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

KAT

A small chuff penetrates my hazy thoughts.

A heavy weight presses down on my chest.

I blink my eyelids open, and Cristofer is straddling me, leaning toward my throat.

I slam both palms on his chest, and I shove. Hard .

He falls back with a grunt.

I’m still bleeding, but did I ever really stop?

Moving is slow and painful, but I force myself into an upright position, my back to the wall. The silver chain is tight around my ankle, and I’m not getting it off. I’ve missed my chance.

My fingers are slick with blood, and my head is pounding. “You are not biting me.”

A bite is permanent. A brand of ownership. Of possession . I wasn’t sure I wanted Aren to bite me, even if the part that is his mate, craved it.

He gets to his feet, his black pants sitting low on his hips. There’s a large duffel bag behind him near the open doorway. I guess he just came in here to bite me and take me away to our new life together.

That isn’t happening.

I’d rather die.

“This will go easier for you if you don’t fight me.” A hard edge creeps into his voice.

That’s new.

He was never like this before, and I can’t believe I was so blind not to see this side of him.

“Stay away from me.” I’m struggling to stand when he lunges at me, moving faster than I thought he could.

Stupid when he’s a shifter like me.

He pins me to the ground, shoving my head to the side and exposing my throat.

I kick out, fighting to push him away. “Get off me.”

A howl rings out, distracting him.

He pauses.

Yanking my arm free from where he has it trapped at my side, I punch his stomach as hard as I can.

Not hard enough, Kat.

He wobbles, but he doesn’t fall. His eyes harden as his grip on me tightens.

A door bangs, and vicious growls raise all the hair on the back of my neck.

I know that growl.

Aren .

Cristofer hesitates for the barest of seconds, then he scrambles up and, sprinting away, snatches up the bag by the door as he flees.

I wish I’d thought to grab hold of him. It would have been fun to see Aren tear his throat out.

Another growl comes from farther away, and when I try to shout at Aren that he’s going in the wrong direction, I can only whisper it.

I lean against the wall, needing support as my heartbeat, loud and sluggish, echoes in my mind.

Head woozy and stomach churning, I tell myself that I’m imagining the large blond-brown wolf who materializes at the open doorway.

The wolf’s gold eyes are familiar.

“Aren…” My vision blurs around the edges.

He’s reaching for me, a wolf one second, a man the next, as my world turns black.

My eyes snap open.

I’m in a familiar room, with sunlight pouring in through large windows that reveal towering pines and mountains off in the distance.

I’m back in Burning Wood, northern Montana.

And Aren, the Wolf King, is sitting in a wooden dining chair at the foot of my bed, fingers steepled together, watching me.

It’s surreal.

The first time I saw him, I was lying on the floor of his throne room, looking up at the most handsome guy I’d ever seen in my life. Long Viking-style blond hair, a short beard, amber eyes, and a black rock T-shirt nearly identical to the one he’s wearing now.

The concern is different, so is the softness in his gaze. Seeing it, for some strange reason, makes me want to cry.

“How do you feel, Kitty cat?” he asks, softening his deep voice.

I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’ve been better.”

I’m naked beneath these sheets, and thankfully, my belly no longer hurts. When I run my fingers over it, there’s not even a hint of a wound. I’m all healed up. “How long have I been out?”

“Two days.” His voice is quiet.

Too quiet.

Like the silence before a thunderclap splits the sky.

“Oh.”

“You lost a lot of blood. Gregor had to stitch you up when we brought you home so you’d heal faster.”

“ Home ?”

“Home,” he repeats firmly.

“I had a metal chain around my ankle.”

“I broke it,” he says simply.

Of course he did. I eye his muscled arms. I bet he barely had to strain.

“It was Cristofer, one of my friends who worked in the library on campus,” I tell him, sitting up. “He killed my exes, and he seemed to want me for some reason.”

“It’s no mystery why someone would want you, Kitty cat.”

It is utterly bizarre to me that I've become so accepting of a nickname I swear he only gave me to push my buttons. It would feel odd now not to hear him say it.

“How did you find me?”

“Tracked all the old mines in the area. There were a few. We paired up and searched each one.”

I pluck at the soft cotton sheets. “I guess I ruined Joy and Emilio’s party, huh?”

He blinks. “Are you saying that to drive me crazy?”

“Why would that drive you crazy?”

“You say that like you think you’re not worth saving. Like we should have kept partying and forgotten all about you.”

For a girl who grew up in the foster care system, that’s what I’m used to.

