Page 82 of Pack Kasen: Part 2

Every time I had coffee again, it would always feel somehow lacking.

I recall the pull I felt when I first saw Aren, the Wolf King, sitting on his black stone throne, paging through a file as I sat on the floor at his feet.

He hadn’t said one word then, hadn’t even looked at me, and I’d felt it

And I know that even if Doug hadn’t died. Even if I didn’t have a wolf inside me that meant I could never be the normal human girl Doug would want to build a life with, that we would never have a future.

Meeting Aren changed something in me, isstillchanging something in me.

I hate him, but when I’m near him, something inside me feels whole in a way I never felt before.

“A marriage of souls,” I whisper the words Finan said in the dining room.

I met my soul mate when I didn’t believe they existed, and all I want to do is run as far away from him as possible. But when I close my eyes and sleep, a part of me reaches for him because he’s mine.

I kick the nearest tree because I can’t kick myself for being so stupid as to have feelings for a grade A tool.

“It doesn’t work.”

I jump at the male voice coming from over my left shoulder, spinning to face it. I knew it couldn’t have been Aren, but I braced myself for it to be him anyway.

It’s one of his enforcers. The one who tried to convince me that Marisa wasn’t a bad person for hanging me off the deck railing by my neck because she was jealous of the attention Aren was paying me.

Si.. something.

Simon?

Silas.

That’s his name.

He’s standing near a tree, gazing off into the distance.

“Were you following me?” Instinctively, I eye his wide shoulders and wonder if I can take him in a fight if it came to it. My wolf is eager to try, but few things scare her. She’s always up for a challenge.

“We do a regular perimeter walk to check for any unfamiliar scents and tracks,” he says, still not looking at me. And, more importantly, avoiding answering my question.

I arch my eyebrow. “And your perimeter watch happened to wind up feet from me?”

I’m not buying it.

Not after the way I sprinted away from Aren.

I didn’t hear him howl, but I have no problem imagining him growling at one of his enforcers to come after me and make sure I wasn’t running for good.

Smart.

If Aren had come after me, I would have kept running.

He has his hands stuffed deep in his black sweatpants pockets as he focuses on something in the distance. “I sometimes come out here to think. It’s far enough away from the house that I won’t bump into anyone. I can be alone.”

There’s a ring of truth in his words. I believe him. “Think about what?”

He flicks a brief glance at me. “Feelings. I come here to think about feelings.”

Wary of people after a lifetime of being taught to be wary, my unease about the reason he’s here and us being so far from anyone else lifts slightly.

And when I say slightly, I meanslightly.

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