Page 27 of Pack Kasen, Part 1 (Caught #1)

26

KAT

A female scream splits the air.

My eyes snap open.

I’m lying face down, so weak that lifting my head requires almost more strength than I possess.

Until I see something I never expected.

I forget all about my fatigue, or at least set it aside when something becomes the center of my focus.

The cage door is open.

Not all the way. Maybe a couple of inches. But open is still open.

Getting to my feet makes the world spin. When I get a whiff of myself, I scrunch my nose in disgust.

Anger takes over.

Because this … all of this … is his fault.

All of it.

If I smell, it’s on him.

My head is spinning. That’s on him too.

I don’t just hate the Wolf King. I want him dead.

But I have to get out first.

I plant my feet beneath me, wait until the dizziness subsides, then slowly walk to the open cage door, my knees shaking with each step.

And I stop as my instincts flare to life, lifting the hair on the back of my neck.

I can’t shake the feeling this is a trap, and that somewhere just out of sight, someone is waiting with a pitchfork or some other weapon to spear me with.

Just like the wolf in Gregor’s story.

I stare at the cage door and lick my dry lips. Silver. If I touch it, what will happen to my wolf when it’s already taking everything I have to stay on my feet? Will I collapse and fall into another nightmare flashback of my past self, from before I became Kat Meadows?

Will I wake at all?

“Go,” I breathe, as I focus on the silver inches away. “You can stay here and die, or you can get out and dodge whatever trap they’ve set for you.”

But no way in hell am I touching those bars without some form of protection. Not after the last time it nearly fried my brain.

I wrap my hand in the fabric of my T-shirt, and I creep closer to the partially open cage door.

Lifting my head, I strain to listen for any sound outside but… nothing.

Outside, there’s nothing.

“Bet that’s exactly what the farmer thought before the wolf attacked,” I whisper.

Quit scaring yourself and just go.

Heart lodged in my throat, I eye the cage door that I don’t want to touch, not even with my hand wrapped up in my shirt.

“Fuck it,” I mutter, and I kick the cage door as hard as I can.

Big mistake.

I stagger forward as I fall, momentum carrying me out as the door slams against the other side. My knees collapse under me, and I literally splat on my face, my strength exhausted.

Only…

It isn’t exhausted.

Not anymore.

My wolf is growling at me like I just told her I’d be eating prawn curry for dinner, and I have never heard a more loved sound in the world.

Rolling over onto my back, I stare at the ceiling with tears in my eyes.

Hey, I whisper into my mind. I missed you.

She stops growling at me to make a chuffing sound that tells me she misses me as much as I missed her.

Rabbit, I promise her. When we get out of here, you can have all the bloody, raw rabbit you can hunt.

We are separate, my wolf and me, two halves of the same whole. We don’t touch. Ever .

No. Once we did.

When I cried outside the bodega after robbers killed Robert, my foster dad, I felt her fur brush me from the inside, like she was rubbing up against me. It comforted me. I was hurting, and she comforted me when I had no one else.

The feeling is faint, at least at first, but I do feel it. The sensation of wolf fur brushing my cheek, like she’s nuzzling me.

I’m wallowing in my wolf’s presence when a scream penetrates the silence.

My eyes fly to the door as I recall the sound that woke me before.

A female scream. Not directly outside this cabin, but close.

I brush the tears from my cheeks and get to my feet. This time, standing doesn’t make me lightheaded. I’m out of the silver cage and my strength is slowly returning. I’m still weak, though that probably has to do with a lack of food and water.

Edging closer to the closed cabin door, I pause, listening hard.

When I hear nothing outside, I push the door open a couple of inches and stick my nose out, not eager to walk into an ambush. But no one is around. It looks to be late-afternoon with the sun setting in the distance, and it’s quiet.

Some lights are on in the log house on stilts, though more lights are on in the bunkhouse beside it.

There’s an eerie silence coming from the schoolroom. Other than the quiet hum from the generator on my left, and the scream that woke me before, everywhere is silent. Like one of those camping in the woods horror movies just before the monster attacks, which only adds to my deep sense of foreboding.

I chew my lip as I hover in the doorway, considering my options.

I’d love nothing more than to shift and sprint out of here as fast as I can, but the Wolf King was not lying when he said this place was remote. Other than the towering pine trees in the distance and a dirt track that leads to my left, I don’t think I’m going to be wandering into a city five minutes away.

