Page 33 of Pack Kasen: Part 2

“On the wall.”

I take in the massive king-size bed leaning up against the wall, then I frown at the boxes. “I don’t remember the last one coming in so many pieces.”

“You wouldn’t,” Finan says, “since I built it.”

My parents had this room before they died. And even knowing as Alpha, that it would become my room, I slept in the bunkhouse with the rest of the pack, reluctant to claim a space that had once been theirs.

I’d known they weren’t coming back. I hadn’t thought I was the least bit sentimental, but removing all their things after a feral killed them was harder than I thought it would be.

Finan had been a friend from childhood, and naturally, there was no one else I wanted as my beta. It was his idea to gut the room. To reclaim the space and make it my own. So I asked the rest of the pack to pick out anything they wanted.

I donated everything that belonged to my parents. Other than photographs, I needed nothing else.

Once the room was bare, a bunch of us painted. I had so many volunteers I had to tell people I didn’t need that much help, but that’s pack. They pull together when you need them the most and they always have your back.

Everything is new. The bed. The closet, the dresser. All of it.

It took time, months rather than weeks, though not quite a year, before the space felt like mine and I didn’t look at it and think of my parents.

As I study the pile of boxes to build this new bed, I’m not sure how I escaped building the last. Did Finan and the others volunteer? Or did I see the stack of boxes, decide I wanted nothing to do with it, and pass the task onto someone else?

This morning, I opened my laptop and found a new bed from a local furniture store that a couple of my enforcers could pick up. Then I followed Kat outside to the creek where Leo had jumped on her and made her laugh. That laugh had done something to me. It had stirred something inside me, and I knew I needed to do everything to make her laugh like that again.

Assembling this bed looks to be at least a couple of hours of work and the instructions are already giving me a headache.

I turn to Finan. “Was it easy?”

“It was fine,” Finan says as he walks out.

“Where are you going?” I call after him.

“The generator isn’t working.”

“The generator is working fine. You’re just avoiding having to build this,” I call after him.

All I hear are the sound of his footsteps down the stairs. When I look out of the window, he’s fast walking away from the house, toward the generator, where he’s going to pretend there’s an urgent fault that only he can deal with to get out of building this.

I take in the pile of boxes for the new bed.

Patience isn’t my strong suit. It’s why I must have had Finan build this before.

And there’s no just replacing the mattress since I had the bright idea of breaking the bed frame entirely when I realized how I would show Kat that I was worth forgiving by getting her a new bed.

Now I have this mess to deal with.

“Fuck.”

Tagge walks in when I’m getting ready to set fire to everything in this room.

“Having difficulties?” he asks cheerfully.

“I’m fine,” I growl, returning to my task.

As long as I keep reminding myself it’s for Kat, then I won’t be tempted to open a window and fling everything outside.

When I glance over at Tagge, he’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed, watching me.

“How’d you meet the girl?” he asks.

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