Page 13 of Pack Kasen, Part 3 (Caught #3)

KAT

“ I ’m surprised you would sleep with the guy.” Carlie drops onto the grass next to me. “I’d have stabbed him in the neck if he caged me.”

It’s been a couple of hours since Aren left with some of his enforcers to hunt and kill a feral.

I watched him from the forest, where I had run after he found me in the shower.

And when he had left, I slunk back up to the room, shifted back to my human form, then I dressed and skipped out on breakfast to sit by the creek instead.

I hadn’t wanted to come to the creek. Part of me itched to find Mom and ask her what I should do about Aren, but I know what she would say. He’s hurt you once; he’ll hurt you again. Let's pack up and go home.

Or maybe that’s what Dad would say.

So I’m here. I’m hungry, but food is going to involve a conversation with someone in the dining room. One sniff and they’ll know exactly what I got up to with Aren last night.

Sometimes, being a shifter is a curse because sharp noses mean sex will never stay secret for long, which is how my sister knew I’d slept with Aren before she settled onto the grass beside me.

I didn’t think she’d judge me for it, but maybe that’s what I need.

A nice bit of judgment to snap me out of this growing obsession I have for my mate’s hot body.

“Even if he were your mate?” I ask my sister. “Because I have to tell you, the whole mate thing complicates things.”

Those feelings are so intense. I’m not sure I could kill Aren even if he did something to deserve it. It’s why I’m still alive. Back when he thought I was a feral, he couldn’t kill me because I’m his mate.

She shrugs, flipping her dagger between her fingers. “You could get Dad to do it. Or me. I wouldn’t mind stabbing him. And he’s not my mate, so it wouldn’t be hard.”

I smile reluctantly at her. “I’m good, thanks.”

She’s dressed in all black—jeans, a T-shirt, and combat boots. Her long, chestnut-brown hair is tightly braided and wrapped around her head like a crown.

She looks like she’s ready to go to battle, and I’ve noticed that Aren’s enforcers are into the all-black, looking fierce thing as well. I’m not sure I would want to be an enforcer. I’m used to being on my own too much to be part of a tight-knit group like that.

“Are you an enforcer yet?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Dad insists I have to be eighteen before he’ll let me.” Still flipping her dagger, she rolls her eyes at me. “Not sure what a few months' difference will do if I rip a guy’s throat out now rather than four months from now.”

“I think he’s trying to protect you.”

“I can protect myself.”

“It’s kind of his job being Alpha and Dad.”

She looks at me, poised to argue, then stops flipping her dagger and tucks it into the back of her jeans. “And you’re trying to protect him .”

“I didn’t have him to watch my back, but you do. You’re lucky.”

I remember all the times I’d lock my door in foster care, yet still hear someone trying to force the lock. Back then, I’d have killed to have a night where I didn’t have to block my door with a dresser or wake myself up periodically to check no one had gotten in.

Robert changed that, but there were a lot of predators before I lucked out on a foster dad like Robert. I never had to lock my door at night. I could have left the thing wide open, and he still would knock loudly on the doorframe and ask if it was all right to come in.

It’s been years since he died, and it still fucking hurts when I think of him.

“Kat?”

I shake my head, refocusing on Carlie. “You don’t know how lucky you are. Go easy on him, okay? He means well.”

“Maybe I won’t push so hard,” she eventually says.

She doesn’t ask about foster care or what happened to me. She did before, but Dad told her not to. I can only imagine he made her promise because she looks like she’s dying of curiosity.

“Why’d you sleep with him if you ran away from him and hid in the forest as a wolf?”

I blink at her.

“ What ? I can smell him on you, and I saw you sneak in the house before.”

“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. Sex was something I fought against before, but this time, I couldn’t.

I want him too badly. The running away is the biggest source of my confusion, and it’s why I ditched breakfast to be alone.

If someone asked, I wouldn’t know what to tell them because I can barely make sense of my feelings to myself.

“I like him, but there are times I also want to kill him.”

She grins at me. “Sounds like fun.”

“It’s not fun. Trust me. Hope you never meet your mate, Carlie. He will drive you crazy.” I look at the creek, congratulating myself for only peering into the forest opposite once instead of the multiple times I did last night.

Sleeping with Aren wasn’t a good idea.

