Page 14 of Pack Kasen, Part 3 (Caught #3)

AREN

“ S he’s not coming, is she?” I ask Fin, my eyes on my closed office door.

“You haven’t groveled enough for fucking up as epically as you did,” Joy cheerfully tells me. “You should’ve listened to me sooner when I told you she wasn’t a feral.”

I turn to my only female enforcer.

Joy is petite with short, platinum blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a dominance that will put down a shifter twice her size. I’d growl at her, but she’d only growl back.

“Comments like that aren’t helpful,” I tell her dryly.

She drags her chair closer to Emilio. “Do you know how many times Emilio and I have fought?”

“I’ve lost count of how many holes we’ve had to patch up in the living room,” Finan says.

“A dozen or more,” Cruz snorts. “At least.”

“Fuck you, man,” Emilio mutters, wrapping his arm around Joy and tucking her closer to his side.

“A dozen !” Wes whistles between his teeth. “That’s just on a Tuesday.”

It’s become a running joke among us. If Joy and Emilio aren’t arguing, they’re fucking, and they like to do both loudly. There’s a reason they have one of the farthest rooms from anyone in the bunkhouse. That’s it.

She shoots him a glare and turns back to me. “What I’m trying to say is that we have learned to make things up to each other.”

I snort. “I know, you nearly made things up to each other on my desk once.” She opens her mouth, but I shake my head. “I know what I’m doing.”

My six enforcers look at me, and none seem convinced by what I’m saying. Even Finan, my hopeful adviser, is eyeing me with a raised eyebrow.

I scowl at them and gesture to Finan. “Let’s get this meeting started.”

They’re almost daily at this point. They didn’t use to be, but we need to stay on top of patrols in case Cristofer makes his move. And watching a sixty-acre property takes teamwork and regular check-ins, so we cover all borders.

Kat was a no-show.

I told Fin to tell her about the enforcer meeting when I got back from hunting the feral after she had spent most of yesterday avoiding me.

Finan said she was spending time with her family, but the feral changed things between us again. We were getting closer. Now it’s like someone slammed the door between us.

“There’s been no sighting of Cristopher,” Finan says. “We’ve increased the patrols, and one of us has gone into town to keep an eye on things.”

“Cristofer won’t give up on Kat,” I say. “He’s around.”

“He would give up if you were to bite her and fully claim her,” Joy says.

“That isn’t happening.” Kat isn’t ready for it, and I’m not pushing her into something she doesn’t want. I’ve fucked things up between us enough. “We need to focus on finding Cristofer and tearing out his throat.”

“But Kat will always be at risk of?—”

“I said no,” I snap at Joy.

Everyone sits back in their seats.

Guilt forms in my gut. My pack is trying to protect Kat. If I bite her, Cristofer will have less of a reason to grab her. They want to keep my mate safe. That is not a snarling or snapping offense.

“She’s not ready for that,” I tell Joy in a softer voice. “Things between us are getting better, but what she needs is time. I want to give her that.”

“Then we’ll keep her safe.” Emilio wraps his arm around his mate’s shoulder. “Until she is ready.”

If she’s ever ready.

“Anything else happen on your patrols?” I ask, raking my eyes over them.

We spend the next several minutes focused on the patrols.

“Can I talk to you?” Silas asks as we wind up our meeting fifteen minutes later.

“What about?” I’d hoped to go looking for Kat and talk to her, or at least eat a meal with her, but Silas has been wanting to talk to me for a while now. I can’t brush him off again.

He waits for everyone else to leave. “Just something.”

The moment Finan pulls the door closed behind him, the last to leave, Silas sits up in his seat.

“I want to know if you have a problem with my being with Marisa.”

I blink at him. “ Marisa ? Your childhood friend and my former lover, Marisa?”

“Yes.” He eyes me warily. “I’m going to tell Marisa how I feel about her, and I want to know you don’t have a problem with it.”

Marisa has been keeping her distance since I put her on punishment cleaning and cooking duty after she nearly killed Kat. She is still on punishment duty and will be for another week.

Sitting back in my seat, I cross my arms. “And if I did have a problem with it?”

I don’t. The moment Kat entered into my life, I lost all interest in any woman but her.

He sits up taller in his seat. “I don’t care.”

I raise my eyebrow. “That so?”

“I care about her,” he says. “And I always have, but I was waiting for her to realize that no one can make her happy like I can, but she isn’t seeing it.”

