Page 80 of Pack Kasen: Part 1

“What else do you think?” I gently ask her.

I’m the leader here, but all these people are family. And I would do anything for them.

Dania sits up a little taller in her seat as her confidence grows. “Leo said that she wasn’t trying to escape. She asked him about Rupert and hoped he wouldn’t get into trouble.”

A few smiles spread across the room. Because where Leo usually is, that lion isn’t far away. Dania washes it once a week at night when Leo is asleep, often replacing the lion he falls asleep hugging with a cushion.

“So you trust her?”

“I don’t know about trust,” she says slowly. “But I think there’s more to her.”

No Alpha wants his pack to question his decisions. Some would force through their decisions and not give a shit whether their pack respected or even liked him.

I’m not always going to please everyone around me. What’s important is that my pack knows they have a fierce protector who would burn down the world to save them if anything ever happened to them.

To put their faith in me.

And up until this point, they have.

Now my pack thinks I got this feral wrong and I don’t know what to think.

As I sweep my gaze around the room, my eyes linger on Marisa.

She’s standing in the back beside Silas.

My wolf growls in my head.

I silence him.

My wolf still wants to kill her for what she did. No doubt she feels the same way about me after her cleaning punishment, but those feelings will pass.

The door swings open, and even before Gregor has entered the room, his voice is booming. “That girl is as much a feral as I am, Aren. Quit being so pigheaded and open your blinking eyes.”

Silence rings out.

Eyes swivel from me to Gregor, who comes to a stop feet away from my chair, glowering.

I sit back in my seat as I lace my fingers together and consider the man who, after my parents' death, became a surrogate father to me. I wasn’t easy, but he never gave up trying to make me a better man.

No one else would dare speak to me like that. They wouldn’t survive it. I have a soft spot for Gregor and he knows it.

“You’re using your teacher voice on me,” I tell him mildly as my wolf’s growl is more an irritated grumble than true annoyance. My wolf regards Gregor as much of a father figure as I do, though he is wilder, less inhibited, and less tolerant when anyone speaks to us like that.

Gregor crosses his arms. “As I do for the students who are stubborn about listening.”

“I’m not your student anymore.”

“Once a student, always a student.”

Eyes continue to flick between us, though more of the pack is smiling ruefully or shaking their heads. They’ve seen and heard us butt heads more than once over the years.

Gregor is fierce with his words, but he has always had my best interest at heart.

I massage my forehead. “She has no pack, Gregor.”

“She knew the beginning of the tale of the first shifter.”

I stop massaging my brow and sit up in my seat as the pack whispers among themselves. I lift an arm to silence them because this is important. “She told you that?”

---