Page 2 of Pack Kasen: Part 2

The Wolf King’s beta is here, three days after I stole his boss’s Jeep, dumped it on the side of the road, helped myself to a camper’s clothes, and trekked back into campus, probably looking like I went to a hippy festival where I lost my clothes.

Releasing a sigh of annoyance, I stalk toward him, ready to do battle.

“I don’t have his car,” I say, dumping my box on the ground. I don’t even wince when something rattles and cracks inside as I fish my keys out of my pocket. “If that’s why he sent you, then you’re wasting your time.”

“He doesn’t care about his car,” Finan says. “And I volunteered to come because Aren?—”

“Refuses to apologize, so he hoped you would do it for him?”

He clears his throat. “Not exactly.”

I arch my eyebrow at him. Something tells me it’s exactly like that. “Is this like good cop, bad cop?” I start searching the parking lot for signs of the man who claims we’re mates.

Finan was one of the few who seemed to recognize that I wasn’t a feral. He smells like warm amber and clean lemon, and I’d liked him. Well, as much as you can like a person who was partly responsible for imprisoning you in a silver cage.

“He’s not here.”

Thank fuck.

I unlock the trunk of my car. “So I assume you found his car.”

“He doesn’t care about it. Neither do I. A car is just a thing, and things are replaceable. He wants you.”

“Well, I don’t want him.” I yank open my trunk and pick up my box, speaking quietly so no one can eavesdrop. The nearest students are feet away, but I don’t want anyone to even accidentally hear our conversation. “I thought he wanted me dead,” I hiss.

“He never wanted you dead,” Finan says just as quietly. “He was just slower at realizing what he wanted than he should have been.”

I recall the Wolf King’s words in his throne room. It was there that I woke after being abducted by the hottest man I’ve ever seen in my life. He looked like a Viking in a band shirt, and had promptly threatened to have his beta take my legs off if I didn’t stay on the ground, where I belonged, according to him.

“You need to leave,” I say.

Something else cracks when I thump my box in the trunk of my car. In my room, I literally spent thirty minutes carefully wrapping everything to ensure all my stuff would survive the drive to my new apartment in one piece.

Now, I remember what it was like to be caged like an animal at a zoo, have my wolf nearly die because of the silver the cage was made of, and I don’t give a shit about crockery.

“You’re mates,” Finan says quietly. “You’re going to start to feel?—”

I slam the trunk lid down so hard the car shakes, and heads swing my way.

While I would love nothing better than to empty a container of gas over his boss and set the guy on fire, my wolf has other ideas. She’s picking up the Wolf King’s faded scent on Finan’s clothes, and she would like to smell more of it.

His wild forest and frost scent is not comforting or nice like Finan’s is.

His scent is a temptation I neither need nor want.

Is that what it means to have a mate? You start having a ridiculous obsession with another person’s scent?

I mentally snort, wanting nothing to do with the manorhis delicious scent.

I glare at Finan. “He nearlykilledme. The only time I ever want to see him again is when I’m in hell.”

He cocks his head, the corners of his eyes creasing in curiosity. “Why hell?”

“Because I would have put him there.” I sigh again and scrub a hand over my face. “Look, you don’t seem to be as much of a tool as him, and it can’t be easy with a guy like that as your boss, but I want nothing to do with him.”

He smiles. “He’s not all bad.”

“I don’t believe you.”

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