Page 59 of Pack Kasen: Part 1

I look at Finan, and I remember how jealous Marisa can be. I’ve been shrugging her off, dodging her, and outright avoiding her.

And after I practically tossed her out of my room midway through our date, she’d started to ask me something about the feral.

Marisa isn’t stupid and I’m not usually so gullible, but I have a feeling I just did something really fucking stupid.

A woman’s scream comes before I can spin around, and my wolf growls at me tomove.

I tear the clothes from my body as I sprint toward the house, and I’m a wolf a second later.

Finan follows.

When the decking comes into view, I take in a sight that is like a punch to my gut.

The feral is hanging from the balcony, the end of the chain caught on the railings, and it is strangling her like a modern day hanging.

Marisa is standing a few steps back, her hand over her mouth as Silas and Cruz yank at the chain in an effort to release her.

I take it all in as I run. And as the chain comes loose from the railing, I spring up, shifting on the move.

I catch her as she falls.

The silver chain is unpleasant against my bare skin, and it would have stopped my shift, returning me to my human form if I’d still been a wolf.

When I have her on the grass under the decking, I stare down at her face, frozen as my heart thunders in my head.

Her face is ashen white, her lips are blue, and she isn’t moving.

What if she’s dead?

I’ve always known what comes next, what to do next.

Except now.

What if I was too late?

Finan reaches past me, loosens the chain from her throat, and she drags in a deep breath and starts coughing.

Now she’s breathing, I start breathing. I nudge Finan aside, rip the chain off her and snarl when I see the black and red bruises from it biting into her throat.

She’s impossibly lucky that the chain didn’t snap her neck when she fell.

“Kat?” I lift my fingers to touch her face. They hover inches from her skin when I can’t bring myself to touch her.

Not because I don’t want to.

I have the opposite problem.

After the dream, and after I carried her out of the cage and didn’t want to put her down, something tells me I might not want to stop touching her.

Her eyes are closed, and her skin is still pale as her coughing slows and her body relaxes.

I put my ear to her chest and listen to her faint breathing. There’s a slight hoarseness and a rattle, so the chain must have done some damage.

She needs Gregor. Now.

As I scoop her into my arms and head for the bunkhouse, Marisa is still on the decking, telling Silas it was an accident, that the chain slipped out of her hand and the feral fell.

“Gregor!” I bellow when I’m feet from the bunkhouse entrance.

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