Page 18 of Pack Kasen, Part 3 (Caught #3)

AREN

K at’s memory is back.

It’s the best thing that could have happened to her. I’m happy for her, but with the return of those memories, she has every reason in the world to want to go back to Nebraska with her parents and the pack she now remembers.

For the last three days, I’ve barely seen her.

She isn’t sleeping in our room anymore. She’s been staying with her parents and little sister in the small guesthouse cabin.

When I’m in my office, I sometimes see them going for a walk. They’re always talking and sometimes laughing. And she’s smiling.

She’s happy.

In the dining room, she sits with them, and it kills me not to join them, but she needs her family, and they need her, so I keep my distance and pretend it doesn’t feel like I’m losing her.

One day soon, she’s going to come to me and tell me she’s going back with her family to Nebraska.

I don’t know what that’s going to do to our mate bond. A mated pair can’t be apart for long, so I have no fucking clue what I’m going to say or do when that conversation happens.

I need her to be happy, but I can’t live without her, and I don’t want to.

“You didn’t have to come,” Finan says, pulling me from my thoughts.

I peer out of the truck window as he drives. “This is the only lead we’ve had in days now. I needed to be here.”

After we found Kat and brought her home, Finan let everyone in town know that we had an attempted break-in. And if anyone saw anyone strange hanging around, could they let us know?

Ian, one of our rancher neighbors who lives a few miles away, called this morning, saying he spotted someone parked up near his farm.

By the time he’d gone out to investigate, the person had driven away.

Everyone here knows everyone. Since we're neighbors, his evasiveness was notable enough to recall Finan's comment about our break-in and call him.

“Have you asked her to stay?” Finan asks as we approach the farm.

“Not sure that’s a conversation I want to bring up, Fin.”

“You need to talk about it.”

“I’d rather talk about the way you glared at the new prospect when he looked like he was going to sit with Dania at breakfast this morning.” I arch my eyebrow at him.

He pulls up at the entrance to Ian’s ranch. “I didn’t glare at anyone. Dania had her hands full with Leo.”

Snorting, I push my car door open and get out. “You know, you should have told me you had your eye on her when I was trying to offload Tagge’s sister on you.” And that had only been because Tagge was trying to mate his sister to me, and I wanted nothing to do with her.

There’s a long drive to get to the house in the distance, which is why Cristofer—if that was him hanging around—had gone well before Ian could see who it was.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

A scent teases my nose, and I walk over to investigate, Finan trailing me. “You’ve given her time to heal and recover from that mate of hers. She’d be pushing you away if she weren’t ready for a relationship.”

This scent is the same as the one I’d sniffed beside the creek. Cristofer’s scent.

Juniper and sage.

Cristofer was here, but I have no clue what he was doing when Ian’s ranch is miles away from our home.

Feet away, near a stable where horses graze on grass, a man lifts his arm.

Ian.

I lift mine in turn and turn to Finan. “Let’s get out of here. Whatever the fuck Cristofer was doing here will have to remain a mystery. He’s gone.”

Back home, I spend an hour dealing with dreaded emails.

There are nine Wolf Lords. All are Alphas, and all fought for the right to claim the title. We meet every six months or so, with a different Wolf Lord hosting each council in a different city, to discuss issues that affect all shifters.

Outside of those meetings, I have Alphas from across the country emailing me issues they want an opinion on, and then there are the countless requests from shifters looking to move packs, but their Alpha resists or outright refuses.

That requires a level of diplomacy that makes me consider throwing my laptop out of the window and living with the squirrels in the forest.

I fucking hate emails.

I’m staring into space, wondering if I should ask Kat if we can eat together during dinner, when a car starts up outside.

We have a handful of cars we share, and no one said anything about heading into town. Right now, with Cristofer up to fuck knows what he’s up to, I want everyone close to home.

“ Finan !” I yell.

A minute later, he sticks his head in. “Yeah?”

“Who was leaving?”

“Kat’s parents and sister.”

I perk up, closing my laptop. If they’re out, then I can do something with Kat. Maybe we could go for a walk. “Are they headed into town?”

He shakes his head. “They need to get back to their pack.”

Alarm skitters down my back. “And Kat?”

“She was out there.”

“Saying goodbye to them?”

Kat would tell me if she were leaving.

“Think so,” he says. Leo yells something, and Finan twists around, calling back. “I’ll be right there.”

He closes the door behind him, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

“Kat wouldn’t just leave,” I mutter, my gaze lingering on the door. “She would tell me if she were planning to go back to Nebraska with her parents.”

