Page 54 of Pack Kasen: Part 1

“Can you stand?” the jackass growls at me like I just took a shit on his foot.

Hepicked me up off the floor when he could have let Finan do it, and now he’s acting likeIinconvenienced him.

“Of course I can stand,” I say calmly.

Lips twisting in a rage that makes no sense to me, he sets me down on my feet and yanks his hands off me so fast that I stumble.

Finan catches and steadies me.

I nod, grateful I don’t have to pick myself off the floor. I might not trust him, especially since I haven’t forgotten he knocked me unconscious before, but I have a feeling I would be dead without him. I certainly wouldn’t have had any water.

The Wolf King snarls.

Finan yanks his hands off me, and I quietly sigh as I stick my hand out to brace myself on the wall before I can crash to the floor. Again. Because ofhim.

I feel the rumble of annoyance from my wolf.

Yes,I tell my wolf,he is a jackass of epic proportions. We’ll definitely kill him if we ever get a chance.

But that chance might never come.

I’m no longer in the cage that silenced my wolf, but when I try to change, there’s a block between human me and wolf me. I have a feeling that block is because of the chain the Wolf King has wrapped around his thick wrist.

It’s stopping me from changing.

The more I try to force it, the more my head pounds and my wolf whines, like it’s hurting her the way it’s hurting me.

The Wolf King stalks toward the closed cabin door, and since he’s holding the chain wrapped around my throat, I have no choice but to follow or be dragged.

And I don’t want to be dragged the way I’d pull my doll by her long brown hair and her head would thump against each stair and…

I stop, confused.

Whatstairs?

Whatdoll?

I grew up in an apartment. A perfectly ordinary two-bedroom apartment with my mom and dad in a quiet suburb of the city. Because we lived on the fifth floor, we always rode the elevator up.

The house with the basement came after, and I didn’t have a doll then. I had?—

“Move,” the Wolf King snarls at me.

I stumble when I nearly fall, catching myself on the doorframe.

I don’t snarl or growl.He’sthe uncivilized one here. Not me.

He flings the cabin door open and strides out.

It’s a struggle to hide my shock when sunlight hits my face as I emerge into a world I never could have expected.

18

KAT

“Do you have to drag me around with that chain?” I ask.

His smile is mirthless. “Have to? No. Need to know I have you on a tight leash? Absolutely.”

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