I knew he might think I wanted him in my life, but I’d been weak, and I don’t regret it for a second. It had been everything I needed and wanted, and so I closed my eyes to the utter stupidity of my actions.

And the shower.

I should have elbowed him in the gut the second he followed me inside, but I hadn’t done that either.

If Finan hadn’t appeared when he had, I would have slept with Aren again, and it would have kept on happening until someone interrupted us.

“Or hope he has a beer belly,” I mutter.

“A what?”

I look at my sister. “If you meet your mate, hope that he has a beer belly. And that he’s ugly. Maybe then you won’t sleep with him even after he does something that pisses you off.”

She laughs. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”

“It is.” I sigh, toying with a blade of grass. “It absolutely is.”

“Is Aren the reason you didn’t come home before?”

I turn to look at her, confused.

“Dad said he asked you to come home with him, but you didn’t want to.”

We’d been near this very spot. I’d assumed he was about to ditch me, just like all my foster parents always wanted to abandon the girl who never smiled and would get into fights with her foster brothers, especially when I said no to the things they wanted to do to me.

Finding Dad and discovering I had a family and a pack in Nebraska changed everything.

It was bittersweet. When he said he had to go home to deal with pack stuff, I assumed he was leaving me behind, not that he was hinting he wanted me to go with him.

I was relieved, but I was also terrified.

“I had to hunt the guy who was killing my exes,” I say.

“Or you didn’t want to see us,” she says, staring at the creek.

Her tone doesn’t change, but I hear the hurt nonetheless.

“I was scared,” I admit quietly.

She shoots me a rapid glance. “Of us ?”

“I had a foster dad,” I admit. “Things weren’t good for a long time before Robert took me in.

I was starting to wonder if maybe I would have been better living on the street than dealing with having to lock my bedroom door at night or getting in fights with foster brothers who liked to grope me when our foster parents weren’t around. ”

Her green eyes flicker with wolflike fury when I mention the groping. “But?”

“Robert was the first person who cared. I couldn’t tell him that I could change into a wolf, but he really cared about me.”

“What happened to him?”

My smile is mirthless. “Robbers shot him when he went to get me milk for breakfast at a bodega one night. He was trying to protect the bodega owner's son. He died.”

And I cried. I hadn’t cried in years before then, but I hurt so badly, and I had been so angry, I could have ripped the world in two. Why did I have to find someone kind and nice, and then someone killed him for a handful of dollars?

“Did you get them?” Her jaw hardens.

I sniff. “Yeah. I got them.” I’d shifted into a wolf and tracked the robbers before ripping out their throats. Maybe killing isn’t right, but those two men deserved to die, and I have never regretted it. Not once.

She nods back, satisfied, then turns back to the creek.

She says nothing for the longest time. “You won’t lose us, so you don’t have to be scared about that. Just… come home. We all miss you.”

Before I can respond, she’s on her feet and sprinting to the guest cabin tucked behind the bunkhouse.

I watch her go, smiling slightly.

She’s more like me than I realized. Slow to trust, slower to forgive, and even slower to open up and let people in. I thought I was like that because of years spent moving from foster to foster, of being hurt and not knowing who to trust, so trusting no one. But maybe it’s a Pack Prairie thing.

An hour later, I’m still sitting by the creek when Finan walks over from the house and sets down a tray with a plate piled high with chicken pasta and a bottle of water in front of me. “Here, you missed breakfast. Aren would have killed me if you missed lunch too.”

“I wasn’t hungry.” My stomach lets out a violent rumble that Finan, nice beta that he is, pretends not to hear. “Thanks.”

For not calling me out on my bullshit, and for the food.

Finan sits beside me as I dig into the meal, inhaling half of the delicious Cajun chicken and creamy pasta dish before I turn to him. “Aren wouldn’t have killed you.”

“Maybe not actually killed me,” he concedes. “He asked me to watch out for you. I thought you’d come in for breakfast eventually, but it started to look like you were going to camp out all day.”

He’s half right.

This isn’t a restful place for me anymore.

It’s a test. I’m pushing myself to stay somewhere that makes me uncomfortable because if I start to avoid sitting in the place where Cristofer shot me, my fear will grow, and I don’t like to be afraid of anything. I like to confront my fears.

