Page 76 of Pack Kasen: Part 1

“But—”

“And should he or the enforcers find anyone attempting to force the door open, it would be an instant death sentence. No exceptions.”

“Because of the feral who killed his mom?”

He blinks at me, surprised. “He told you?”

“Finan did.”

He nods, his confusion melting away. “Yes, it’s good that you know. What did you think?”

I eye him curiously for a beat. Why would it be good that I know?

Shaking off my interest in his comment, I tell myself it doesn’t matter. “That it was a sad story, but it doesn’t make me like the Wolf King any more for it.” It would if I was clearly aggressive and out of control, but I’m not. Even a seven-year-old boy didn’t look at me and see the boogie monster.

I flick my gaze to the jar. “Aloe vera, you said?”

He nods.

Curious, I pick it up and twist the lid off to smell it.

It smells as good as I thought it would. Fresh, calming, and lovely. But then again, I’ve spent so many years in a cement city that the smell of nature will almost always be like heaven to me. “Why do you make ointments? Isn’t it a waste of time?”

A scratch heals in seconds. By the time I dug out a plaster from a first aid kit, the cut would have healed. Maybe if I’d cut an artery or something, I’d understand the need for bandages and ointments, but if these people are like me, or I’m like them, then what’s the point? Let nature do its thing.

“As pack healer, I do what I can to ease my pack’s pain. It’s never a waste of time if I can take away even a second of it,” he says gravely.

Gregor seems reasonable, intelligent, kind and caring.

And then there’s the Wolf King who absolutely refuses to see what’s in front of him. Is he stupid or is his ego so large that he cannot accept the possibility of ever being wrong?

Gregor cocks his head as he studies me. “You look confused.”

“Just wondering about the Wolf King.”

He takes a seat feet from me. He’s an older man, with a light dusting of gray in his hair, maybe around late fifties or older. But he’s spry, crossing his legs with more flexibility than a man his age would. “Ah. You’ll have seen all of his bad side since he brought you here. We’ve known him since he was a pup, so it’s easier for us to excuse his failings because we have seen the good he’s capable of.”

“Andishe capable of doing good?”

People are complex. I get that life sometimes is more shades of gray than black and white. If foster care taught me anything, it was that few people are wholly good or wholly bad, despite how they might appear on the surface. Even me. I’m as capable of helping an old lady across the road as I am at ripping someone's throat out.

But I look at the Wolf King and I can’t envision him doing any good for anyone. Ever.

I consider myself a good person.

Butam Ia good person for tearing into the bodega robbers who killed my foster dad, Robert, without hesitation and then going back to his house, having a shower and crawling into bed to fall asleep without a second of doubt that I’d done the right thing?

Isn’t killing always wrong?

“Aren wouldn’t have been our leader from such a young age if he wasn’t capable of good. More Alphas lose their position because of challenges from within their pack than from outside of it.” He nods at the jar in my hand. “If you make use of that, I’ll tell you about the first shifter.”

I swallow a smile. “I’ve heard that tone before.”

A long time ago, at a period of my life when I was most unsettled, being shuffled from foster-to-foster home, the social workers tried to always keep me within the same district so I wouldn’t have to keep changing schools with each move.Sometimes that was unavoidable, and that was especially hard. Changing schoolsandhomes was something I never got used to.

“Where?”

“School. You’re the teacher, aren’t you?”

---