I study the dark-haired, gray-eyed enforcer. “You’ve been friends for a long time.”

“I’ve always loved her.”

I mentally wince.

He’s twenty-five, and he’s been friends with Marisa forever. Seeing us together can’t have been easy on him, even though we were only sleeping together for a couple of months. My relationship with Marisa wasn’t wise, if I can even call it a relationship.

I wanted someone to fuck, and she wanted attention. Worst of all, she never hid her intent to get me into bed. Silas must have felt like he was in hell seeing us together.

“And if she doesn’t care about you? You’ll be throwing away your friendship.”

He gets to his feet, pacing now. “I don’t care.” He stops pacing. “I do care, but I have to tell her how I feel. Even if she doesn’t feel the same way, she has to know. I can’t keep it to myself anymore.”

Out of my office window, I spot Kat’s mom. Leonore has been distant but cool. There have been no threats from the Luna of Pack Prairie. Maybe she’ll know a way I can win Kat over.

I get to my feet. “Well, good luck.”

Silas blocks my path to the door. “You don’t mind?”

“I want my pack to be happy. If you think you can make her happy, then I won’t stand in your way.”

He doesn’t move.

“You’re in my way,” I tell him, in case he doesn’t realize it.

He rakes a hand through his hair. “I was expecting you to have a problem with it.”

I glance out of the window. Kat’s mom is still there, but she might not be for much longer. “Did you want me to have a problem with it?”

“No,” he blurts out. “But what if she reacts badly?”

“ That is something you need to decide if you want to risk. Tell her how you feel, or wait for her to move on to someone else. Which is it?”

He nods, straightening his back. “I’ll tell her.”

I nudge him out of my way and head out.

Kat’s mom is walking toward the bunkhouse when I jog after her. “Leonore?”

She twists around, and although I search her face for any sign of anger, I don’t see it.

“Do you have a minute?” I ask her.

She gives me a probing look. “You want advice to win my daughter’s trust and perhaps my support so my mate will stop planning to kill you.”

I can’t help but grin. “Ah, blunt honesty. My favorite.”

And I’m not even joking.

She returns my smile, and there’s a hint of Kat in her expression. She’s older. Late forties, with a hint of gray in her reddish-brown hair. “I think Patric would prefer if you weren’t her mate.”

I scratch my jaw. “Don’t I know it?”

“Have you apologized to Kataleya?” She looks at me calmly, but my answer is important to her.

Very important.

“I should have done it sooner, but yeah. I have.”

“And why hadn’t you done it sooner?”

This is nothing less than an interrogation, but this is Kat’s mom, and I owe her an explanation, so I withstand it.

“It took a while for me to do it because… well. I don’t like being wrong.”

She nods. “And did you mean it?”

“With every fiber of my being.”

She cocks her head as she studies me. “And do you love my daughter?”

“Like I never loved anyone in my life.” It’s a surprise how easily the words flow.

Love is… new.

I hadn’t thought I would admit to it just like that.

“My mate doesn’t trust you or even like you. And when I heard what you did to Kataleya, I wanted to tear your throat out myself.”

I nod, respecting her honesty and her protectiveness. “I deserved nothing less. I was wrong, and I won’t let my stubbornness blind me into acting so stupidly again.”

“Good. I heard about you, Aren Kasen, and what I heard was that you had good reason to want to stop ferals, but you could be willfully ignorant.”

“I nearly killed my mate. That had a powerful effect on me.”

“But you were out hunting another feral yesterday?”

“They need to be stopped, Leonore. You know as well as I do that they pose a risk to us all, not just the humans who cross their paths. If there were another way, I’d be doing it,” I growl, frustrated.

She studies me for a beat. “When I first mated with Patric, we had a lot of growing pains. He was used to doing things his way, and I was used to doing things mine.”

“What does this have to do with ferals?”

“It took us a long time to learn to work together. Patric is stubborn. So is Kat. I’ll keep him away from you to give you time to work through your differences with Kat. Don’t hurt my daughter again, or I will bury my claws in your throat.”

I watch her walk away.

“That means she likes you,” a young, feminine voice calls out. “She doesn’t want to, but she does.”

Carlie, Kat’s little sister, is watching from the infirmary window. “Should you be in there?”

“Probably not.” She disappears inside, and I snort and head for the main house.

I should warn her about Gregor not liking people in there without him, but I figure it’s someone else’s turn to have Gregor grumble at them.

I’m Alpha here, yet I always seem to be the one getting it.