Page 73 of Pack Kasen: Part 1

Leo is seven years old, and he truly is like trying to herd a cat. I’m not looking forward to the day he shifts because as a boy he is curiosity personified, always going where he shouldn’t. But as a wolf…

I feel sorry for his mom already.

Fortunately, Dania has some time to prepare for the rambunctious wolf pup that we all foresee Leo will be. The first shift is tied to puberty, so it isn’t until age ten for boys and girls shifting a little later at around twelve. Very rarely will it happen before then, and in the past, it was almost always due to a traumatic experience.

Boys shift first, but it’s the girls who learn better control faster. Joy likes to say female brains develop faster than themale. Anyone who tries to disagree with her is given a strong reason as to why Joy is one of my fiercest enforcers.

“You need to let the girl out of the cage. She is no threat to anyone.” Gregor, finished sorting or counting the bandages he had on the table, stuffs them back in a drawer, slamming it shut to look at me.

“What happened with Leo?”

“Francine’s mate got into a fight, and I went to check out the wound. When I returned, Leo was playing with his lion by the window.”

“And the feral?”

“They were talking. Both looked guilty as hell when I opened the door.”

“What did the feral have to be guilty about?”

He shrugs. “Not sure.”

“You shouldn’t have left her alone,” I warn him.

“And if you truly regarded her as a threat, you wouldn’t have left her with me at all.”

I don’t respond, but he’s right. I would never have left a feral like that. Not to show her civilization, whatever the hell I’d meant. When I’d seen her on her back, face white, a part of me had wanted to drag her out of the cage as fast as I could.

I turn to leave before I can think too much about why I would let her out of the cage at all, and why I would leave her with Gregor. “The feral belongs in the cage.”

“She didn’t hurt Leo.”

“Because I was smart enough to chain her to the bed.”

“It’s okay to be wrong,” he calls after me.

I stop in the hallway.

The pack’s survival depends on me being right. It’s a truth and a reality I’ve had years to become accustomed to. Shrugging it off isn’t something I can just do.

But the echo of the feral’s words still ring in my ear. I can’t shake off my unease. She had stared me in the eye, told me I was wrong and that she would never forgive me for what I’d done. Not even if I begged.

She had sounded like she was telling the truth.

Even my wolf, who has had a strange fascination with her scent since we smelled it the first time, fell silent at her quiet, intense words.

Then I had remembered what I’m dealing with.

A feral.

They only care about themselves.

They will say anything, and likelydoanything to save themselves.

I’m not wrong.

I am saving my pack. I am doing what is right for them. When the world is free of ferals, and when I find my mate, I will never have to worry about a feral killing her.

Because I would have kept her safe.

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