

“Like a Trojan horse of a kind, I guess. I’m bait and then we take them.” She wiped her sweaty hands down her jeans. “And if it doesn’t work, you get him out. No way am I going to be the cause of his death. All I have to offer is my life for his, and I’ll do that willingly.”

“It’s way too risky,” said Onai.

“I don’t care.” She looked at him. “It’s my life, so—”

“It’s not just risky for you, but for everyone in this room. Plus, the vampires will be expecting us to retaliate.”

Tamaska coiled her hands in frustration. “There has to be something I can do. I’m not totally useless. I can fight.”

“You can’t.” He shook his head. “You’re not a wolf shifter.”

“I have shifter genes.”

“So what? You’re not pack.” He growled softly at her.

Tamaska closed her mouth, but she wasn’t about to give up. She would put her life on the line if it helped get Kodiak back.

“Then make me part of the pack. Turn me now.” She didn’t even know what possessed her to say that. She wouldn’t even be able to shift.

Onai raised his eyebrows. “No way.”

“Why not?” The words flew from her, like they had a life of their own. “The vampires won’t be expecting it.”

“You’ll be too unpredictable!” Ash stood. “Or the change could make you so weak, you’d be unable to fight.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine. Turn me.” She couldn’t stop them. They were right, turning her wouldn’t be the way to do it.

“Kodiak will have my hide if I listen to you.”

“No, he won’t, because it will save his life and mine. It will save the pack.” A weird confidence coated Tamaska’s words,. This was the way forward.

“What’s wrong with you, Tamaska?” Ash pushed her way to her side. “You know how it works with the shift, if it works. The risks. The only ones it would help would be the vampires.”

That thing that made her speak all that left her and she knew Ash and Onai were right. She put a hand to her head and almost swayed. Fuck, she hoped the vampires weren’t reaching her here. She didn’t feel weird like she did outside, but… Maybe the pressure had gotten to her.

Or maybe she was losing her damned mind.

“I…”

“Okay, here’s another problem.” Onai pointed at her. “When you arrive—even if you’re human form, and that’s assuming you instantly gain perfect control over your shifts after you’re turned—the vampires will smell you. They’ll know you’re a wolf.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Her heart sank, and her gaze dropped to the floor. “I’m just trying to help. I want—I need to do something.”

“Don’t we have a way to mask our scents?” asked Channing, rubbing his chin as he stepped forward.

“We do, but her scent isn’t the only problem,” answered Ash. She finally stopped typing and looked up from her screen.

Tamaska’s breath caught in her throat.

“I didn’t mean for her,” Channing muttered, but no one was listening. And Tamaska couldn’t find it to ask what he meant.

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