Page 8 of Pack Kasen, Part 3 (Caught #3)

AREN

F rowning, I watch Kat walk up the stairs.

Her steps are slow and deliberate, and she grips the balustrade as if needing the support.

We weren’t gone nearly long enough to have worn her out.

“Is she okay?” Finan asks.

“Still healing.”

“Leo is quiet,” Finan says.

Leo is never quiet. At least, not for long. “He was worried about Kat.”

I’d thought he would grumble and complain about cutting his run short, then I saw his worried glances at Kat as I carried her back to the house.

Her face was pale, and she’d barely spoken to Leo, smiling faintly at him when he brushed against her leg in a wolfy goodbye.

She hadn’t been herself, and Leo had known it.

He wouldn’t have turned back from a run that he must have wanted to take Kat on once she woke up.

I’m not sure when it happened, but the two of them have become surprisingly close.

I mentally curse when Patric walks into the house and looks right at me.

“We need to talk,” he says.

I tense at Patric’s terse words.

I haven't had many dealings with Kat’s father, Patric, the Wolf Lord of Lake Prairie, Nebraska, but now he knows I locked his daughter in a silver cage, he’d like nothing more than to rip my throat out.

“My office.” Turning, I lead the way, stepping aside to let him in.

Finan gives me a warning look as I close the door before he can walk in. He usually sits in on my meetings, more to remind me of the benefits of diplomacy than to advise me, but this is personal.

This is about Kat.

“Push the enforcer meeting back an hour,” I tell Finan. “Kat wants to be at it.”

The meeting was scheduled to start after I returned from our walk. It was actually due to start after lunch, but I pushed it back. After Leo intercepted Kat in the dining room, there was no way I was missing out on a walk with her.

Finan nods and leaves to let my enforcers know the meeting isn’t happening now.

I motion Patric to the chair opposite my desk as I head to my seat.

Within seconds of my ass sinking into my desk chair, his palms are flat on my desk, and he’s bending to look me in the eye. “I’m taking my daughter home. She doesn’t belong here with you.”

So this is how this conversation is going to go.

I expected it, but I hoped it wouldn’t come this soon. I ignore the soft creak of someone leaning against my closed office door.

Finan is probably out there, poised to burst in and stop me from killing Patric if this talk ends badly.

Patric has reddish hair and icy blue eyes. The similar eye color and the fact that this is Kat’s dad mean I can’t kill him for growling in my face like that, no matter how much I might want to.

I have to talk to him. Maybe even be reasonable. Neither of those tasks is easy.

“Kat is my mate,” I say as calmly as an alpha can when someone is threatening to take their mate from them. If there’s a little growl in my voice, then it’s only natural I’d be pissed.

“And she is my daughter,” he says tightly.

“She will die if you separate us. Mates belong together,” I remind him.

“Except in this case. Ever since you entered Kataleya’s life, you have nearly destroyed it. Better you die and let her find happiness with another who can make her happy.”

He’s right. But also, he’s wrong.

Kat deserves more than I’ve given her. But she’s mine. No one can make her happy like I can. No one can give her all the things she needs.

Only her mate can.

“She’s mine, and I am not giving her up.”

We stare at each other across my desk.

Nearly a minute passes before he finally drags his gaze from mine.

I’m sitting. He’s standing. But I am the Wolf King. And I am the most dominant wolf in the room.

“You haven’t bitten her, which means she has a chance,” he says.

Of course, he would have checked and made a note of that. He’s probably searching for anything that could tear us apart.

Calling to tell him Kat was hurt was the right thing to do, even if I regret it now.

“No, she doesn’t.” I get to my feet.

The bite I want to put on my mate’s throat isn’t just a warning to other males that she’s mine. It’s a bonding bite. Another way to tie us closer together. Permanently .

I haven’t put my mark on her, but we are growing closer.

She is leaning on me, as a mate should. It’s driven not only by biology but also by instinct. She may not be ready to forgive me, but I am her mate. Her body recognizes it, even if she’s resisting the bond mentally.

“She’s mine.” I pull open the office door.

As expected, Finan is standing outside, alert and ready to act.

“This conversation is over,” I tell Patric.

Finan moves aside as Patric walks out. He stops inches away and turns around, looking me in the eye. “She will be happier without you. You might not want to admit it to yourself, but she knows it. Otherwise, why hasn’t she agreed to the bite?”

“Perhaps,” I admit. “But I think that’s her decision, don’t you?”

