Page 86 of Pack Kasen: Part 1

“Yeah,” I mutter, gripping the wheel tight, “I hear you.”

I slam my foot down and get the fuck away from this place while I still can.

27

AREN

The test was simple.

Prove the thing we all know: a feral, when faced with the option of saving themselves or someone else, will always choose themselves.

As expected, Joy wasn’t pleased with the idea of playing helpless victim in need of saving while Emilio ‘attacked’ her. Since there was no way I was going to ask one of my pack to put themselves at risk in case this test blew up in all our faces, that left my sole female enforcer and the person whose bright idea it was for this test.

Joy can handle herself better than most of the men in my pack. If Kat goes crazy, Joy will give her the fight of her life.

The feral,I mentally correct myself.Not Kat. The feral.

Things won’t come to that because we’re all here, spread around the house and forest, far enough away the feral won’t smell us, but close enough we can shift and put an end to this test the second it blows out of control.

But that hadn’t been necessary.

I’d unlocked the feral’s cage myself, with the key that I’d inherited from my dad. There had been more copies of that key, but I’d destroyed them. I only trust myself with it.

I hadn’t needed to step into the cage at all. She’d been lying on her back, eyes closed. All I was there to do was unlock the door and initiate the start of the test.

My feet carried me into a cage that dulled my connection to my wolf, and I crouched beside her for far longer than I should have, staring down at her and remembering the dream I haven’t been able to get out of my mind.

She hadn’t been sleeping.

When I’d touched her cheek, her skin had been cool, her breathing was weak, and when I stepped out of the cage, leaving it slightly open, my wolf had snarled at me to pick her up and take her out of the place that was killing her.

But I couldn’t do that.

My pack’s safety comes first,always.

So I’d swallowed the sick feeling in my gut that I was leaving her to die and walked away.

Emilio, Joy, Finan, and Cruz had been waiting for me outside. Troy, who I want nowhere near the feral he called beautiful, is guarding the perimeter where we think she’ll bolt since it borders the road out of here.

We’d spent an hour debating the path she was most likely to take out of Burning Wood. The nearest town is an hour by foot and the nearest city is about two hours away.

The rest of us found spots to hide ourselves, mostly lying flat on our bellies, watching the feral to see what she would do.

I’d known she would run.

I’d watched her strip out of clothes with a painful hard on and tried not to appreciate the beauty of her wolf. She had surprising control for a feral, shifting smoothly and with perfect grace. I’d tensed as she bolted toward the house and the bunkhouse, and I’d only released my breath when she sprinted past both buildings and I knew my pack was safe.

When a Jeep—myJeep—tears through the front of the garage, I whistle.

“Time for the encore, Joy,” I mutter from my hiding place in a bush near the creek.

Joy sprints into view, pursued by the big, black wolf that is her mate, Emilio.

She’s usually faster than that, but the point isn’t for her to get away.

The black wolf lunges at her, taking her to the ground. She lets off an ear-piercing scream that makes my wolf shrink back from the shrill sound.

They hit the ground, but I know Emilio. He’ll have been careful not to crush her with his heavier weight when he took her down.

---