If I take the Wolf King at his word that I’m somewhere remote, running back to my life in the city is either not an option because it’s too far, or he’s set a trap that will snap shut around me the second I take a step outside.

So what do I do?

I let my gaze drift over the buildings as I mull over my options. There’s a faint prickle of unease that makes me think I’m not as alone as I think I am. Someone is covertly watching.

My gaze lands on a small, flat roofed, single story building on the other side of the main house. It’s closest to the narrow road that leads out of here.

If they live remote here, surely they have to have vehicles to get into town. Someone had to have brought me here in a car, right? They certainly didn’t walk me here.

The fastest way out of here isn’t going to be on four legs.

It’s going to be on four wheels.

I have to get to that building, hope I’ve guessed right that it’s a garage, and there are keys inside.

We have to be alert, I warn my wolf. We might only get one chance at this. It might be a trap.

My wolf growls her assent. Her presence has been growing stronger in my mind with every passing second we’re out of the cage, and she’s as wary of a trap as I am.

I don’t know where the Wolf King is, but there’s no way he would open my cage like that unless he was setting me up for something. Because it had to have been him. Gregor said only he had the key to my cage and it would be a death sentence to anyone who opened it.

Robert once told me that bravery only needs to last twenty seconds.

As a kid, there was a lot I was afraid of, mountains I never believed I would overcome, including the hell that was my high school senior year after Blaine betrayed my trust.

This is a trap.

I know this is a trap.

But it also offers a chance for freedom. I just need to be brave for twenty seconds.

I slip outside the small cabin that has been my prison for the last few days. Then I edge slowly to the side of it, so whoever looks out from the house or the bunkhouse won’t see me.

I never stop listening as I strip out of my clothes and toss them aside before sinking into a crouch.

Never have I been more eager to become a wolf.

We need to be brave, and we need to stop anyone who gets in our way.

My wolf growls.

The change sweeps over me, fast, because every moment I’m human, I’m vulnerable.

The moment I have four legs and sharp teeth, I bolt for the building that I hope to hell is a garage.

The silence of my surroundings is oppressive. I’m panting more than I should, a product of that hated silver cage. My paws are silent on the ground as I run, head down, eyes focused on that building.

But I never lose the sense that someone is watching me.

Suddenly I’m there.

I slam into the double wooden doors of my target building. Wood cracks and one side of the door flies open.

I skid to a stop inside and thank the universe. It’s dark, but there must be motion sensors in here because lights flicker on, though I don’t need them to see the five vehicles neatly parked inside. There are no windows. The gas fumes make my nose itch, but I keep looking. Where there are cars there must be… perfect .

A wooden board with hanging keys.

Shifting back isn’t as fast or smooth. It takes a lot more out of me than it usually does and I put it all down to that meathead Wolf King and his stupid cage.

Getting to my feet after two fast changes in quick succession makes me dizzy. It takes a second to reorient myself and my wolf, to my surprise, buffers my weakness with her strength.

Stop. You need to recover from the cage, I tell her.

She huffs at me, like a mother hen pecking at her chick to just do what it’s told.

Tears well in my eyes. I have missed her so much. I promise never to tell her that sometimes sushi is preferable to steak.

As I hurry to the keys, I glance at each vehicle I pass. I don’t know much about cars, but I know Jeeps aren’t just built like tanks, they’re expensive and are seriously reliable on almost every kind of terrain there is.

The black Corvette is nowhere in sight, otherwise I’d have taken the fancy sports car in a heartbeat.

I snatch the keys with the Jeep logo embossed on the hard black plastic. Two seconds later, I’m at the vehicle, unlocking it with a satisfying beep and sliding into the cool leather seat.

It smells like the Wolf King.

Even better.

I smile as I slam the door shut and start up the engine. If anyone deserves to have their car stolen, it’s that jackass.

While I’d prefer not to be driving back to civilization buck naked, my clothes are back near that cage, and sometimes you have to move your priorities around.

In my case, getting out of here is more important than explaining why I’m driving naked should anyone stop me.

The door I ran into isn’t really big enough for this huge vehicle. I really need to have both doors open, but who the fuck cares if I dent or scratch this Jeep when I ram my way out of here? Not me.

I’m putting my foot down on the accelerator when a woman sprints past the open door.

I stare, struggling to believe what I just saw. Seconds later, a large black wolf flashes past in close pursuit.

My wolf growls.

“Yeah,” I mutter, gripping the wheel tight, “I hear you.”

I slam my foot down and get the fuck away from this place while I still can.