Page 29 of Pack Kasen: Part 2

I rub the moisture from my cheek and try not to notice Aren looking at me as the pup bounds to the house. Dania sinks into a crouch and holds her arms out for Leo, who jumps into them.

Smiling, she lifts him and carries him inside, calling out, “Thanks.” Then she tells the wolf. “You are in so much trouble for chewing through…”

The door swings shut behind them, so I miss what he bit to escape being grounded.

Considering the last time he slipped out of the house and was nearly trampled by a four-hundred-pound deer, I fully understand why his mom is being so protective.

I watch them, still smiling faintly. “When will he stop being so…”

“Like a pup?” Aren suggests.

I nod.

When I turn to look at him, I find him watching me with an inscrutable expression on his face.

Something about the intensity of his stare makes me want to look away.

I don’t look away because that might give him the impression that I’m scared of him. When I lift my chin, holding his stare, I can’t help but notice one corner of his mouth lifting in a slight smile, as if he knows what I’m thinking and why.

He shrugs. “Who knows? He just had an exciting new world open up to him, and he wants to explore all of it. The world will eventually stop being so exciting or he’ll get fed up with his mom yelling at him and start listening. It took me a week of being growled at by my dad. What about you?”

I don’t remember.

I think I was eight or nine when I was in the basement. Maybe younger. My dad put me in there, and I don’t know what I did to deserve it. Before that, Mom was sick for a long time. She died, and I think it was my fault.

Maybe that’s why I had to live in the basement.

Before that? My memory is a patchwork quilt with most of the patches missing.

“Kat?”

I turn my head.

Aren is studying me, a line between his eyebrows. “You look sad.”

Because I am.

There’s so much about myself I wish I knew, but a part of me is almost afraid to. I saw a documentary once about someone who had amnesia because something so horrific had happened to them that their mind made them forget to protect themselves.

I’m scared that the things I forgot are so bad that I don’t want to remember them.

My happier memories are more recent—Robert, my foster dad, who truly cared about me before bodega robbers killed him. The few friends I made in college who didn’t pry into my past and accepted me at face value. And Doug, the guy I dated in my junior year, whom I loved.

Yet, here I am sitting by a creek, not doing a damn thing to find Doug’s killer. I get up, brushing the grass from my pants as I stand. “What’s the fastest way to get rid of your unwanted friend so you can play bait to lure a killer?”

A hint of amusement flickers across his gaze. “Have sex in front of him.”

I walked right into that one.

I give him a look that communicates the impossibility of that happening.

He snorts. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

I’m turning to leave when he snags my wrist, tugging me back. “You can talk to me, you know? About anything you want.”

I twist my wrist and his hand falls away. “To do that, I would have to trust you.”

I leave unsaid the thing I can’t envision myselfeverdoing.

---