Page 53 of Pack Kasen: Part 2

I shake my head.

She releases a sad sigh. “Shame.”

“Joy would have plastered it all over the internet,” Emilio says, crossing his arms.

She doesn’t look the least bit repentant. “I totally would have. What did he do? No need for specific details if you don’t want to give it. Broad brush strokes are cool.”

We’re encroaching on dangerous territory here. I thought I had left all that behind. Now here I am, talking about something I wish I could forget.

“He betrayed me,” I say quietly. “And I never saw it coming.”

Joy lifts her hand, and I watch as claws extend from the tips of her fingers. “See, you must be kinder than I am because I’d have killed the guy and not thought twice about it. A knife in the back is a death sentence. I’d have set the guy on fire then plastered that shit all over the internet.”

I look at the man beside her, Emilio.

He kisses the top of her head and grins at me. “She can be vindictive, and I love that about her.”

“How’d you know?” she asks me.

“How’d I know what?”

“That we were running a test,” she says. “Back when Aren was convinced you were a feral. I wasn’t sure, so he agreed to a little test to prove who was right.”

I glance at him. Now,thatI did not know.

He still has his head swiveled to face Finan, but I’m still positive he’s focusing more on our conversation than Finan.

“Ah, so that’s what that was about.”

Someone had opened my cage, a prison made of silver that had been slowly killing me and my wolf. I’d known it was a trap even before I left it, but it was stay and die or get out and try to escape.

“How did you know it was a trap?” she asks.

I’d seen a woman being pursued by a wolf. And just before I’d stamped on the gas in Aren’s Jeep, I’d watched the wolf take the woman to the ground, and the woman—Joy—had looked me right in the eye, like she was pleading for her life.

I look at the woman now. “How’d I know it was a setup?”

Joy bumps her shoulder with Emilio’s. “He was staring at my ass, wasn’t he?”

She surprises a smile out of me. “No. I swear you looked more annoyed than fearing for your life.”

She grins at me. “It was Emilio. He kept trying to lick me in places that he shouldn’t have been.”

I blink. “Uh…”

He gives her a slow grin. “You didn’t have a problem with me licking?—”

“Yep. Time to move things along.” Cruz throws an arm around my shoulder and steers me away from a conversation that was definitely venturing into a more personal topic than I needed to know. Especially for people I literally met a couple of days ago and only just learned their names.

When I glance over at Aren, he’s staring at the arm Cruz has around my shoulder with an intensity that makes me wonder why it’s not exploded into flames.

A second later, that arm is gone, and Cruz is standing a foot away from me.

I raise my eyebrow at Aren.

He nods and turns to continue his conversation with Finan.

The guy nearly kills me, yet he has a problem with someone putting their arm around me?

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