Page 9 of Pack Kasen, Part 1 (Caught #1)

8

KAT

I ’ve had years to get used to the needs of my wolf. Her growls, chuffs, and whimpers to the things she likes and does not like have long since become a pattern of my days.

Ever since the basement.

I don’t remember if she was with me then. It feels like she’s always been there, irritating me at times but a presence that has become as necessary to me as the air I breathe. Like an invisible friend who lived inside my head. It sounds crazy, but when you have no one, you learn to appreciate everything you do have.

At first, her presence was alien and strange, and I’d jump at her sudden growls. Within a week, I was used to her.

Now I have something else that is slowly driving me crazy.

Ever since I picked myself up from the floor of a cage that makes my stomach twist when I think of touching it, I have not heard a peep from my wolf.

The chain, at least, was gone when I woke, but they put it on me before and I have no doubt they’ll put it on me again.

It’s not a big space. About 8x8 feet of floor space with standing room, at the back of what must be a cabin from the wooden walls and ceilings outside of my metal bars.

A door opposite me has stayed resolutely closed and I’ve not heard anyone moving around outside.

There are no windows. Nothing but me in a metal cage in a silent cabin with a strip of light across the ceiling.

And a bucket.

I’ve been trying to ignore the bucket tucked up in the corner of my cell, so I’ve kept my back to it after my brief exploration of my prison.

I’m examining the metal bars, working myself up to forcing the lock, when I jump as the door across from me slams open and in stalks the Viking with a plate of food that instantly makes my stomach grumble.

He seems surprised to find me standing.

“My beta said you were meditating.”

His beta ? Am I supposed to know what that means?

“It only takes ten minutes,” I tell the Viking. “You should try it sometime. It’s very relaxing.”

That’s a lie.

All of it.

Playing it cool when, not that long ago, I made use of the ‘facilities’ isn’t easy. And I use the term facilities lightly.

I woke on the cold hard floor and squatted over a black bucket in the corner of my cell. This cabin isn’t big and there are no windows in it. If I can smell my pee, then this Viking sure as hell can.

I think these two men are werewolves, as were the men who chased me under the bleachers and kidnapped me, which means I’m not the only werewolf like I always thought I was.

The Viking leans against the wall beside my cage, studying me curiously as he eats from his plate.

This is nothing less than an examination, and I feel like a bug under a microscope with the intensity of his golden stare.

I can’t remember the last time I ate, but my grumbling stomach is keen to remind me that the steak, potato salad, and pasta salad looks like the best thing ever.

“So, what’s your story?” he asks between bites.

I blink at him. “What’s my story ?”

“Given you’re not behaving like most of the ferals I’ve caught, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and ask, one time, before you go the same way as the rest.”

“What way is that?” As if I need to ask.

The first thing he did when I woke in that room with the chandelier and stone throne was threaten to cut off my legs. I imagine he wouldn’t hesitate to cut off much more than that. Like my head.

People don’t kidnap you, ask you a couple of questions and then let you go. I know where things are headed.

“You went to college. It even sounds like you were about to graduate, so I wasn’t expecting such a stupid question.” He gives me a quick once over and shakes his head as if he finds me lacking. “Guess you’re like all the rest after all.”

“I don’t have a story,” I say calmly.

He clears more food off his plate. There’s little more than a couple of bites of the pasta salad and even less than that of the steak left.

“Every shifter has a story. Only a feral does not.” He points his fork at me. “Where is your pack?”

He keeps throwing out words I don’t recognize. They feel important but don’t mean a thing to me.

Beta.

Shifter.

Pack.

I’m aware of what some of them mean, at least in theory. I’ve seen enough wildlife documentaries over the years to figure it out. But those words mean nothing in relation to me. Before I was Kat Meadows, I was someone else, but I had to let her die to become who I am now.

I survived foster care, got into a good college, and I’m building a life for myself. A stable, secure future that no one can take from me. Eventually, I’ll have a home no one can push me out of when they decide I’m not good enough.

I have a pack of one.

Me.

I shake my head. “It’s just me.”

