Page 37 of Pack Kasen: Part 2

I’m debating calling Rachel to ask if she knows anything when another small cabin door, this one farther away, swings open and Finan steps out.

His expression is decidedly wary, which instantly piques my curiosity.

“Something wrong?”

His eyes dart behind me, then settle on me, relieved. “Oh, good. You’re alone.”

I frown. “Why is that a good thing?”

He closes the generator door and walks toward me. “Aren has a project that he’d like my help on.”

“To relegate it more likely,” I snort, remembering the way Aren tossed Finan my bag to carry upstairs to his bedroom.

He smiles. “His strengths do not lie in…” He clears his throat. “Well, I’ll leave him to explain.”

“Explain what?”

He shakes his head. “It’s a surprise.”

I eye him curiously and glance back at the house.

Aren disappeared upstairs hours ago. Other than the occasional faint sounds of banging and drilling, there’s been no sign of him. I spent those couple of hours eating an embarrassing amount of fried chicken with my notebook open in front of me, trying to work out who would have a reason to kill my exes.

In the city, I had to hide the fact that I needed to eat so much more than my friends did. But here, among other people who can change into wolves, no one looked twice at me for consuming enough fried chicken to feed a family of four.

It’s nice not to be different.

“As long as it’s not another chain around my neck or vacation in the silver cage, I guess I don’t need to know,” I say, turning away from the house to refocus on Finan.

“It’s none of those things. How are you finding pack life?” he asks me.

“Uh, it’s fine. Why?”

“Aren mentioned that you had some memories of the schoolroom.”

I blink at him. “So?”

“You recognized it as the schoolroom when no one had told you what it was.”

Right.

“It just seemed obvious, that’s all,” I shrug, uncomfortable.

Anything that relates to my past makes me uncomfortable.

He cocks his head. “It’s not obvious. We created it to look like an ordinary cabin with no sign that could hint at what it was.”

“Why?”

“To protect the pups. If anyone ever got close enough to do us harm, they couldn’t target them first.”

Shit.

“And does that happen often?”

He shakes his head. “Not here, and not recently. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t before. That you recognized it was another clue that you weren’t a feral, but a shifter. One of us.”

“I’m not one of you. I’m just me.” When he looks like he’s about to press the issue, I keep talking. “What’s the deal with the girl who tried to kill me?”

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