Page 26 of Pack Kasen, Part 1 (Caught #1)

25

AREN

“ W e’re running a test,” I say, dropping into my seat in the meeting room. I point to one corner of the room without taking my eyes off the assembled pack. “I can feel your smugness from here, Joy. This does not mean you’re right.”

For me to call a formal meeting like this isn’t often. Usually, it’s when something bad is coming—or has happened—and I need to warn my pack about it.

My pack studies me with confusion.

I lower my arm. “Who here doesn’t believe the feral is a feral?”

I have a pack of twenty-five, and I know I was right to hold this meeting when about half the hands go up.

Leo’s mom, Dania, who pushed through devastating heartbreak when her mate abandoned her when she became pregnant at eighteen, is frowning.

She didn’t smile for a year or more. She lost so much weight, and we thought she had given up on wanting to live at all until Gregor placed Leo into her arms.

There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for Leo, and there’s nothing we wouldn’t do for her.

“You have something you want to say, Dania?” I prompt.

“I don’t know her, but I know what a feral is capable of, which is why I nearly had a heart attack when I heard Leo snuck into the infirmary. But I know my son. He’s curious, but he liked her.”

For her to have spoken up at all is unusual. She’s quiet about most things, keeps her head down, and is shy. After her mate treated her so badly, she barely spoke when she came home to the pack, pregnant and ground down by his abuse. The pack came together for her and Leo, and we all regard Leo as our child too.

“What else do you think?” I gently ask her.

I’m the leader here, but all these people are family. And I would do anything for them.

Dania sits up a little taller in her seat as her confidence grows. “Leo said that she wasn’t trying to escape. She asked him about Rupert and hoped he wouldn’t get into trouble.”

A few smiles spread across the room. Because where Leo usually is, that lion isn’t far away. Dania washes it once a week at night when Leo is asleep, often replacing the lion he falls asleep hugging with a cushion.

“So you trust her?”

“I don’t know about trust,” she says slowly. “But I think there’s more to her.”

No Alpha wants his pack to question his decisions. Some would force through their decisions and not give a shit whether their pack respected or even liked him.

I’m not always going to please everyone around me. What’s important is that my pack knows they have a fierce protector who would burn down the world to save them if anything ever happened to them.

To put their faith in me.

And up until this point, they have.

Now my pack thinks I got this feral wrong and I don’t know what to think.

As I sweep my gaze around the room, my eyes linger on Marisa.

She’s standing in the back beside Silas.

My wolf growls in my head.

I silence him.

My wolf still wants to kill her for what she did. No doubt she feels the same way about me after her cleaning punishment, but those feelings will pass.

The door swings open, and even before Gregor has entered the room, his voice is booming. “That girl is as much a feral as I am, Aren. Quit being so pigheaded and open your blinking eyes.”

Silence rings out.

Eyes swivel from me to Gregor, who comes to a stop feet away from my chair, glowering.

I sit back in my seat as I lace my fingers together and consider the man who, after my parents' death, became a surrogate father to me. I wasn’t easy, but he never gave up trying to make me a better man.

No one else would dare speak to me like that. They wouldn’t survive it. I have a soft spot for Gregor and he knows it.

“You’re using your teacher voice on me,” I tell him mildly as my wolf’s growl is more an irritated grumble than true annoyance. My wolf regards Gregor as much of a father figure as I do, though he is wilder, less inhibited, and less tolerant when anyone speaks to us like that.

Gregor crosses his arms. “As I do for the students who are stubborn about listening.”

“I’m not your student anymore.”

“Once a student, always a student.”

Eyes continue to flick between us, though more of the pack is smiling ruefully or shaking their heads. They’ve seen and heard us butt heads more than once over the years.

Gregor is fierce with his words, but he has always had my best interest at heart.

I massage my forehead. “She has no pack, Gregor.”

“She knew the beginning of the tale of the first shifter.”

I stop massaging my brow and sit up in my seat as the pack whispers among themselves. I lift an arm to silence them because this is important. “She told you that?”

He sinks into a seat at the front of the room. “She did not. But I know when I’m telling the story to someone for the first time or the fifth. She knew it, but not all of it.” His expression is thoughtful. “Someone told the story when she was too young to hear the bloody parts. I definitely leave out those part when pups are too young.”

I’ve heard both versions, and the bloody version is more exciting than the vague story he told us kids.

