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He wanted to get Tamaska alone to talk to her. He hated to imagine what she thought about his argument with Olcan.
About any of this.
“If you can’t perform your beta duties, then maybe we need to change your position in the pack,” said Olcan.
“That won’t happen.” Kodiak said, ignoring his wolf’s anger at the challenge to his position.
He needed to be in total control. Not his wolf, not his emotions.
“Won’t it?” Olcan raised an eyebrow.
“No. Because by the time this utter bullshit argument and dick swinging contest is over, we won’t be alive. The vampires will have come in and killed all of us.”
“You challenging me?”
“No. You need me, and you need the pack to be at its strongest. We can’t have a change in leadership right now. It will weaken us.”
Olcan bared his teeth. Kodiak’s wolf fought to get out.
But he held it at bay, and as Tamaska made to take a step to the door, he stopped her with one, long look. Again she held his gaze just long enough for him to see the emotion there, the storm. The defiance. And then she dropped it.
Did she even know that one act was submissive in the right way? That she somehow, on some deep level, seemed to know that by handing her power to him, she showed the room their bond? That she saw him as strong?
“Olcan,” he said, “while we argue time slips away. We need a game plan, and we need to keep Tamaska safe. We’ll go after all this, if that’s what you want.”
Olcan didn’t speak.
Kodiak continued. “That’s my offer. I’d rather stay. Tamaska has shown me that the lone wolf in me wants others, has others to make him stronger. And I can bring that strength to the table. But being a lone wolf means I can go off, too. It’s up to you, as alpha. But I ask this, do this posturing bullshit when the dust settles. You’re a great leader—”
“And here I thought you believed my time has passed.”
He sucked in a breath at this moment of truth. A weaker man might lie. But he wasn’t weak. “I do. But it has nothing to do with your skills or your strength. It’s to do with the times. They change, we need to change with them or we perish. But of any leader, I’d rather have you than someone else.”
“Apart from you.”
“I’m not challenging you, Olcan,” he said softly. “And I wouldn’t do it with Tamaska in the room.”
No one spoke.
Kodiak spread his hands. “Right now we need to keep her safe. The vampires want her for some reason, so we need to not let that happen.”
“You might be right, Kodiak, but not completely.”
Olcan’s words were an opening, and while they weren’t overly specific, they were enough. He took them as a draw, and that Olcan wasn’t about to launch a challenge then and there. So he moved on.
“She’s marked. We have to protect her and find out why they want her specifically.”
“We should kick you to the curb.” Shota snarled.
Kodiak didn’t care what happened to him. But Tamaska? That was another story.
He folded his arms and shifted closer to her. He wasn’t giving her up when this was done.
This more than cemented it.
Not being with his pack would be like losing a limb. Not being with her, the one he was bonding with? That was a different story. It would slowly eat away at him. Destroy him.
There was one way and one way only he’d walk away from her.