He scrutinizes me some more. “I’ll make it clear, feral. Unless you were born a shifter, you are a feral. A feral who turns killer needs to be put down before they expose the secret. They go on killing sprees because they have lost control of their wolf, if they had control at all. But you are a mystery to me, which is the only reason I haven’t ripped your throat out yet. You have been killing selectively, which is not the feral way.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“You do.” His eyes call me a liar. “You’ve been killing students at night, then come morning, dressing and going to college classes or working at a bar. Donnie’s.”

It’s just as creepy to hear how frequently someone was following me as it was before. I don’t think it will ever get old.

The day cops found Doug’s body, I’d felt someone watching me. I’d shrugged it off, told myself it was all in my head or it was students looking at me because they knew Doug and I dated. But it was more than that. A lot more.

I lift my chin. "You had your friends following me. They would know I wasn't the one killing those students."

His smile is cold. "Funny thing is, those murders stopped as soon as I got my men watching you. Curious, isn't it? Almost as if you knew you were being observed. Or were you lining up your next victim under the bleachers where my men caught you?”

“You said a feral loses control. If that’s what I was, then I wouldn’t be able to stop, would I? I wouldn’t care if I was being observed at all. I’d still be out there, killing away.”

His smile grows. “And that, right there, is why you’re still breathing. That is the story I want to hear, feral. Tell it to me.”

I don’t respond.

There are times when you know someone has formed an opinion about you. And this guy, whoever the fuck he is, seems to think he knows all about me.

Appetite now apparently satisfied, he places his fork beside the scraps on his plate, but at no point does he take his eyes off me. He’s on the other side of these cage bars I don’t want to touch, yet he still views me like a wild animal he has to keep watching in case I get out.

“I ask again, where is your pack?”

“I told you, I don’t have one.”

“So you fell from the sky in a shower of rain one day?”

My God, this guy is a tool.

“No,” I say tightly. “I did not.”

He drops his smile and lowers his plate as he steps up to the cage. “Then what is the point of your existence if not to lose control of your wolf, go on a murder spree and have me put you out of your misery?”

“I see, so not having a pack means I am?—”

“ Worthless ? A threat to life? A dead thing walking? Yes.” Contempt drips from each word.

I’ve seen that contempt before.

I’ve experienced it from age ten when I entered the foster system to age eighteen when I left it.

There’s no reasoning with someone who decides they want to think less of you. When they decide they are better than you. There’s only staring that contempt in the face and making it crystal clear that they can take their contempt, and they can shove it so far up their ass, they choke on it.

“Was there anything else?” I ask calmly. “I’d like to get back to my meditating and you’re still here. Are we done?”

He barks out a laugh and turns to leave, then stops.

Still smiling, he walks up to the cage. I brace myself for what he intends to do next. If he opens the door, I will do anything I can to get past him and away.

But he doesn’t open the door.

Holding my gaze, he picks up the fork from his plate and tips the remains of his food on the floor, just outside my cage. “Wouldn’t want you to starve before I got what I want out of you.”

I don’t even blink. He won’t provoke a reaction from me.

“This should be fun.” He chuckles and, shaking his head, turns around and walks out. The man who quietly watched our exchange trails him.

Only when the door has clicked shut after them do I look down at the scraps of food inches from my bare feet. My sneakers must be back under the bleachers.

There’s barely three mouthfuls, and this floor is not nearly clean enough to be eating off of it.

The problem I have isn’t food. It’s a lack of water, especially if I’m going to be here for a while.

To get out of here, I need to survive, and to survive, I need to be strong.

Bending, I stick my arm through a gap between the metal bars, careful not to touch them. I don’t know what it is about those bars, but I’ve had a warning blaring in my head since I saw them that it would be a mistake to brush up against them.

Retrieving the few bites of pasta salad and the small chunk of steak is successful.

I return to the middle of the cage, sitting cross-legged and studying the lock as I eat.

The food is cold and slightly gritty, probably from whatever dust blew into the room when my captor entered. But it’s food.

I ponder the reason my wolf, for all her usual growly ways, has remained resolutely silent since I woke in this cage. Her silence feels ominous.

I tell myself I’m just being paranoid, but I don’t think I am.

Something is wrong.