Thought of last or not thought of at all.

I don’t say any of that, though. There’s an intense look in Aren’s eyes that makes me nervous. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I was nearly too late,” he says softly. “When I got you back and rushed you to the infirmary, you’d lost so much blood that Gregor didn’t think you’d make it.”

My heart clenches. “I’m a shifter. It takes more than a crossbow bolt to kill me.”

“The silver meant you weren’t healing. All you were doing was bleeding out. You didn’t start healing until I got the chain off you.”

Shit.

I lick my dry lips. “What happened to Cristofer?”

His jaw hardens. “Got away.”

Why is it so hard to meet his gaze? “I should probably go thank Gregor for?—”

“Mates can’t be apart for long,” he says quietly, still watching me intently. “That was the last thing I said to you. Do you remember what you said to me?”

I do.

We argued at Joy and Emilio’s party. I accused him of being unable to apologize. How could I believe he would never hurt me again if he couldn’t even say out loud what he’d done to me?

I left the party and sat by the creek in the late evening, chatted with Jasper, the new prospect, for a bit, then Cristofer shot me and abducted me.

So much happened that night, but I will never forget walking away from him and the pain of knowing I was leaving him. That he would never apologize for nearly killing me when he thought I was a feral, and I would never see him again.

I start to mention the argument, and I can’t do that to myself again.

Not anymore.

I have pushed and pushed and pushed for him to apologize for hurting me, and he can’t.

I’m tired of rehashing the same argument.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

But it does matter. It matters way more than I should let it.

He sits forward in his seat. “Then I die. Or you die. I don’t care. That’s what you said to me. The last thing you said to me.”

His gaze is so intense that I hunt for the words I want to say, but I can’t think. Maybe I don’t want to.

The mood in the room has been building up to something ever since I opened my eyes. But I felt the tension, even though I tried to ignore it.

I can’t ignore it anymore.

I just got away from a shifter who wanted to bite me and tie us together. I don’t know where this conversation is going, but I can guess.

“You were going to leave me.” I didn’t expect bleakness from the Wolf King. I didn’t think he even knew what it was. But that’s the look in his eyes, and I hurt when he hurts.

I turn away, wrapping a sheet around myself as I swing my legs out of bed, and I’m only slightly dizzy when I stand. “We need to go after Cristofer. He wouldn’t have gone far.” When I can’t find my clothes, I give up looking for them.

And I turn to walk away, though it feels an awful lot like I’m looking for an excuse to hide in the bathroom.

I slam to a stop.

Aren isn’t sitting on a wooden chair facing my bed any longer.

The man who said he would never get on his knees for anyone is on his knees in front of me.

My fingers tighten in the soft fabric of my sheet, and I back up, my thighs bumping the side of the bed.

My voice is too loud when I demand, “What are you doing?”

“Something I should have done long before now.” He takes my right hand. “I have hurt you in ways that I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, Kat.”

“Get up,” I hiss at him, darting a rapid glance at the closed bedroom door, wishing someone— anyone —would barge in and interrupt us.

This is what I wanted, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to say or do now that he’s on his knees in front of me. It’s not nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be when I told him he would have to beg for my forgiveness.

“Forgive me.”

“You don’t mean it,” I snap. “You’re only saying this out of misguided pity, responsibility, or..." I angrily wipe tears from my eyes, hating that I’m crying when I should be laughing in Aren’s face now that I have him on his knees begging. “You don’t mean it.”

“I was coming to apologize to you the night Cristofer took you.”

“You’re lying,” I whisper.

“I fucked up believing you were a feral,” he says quietly. “And I kept on fucking up, over and fucking over again, thinking that I could get you to forgive me without having to admit I was wrong. I have never meant anything more. Believe me.”

I look down at him as more tears blur my vision. “I can’t. It’s too late. Let me go.”

The bleakness returns tenfold. “I will give you whatever you want, Kat. I’m begging for a chance to make things right.”

“I want nothing from you, Aren,” I say, yanking my arm free.

He grasps my hips, holding me when I move to step around him. “This is what you wanted. I'm on my knees, begging for forgiveness because I fucked up.”

“I didn’t think you would,” I snap.

His expression shifts. Bleak becomes lost. “So you never intended to forgive me at all?”

In the distance, the sound of an approaching car’s engine grows louder.

“Aren? Kat’s family is here.” Finan’s voice comes from feet away.

“Kat?” Aren prompts not taking his eyes off me.