I drain most of my water and pick at my pasta. “How long does it usually take him to hunt and kill a feral?”

“Not long. By the time news of a wild animal attack hits the papers, the feral is attacking everyone and everything. Aren kills them fast and comes home.”

“He had his enforcers watch me.” I eat more of my pasta, but it’s not as delicious as it was before. Because I’m nearly full, or has this conversation soured my appetite?

“You weren’t behaving like a feral, and something happened on his last hunt in California.”

I turn to look at him. “What happened?”

He’s studying the forest opposite when he shakes his head. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“Because he told you not to tell me?”

He glances at me. “Because you two need to learn to communicate with each other. Aren is terrible at it, and you…”

My eyes narrow, and I point my fork at him warningly. “I have a fork, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

He flashes me a brief smile, light green eyes sparkling. “You have good reason for not trusting him. You never will if I tell you more about him than he will tell you about himself.”

True.

I return to my pasta lunch. “I would prefer there were another way.”

“Another way to do what?”

“Of dealing with ferals. Aren’s way doesn’t seem fair.”

“The world isn’t fair.”

I take a deep breath and release it so I won’t snap at him. He doesn’t deserve it. “I know that.” I study him for a beat. “Why is it easier to talk to you than Aren?”

“Why do you think it is?”

“You’re a good listener,” I guess.

He shrugs. “I’m better than Aren, but most people are since he’s so impatient. I’m no worse than anyone else. Do you think that’s why?”

I study him for a bit longer, considering it.

It’s not just Finan I find it easier to talk to. It’s Gregor, too. Basically, everyone except Aren.

“You won’t use what I say against me,” I realize.

And it hits me just how much Aren hurt me.

Being locked in a silver cage was bad enough.

But it was things he’d found out about me and Doug, my ex, and flung into my face to hurt me that left scars.

He made me feel like it wasn’t safe to tell him anything.

That anything I said would be used against me.

That block is still there between us, and I don’t know how or even if I can break it down, or if I even want to. It’s going to require trust. Trusting people is not something I ever learned how to do. Not without someone immediately turning around and stabbing me in the back.

I couldn’t trust anyone in foster care; everyone always seemed to have some secret motivation.

I learned I couldn’t trust my high school ex-boyfriend, who lied about me being a slut and spread stories about me being Trash Girl, the girl cops found looking for food in a dumpster. All because I refused to sleep with him.

Then, in college, when I finally let my guard down and slept with a guy in my first year, I discovered I was just a bet.

Even Cristofer, who I liked and regarded as a friend, turned out to be a killer.

Trusting someone has almost always come back to bite me in the ass.

“Aren lied to me,” I say.

“About what?” Finan prompts.

“He said he was coming after me to apologize at Joy and Emilio’s party, but…” My voice trails off when Finan smiles. “What?”

“Ah, so that’s what he was doing.”

“That’s what who was doing?”

“He muttered something about you needing more than a dead deer, grabbed a bottle of champagne, a bunch of flowers, and rushed out of Joy and Emilio’s party. I don’t understand what a dead deer had to do with it, but?—”

I explain, “He told me his wolf thought my wolf would be impressed with a dead deer.”

My wolf would have. Me, on the other hand? I need an actual apology.

Finan studies me for a beat. “That sounds like Aren, thinking that hauling a dead carcass and dropping it at your feet would work instead of an apology. But he was going to apologize to you that night. I’ve never seen him that determined before.”

I was so sure that Aren had been lying, but Finan, out of anyone here, has been the most truthful, so I believe him.

Aren had been coming to apologize on the night Cristofer had shot and abducted me.

The sound of an approaching car pulls my gaze from Finan.

A khaki-green Jeep is pulling up to the house, and another car is behind it.

My gaze connects with Aren through the windshield before he pulls the car into the wooden garage.

“That was fast,” I mutter, frowning as Aren’s Jeep disappears from view.

“With a feral, it usually is,” Finan says.

“Thanks for the food.” I stand up and take my tray with me to the guest cabin to catch up with my family, and so I can avoid Aren for a little longer.

We will never agree about ferals.

He thinks they all need to die. I think they should be given a chance. If a pack had taken Cristofer in, maybe he wouldn’t be on his own, trying desperately to kidnap me or hurt others.