I frown. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It would explain things,” Finan says.

I’ve spoken to Tagge and other pack leaders during Council, and their version alters in some small way, as stories passed down by word often do.

People tell stories in different ways and Gregor is a brilliant storyteller. No one will tell the story like he does.

But for her to even know the beginning of the first shifter tale is… curious.

I sit back in my seat, thinking.

“She’s a shifter,” Joy declares, her tone triumphant.

I glare at her. “Or someone told her that part of the story. Maybe the shifter who bit her and turned her into a feral.”

“You think a shifter bit her then decided to tell her a story ?” Joy snorts. “Sure.”

I look at her.

Emilio steps in front of her, blocking her from view. And soon yelps when Joy nudges him aside, growling. “I fight my own battles. Quit protecting me.”

When he turns to whisper something in her ear, Cruz blows out a sigh and side-steps them.

I don’t know what Emilio just said to put a slow, pleased smile on Joy’s face, but from Cruz’s response, I’m positive I don’t want to hear it.

Things haven’t been adding up with the feral. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so reluctant to kill her. I need answers before I can feel right about killing her, otherwise I wouldn’t have closure.

“She was having a nightmare in my room. Something about her dad and a basement,” Gregor says, frowning. “I hadn’t wanted to tell you because it seemed personal, but if it will save her life, then it’s important you know it.”

“That makes no sense.” I frown. “Why would someone keep her in a basement?”

He shrugs. “Find that out and you might learn why she recognizes some shifter history, but not all of it. Like maybe she lost her pack.”

I shake my head. “No pack is missing a child.”

Once, a long time ago, there was. But that child died. It was one of the few times in shifter history that so many packs banded together with one goal.

“Maybe she belongs to a smaller pack you don’t know?” Finan suggests.

“I like nothing more than to curse out the email system we have for the Council, but if a shifter child went missing, all a pack would need to do is go to a Wolf Lord or come to me and we would do anything we could to find the child,” I say.

Children have always been precious. It is why, when we build our schoolrooms, we build them in the safest place we can: at the heart of our territory.

Even if two packs were at war with each other, they would still do what they could to find a missing child. I know this because it has happened before.

“Has she told you anything?” Gregor asks.

I shake my head. “Just things Finan said.” I glare at my beta. “I don’t appreciate you telling her about the schoolroom. That information is?—”

“I didn’t tell her anything about the schoolroom,” he quietly interrupts. “I told her about the reason for the cage, and the harm a feral can do, but I said nothing about the schoolroom. That is important information I would never share with an outsider.”

I sit back in my seat again. Everything I learn about this feral confuses me even more.

If anyone else had denied telling her about the schoolroom, I’d suspect them of lying, but not Finan. He’s honest. Too honest at times.

His gaze sharpens. “She knew about the schoolroom?”

I let my eyes drift around the room as I think. The rest of my pack are listening, quietly talking among themselves, and even nodding. If I were to ask again how many don’t think she’s a feral, I’m not sure I’d like the answer.

My gaze settles on Gregor. He waits, as patient as any good teacher.

“I can’t risk the pack, Gregor,” I tell him. “You know why.”

He nods. “I know. But she doesn’t belong in that cage. Deep down, a part of you knows it as well as I do. You never would have taken her from it before.”

I take my time thinking over my options. This is a big decision to make, and I never rush those.

My eyes settle on Joy who is waiting for her orders, her arms folded behind her back like the rest of my enforcers.

She meets my gaze steadily.

As the most dominant wolf in the room, no one can hold it for long, including my enforcers.

Then I sit up in my seat and focus on the pack. “This afternoon, we’re running a test.” Joy, as expected, is smug when I look at her. “During the running of this test, everyone is to remain inside the house. I have a specific task for some of you, but the rest, including all children will remain in your rooms until I howl that it’s safe to leave it.”

“How long will this test last?” I’m not surprised Leo’s mom is the one asking. She’s harried at the best of times, but asking Leo to stay in one place isn’t easy.

“No more than an hour or two.” I smile.

She nods, shoulders slumping in relief. “Okay.”

At the end of this test, the feral will have proven what she is at heart, or she will be dead.

Either way, everything ends today.

“Joy,” I call out. “Since this test was your idea, you will be playing a key role in it.”

She looks pleased.

Once she learns what role she’ll be playing, she definitely won’t be.