Page 51 of Soul Fated

I shook my head. "No. But Lana was."

He nodded once. "My friend. With the alphas."

I considered this. Was there a chance he was telling his friend what he wanted to hear? Was I hoping that's why he'd said what he did? "You have a lot of friends."

Kael scrubbed his hand over his jaw. "I'm lucky, I guess."

"Why don't you have a pack? And why are you willing to do all of this for a 'friend?'"

"Wow, we're just getting right into this."

I leaned closer. "Is killing really such a nothing task to you that you'd knock off a few people anytime, anyplace, or is this more than a friend to you? And you know how to deliver babies? And Bill seems like more than a friend, too, for that matter?—"

Kael held up a hand. "You're more talkative than you were last night."

That shut me up. My skin started to flush, and not from the hot spring.

Kael cocked his head. "Why does it matter?"

"Why does what matter?"

He shrugged. "Any of it. As soon as we can get to Swan Lake, you hopefully won't be tied to the dagger?—"

"So you are going to take it? You're going to use it again?" My shoulders curled in, and I wrapped my arms over my chest.

Kael's jaw worked. "That's the plan."

"Because of your friend. You're going to kill people because of?—“

"He was like a father to me. The alphas knew that. I was working over in Europe when I got the call."

I moved to my left and rested against a rock. "Okay. They knew you?"

He nodded. "I grew up about an hour north."

"Which pack?"

His expression darkened, and for a second, I wondered if he wasn't going to answer. "Didn't have one."

I frowned. "Why not."

Kael pointed at his opposite shoulder, watching me as it sank in. My stomach dropped through my middle, and I couldn't keep the look of horror off my face. "Are you serious? They rejected you?"

He dropped his hand back into the water. "Six years old."

My mind reeled. Six. I'd heard of packs ending pregnancies when they didn't think the pups would be strong, but allowing them to live, only to abandon them? "That's horrible."

Kael stared at the water's surface. "Bill thinks my mother tried to keep me. That's why I was so old."

It made sense. She probably suffered just as much as he did. "Which pack?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. Which pack?" I hadn't meant to growl, but something wild and feral rose within me. How dare they do that to him? How dare they leave him helpless?

Kael put his hand out and pried my clawed fingers from the rock. "I'm fine, Callista."

His touch sent a swoop through me, starting at my wrist and diving into my middle. I pulled back.

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