Without a word, he turns around and walks away.

Kat sits beside me at the long table in the office where I hold all my enforcer meetings.

My arm rests on the back of her chair, and I’m surprised she hasn’t glared at me or pushed it off.

She came down looking a little better after resting for an hour. I didn’t tell her about the argument I had with her dad, and I hope he keeps his mouth shut about it too. Kat needs to heal and recover, not deal with her mate and her father snapping at each other whenever her back is turned.

My six enforcers had filed in, nodding as they entered the room and took their seats. I’d gripped her arm, halting her as she was about to walk in, aware my enforcers were watching as I bent my head and said into her ear, “You need more rest, Kitty cat.”

She’d stiffened her spine and looked me right in the eye. “I’ve rested enough. It’s time to hunt.”

I’d taken my hand off her so I wouldn’t kiss her like I’d wanted to.

Ever since Patric left my office, and the meeting began—with Finan giving a brief update on patrols—I keep questioning myself.

Kat is as much mine as I am hers, but maybe she'd be happier back in Nebraska with her family and with an alpha who isn’t as dominant or as domineering as I am.

“Aren?” Finan prompts.

I yank my gaze from Kat to find my enforcers staring at me expectantly.

My enforcers are exhausted, yet they never slack off on the daily patrols since I increased them. Every morning, afternoon, evening, and night, we check all our borders. Cristofer isn’t surprising us again like he did before.

When I told Kat that she could take the bed in what was once my bedroom, I meant it.

I’ve barely been sleeping, taking more of an active role in patrolling when I usually leave it to my enforcers, as it’s their duty.

After my patrols, I catch a handful of hours of sleep in the bunkhouse infirmary, where it’s quiet, or beside the creek in my wolf form, when Gregor snaps at me for messing up a bed for one of his patients.

My eyes return to Kat, and the reason for this meeting.

She was barely conscious when we found her in an old mine with a thick silver chain wrapped around her ankle.

She’d been bleeding badly from a gaping wound in her belly, and I’d nearly lost it thinking I’d found her just in time to watch her die.

Shifters don’t have many weaknesses. Pure silver doesn’t just stop our ability to heal; it stops our ability to shift, and too much contact with it will eventually kill us.

Finding her lying in a pool of her own blood is a sight I will never get out of my mind.

She might have spoken with Cristofer and knows what he wants. Important information we might need. “Did he say anything to you?”

She avoids my gaze, which isn’t like Kat. She’s dominant. Too dominant to avoid meeting anyone’s gaze—even mine.

“Kitty cat?” Knowing it’ll provoke a response, I tug her braid.

She narrows her eyes at me, reaches around, and pulls her hair free, tossing it over her shoulder with another glare at me for good measure.

I hide my smile. Angry Kat is preferable to quiet, hurting, or hesitant Kat.

“You have a death wish,” she warns me.

“Probably,” I agree. “What are you avoiding telling me?”

My enforcers are watching and listening, but I tune them out to focus on my mate.

“I have a feeling telling you might provoke howling,” she says dryly.

“I promise not to howl.”

Her brow arches, and Joy snorts.

“Cristofer was masking his scent on campus, which is why none of us realized it was him. He was always sniffing and sneezing, saying he had terrible allergies and he’d use these nasty smelling natural remedies like rosemary and black pepper.”

I wrinkle my nose, and I’m not the only one. “Rosemary and black pepper? That would give him allergy symptoms and make it impossible for us to be around him for long.” I tug her braid. “And you’re avoiding answering the question. What did he say?”

Again, she avoids my gaze.

“Kitty cat?” I start to get a really bad feeling about this. “What did he do?”

Kat would not be this reluctant to say what it was if it were something Cristofer said.

“He tried to bite me.”

Cold fury chokes me.

The promise not to howl was unnecessary. I’m shaking with rage, too furious to make a sound.

My enforcers edge away from the table as wood creaks ominously.

“ Aren …” Finan warns.

My gaze drops to the table, the solid wood I’m gripping so tightly that a crack has already appeared on the surface.

I release the table and grapple for a sense of calm. “You’re mine.”

Her back stiffens. “If this is going to be a caveman beating his chest speech, I don’t…”

“No.” I shake my head, surprised by the amusement her words cause. I’m not someone who smiles or laughs often, but with her, it keeps happening. “You’re my mate. I haven’t bitten you, but you would smell like me. He’s a shifter. He would know that."