"Upstream of Multnomah Falls? Damn, I was planning to go camping in the woods there in a while." Hearing Nick talk about his current case, Monroe couldn't help complaining.
His words caught Nick off guard. "I remember you saying you tried to limit how often you went into the woods to avoid stirring up your wild instincts."
"That's why I usually only go once a year, preferably in winter when there aren't many people around. Constant restraint can cause problems instead. Sometimes you have to let your nature out a little. It helps me retain as much reason as possible when I fully transform."
Monroe answered as though this were perfectly natural.
Dinner was enjoyable for hosts and guest alike. Although, according to their Wolf Wesen guest, a Grimm, a Blutbad, and an ordinary person sharing a table was a very strange thing, judging by how he talked nonstop throughout the meal, he probably didn't care all that much.
Before Monroe left, he arranged with the two of them to visit the Fox Wesen black-market dealer together in a couple of days and settle the matter of the forged identity as soon as possible.
Nick had previously concocted a half-true story about Dahlia's origins: the illegitimate daughter of a Russian oligarch, taken in by a secret agency as a child and trained as a professional assassin, who eventually concealed her identity and successfully defected.
Although Monroe sometimes seemed a little goofy, he wasn't foolish enough to actually believe that story-not until Nick obtained his long-gun permit a while back and went to the Northwest Armory to buy a Colt LE6920 rifle.
After he fitted it with an 18-inch, cold-hammer-forged stainless-steel heavy barrel with a 1:7 rifling twist, a free-floating handguard, a match-grade two-stage trigger, and a Leupold Mark 4 variable-power