But maybe she wouldn’t.

Maybe she foresaw an argument and decided to avoid it.

Maybe her dad, who hates me, convinced her that the best way to get her away from me was to walk away and not say a word.

I get up.

There’s no sign of Kat when I stick my head out the front door. She was out there recently, though. Her scent is fresh. I track it down the drive that leads off our property.

“Have you seen Kat?” I ask Wes when I see him.

He shakes his head. “Saying goodbye to her family.”

“ Just saying goodbye?”

He shrugs.

Frowning, I continue down the drive, jogging now. In the distance, I spot a car pulling away. Patric’s car.

There’s no sign of Kat anywhere.

Panic squeezes my heart. It’s like a weight compressing my chest.

Gone.

Kat is gone.

I run, pulling my clothes off to chase the car to Nebraska if I have to.

I have to stop her.

I have to tell her that?—

“Have you lost your mind?”

I spin around at the female voice on my right.

Kat stands under a tree, eyeing the shirt I ripped off myself.

I struggle to believe she’s here. “What are you doing?”

“I was waving my family off, and then you sprinted past me, flashing the entire world when?—”

She grunts when I drag her into my arms, holding her far tighter than I should. “You stayed.”

“Yes, I stayed.” She pulls back and narrows her eyes at me. “Now I see where Leo gets this habit of getting naked wherever he wants from. You .”

She grunts again when I crush her in another hug. “Aren. What is wrong with you?”

“I thought you'd left me.”

“So you were just going to chase after that car until you caught me?”

“Yes.”

She stares at me. “To Nebraska ?”

“If I had to.”

She laughs, but her amusement quickly fades. “You’re serious.”

“I can’t let you go, Kat. I told myself you need your family, and I should give you what you need and what you want, but you’re mine. And I…”

She blinks up at me. “You what?”

“I need you. Nothing is the same when you’re not here.”

“But you have your pack,” she whispers.

“It’s not enough. Once it was, now it’s not. You’re the thing—except you’re not a thing—that makes me and my wolf happy. And laugh. And crazy. I don’t want to keep howling at the sky when you’re here, and?—”

She shoves her face against my chest. Fast. But not nearly fast enough.

She’s shaking and I know exactly why.

I grin down at her. “Are you laughing?”

“No,” she chokes out.

“I made you laugh,” I say, ridiculously pleased.

That hadn’t been what I’d been trying to do, but a happy mate makes me happy. If I can make her laugh, it proves I’m doing something right. Once, I hadn’t believed I could make her smile. And I just did.

I stroke her back, hugging her until she’s got her laughter under control. “What did your parents say when you told them you were staying?”

“My dad wasn’t happy. He hates you.”

“Thought as much.”

“My mom said I was stubborn, and so was Dad, and having them around was likely to create more arguments than less.”

I smile. “I like your mom.”

“She also hates you.”

I scowl. “What?”

She peers up at me. “Because of what you did. But she thinks you have good mate material in you.”

I preen. “She said that?”

“Only because my sister said she would stab you in the neck if you hurt me again. I think she was trying to defuse the situation because Carlie really would do it.”

I stare down at her, almost afraid to ask, “Is there any member of your family that doesn’t want to kill me?”

She looks away. “I don’t mind you, I guess.”

I smile. “Not that long ago, you were asking me to choose between your front door and being thrown from a twentieth-floor window. Am I making progress?”

“A little,” she concedes.

“Enough that means I won’t get a knee in the balls if I kiss you?”

Her eyes are hooded. “Why would you want to kiss me?”

“Kitty cat, I always want to kiss you.”

She hesitates. “ Just a kiss. No funny business in the forest.”

“But the last time was so much fun,” I say, smiling as I dip my head.

Seconds after my lips touch hers, I stop caring where I am. It has been too fucking long since I had my mate in my arms. I need this like I need to breathe.

The feeling is mutual.

Her arms wind around my shoulders, and I lift her, groaning as my cock sinks between the V of her thighs. She wraps her legs around my waist, and I start backing up to the nearest tree, needing to grind her against something.

“Aren!”

I nearly drop Kat at the sound of Dania’s shout.

Kat unwinds her legs from my waist and hops down, looking away as Dania hurries over, frowning. “Have you seen?—”

“He’s with me, Dania,” Finan calls from the creek.

He’s sitting with Leo, pushing a paper boat into the water. Leo has his big yellow lion next to him and is lying on his stomach, staring at the floating boat with wonder.

“Do you want to join us?” Finan calls back.