Page 88 of Pack Kasen: Part 2

I shake my head and rake a hand through my hair, frustrated. “This is different. I can’t…”

“She’s hurting,” Finan says. “This is fear you’ll say the wrong thing.”

But I still hesitate. “And if I say the wrong thing?”

“Then you apologize and say something else. Because you’ll have learned from it.”

We’re nearly the same age, Finan and I. I’m loud, while he’s quiet. He’s calm while I rage often. We’re opposites, but there’s no one else I’d have as my beta. “How’d you get to be so wise?”

“You make a lot of mistakes, and I learn from them,” he says with a smile, as I glare at him.

He nudges me. “Go on. I’ll deal with this hole.”

It’s not the first time one of us has punched a hole in a wall and it won’t be the last.

I walk outside.

An apology.

That’s what Kat wants from me. Two words shouldn’t be such a hard thing to say. I’m sorry. That’s it. Whether she’ll forgive me is another thing entirely.

I glance at the cabin with the cage on my way out, remembering how she said she would never forgive me when I realized I was wrong about her, not even if I begged.

By the time I’ve reached the bottom of the decking stairs and turned to the creek, I’m kicking myself for not having followed sooner.

I’ve missed my chance.

She’s still sitting cross-legged beside the creek, her long brown hair blowing in the wind, and beside her is Leo, with his massive lion toy propped up against a rock.

His profile is toward me, but even from this distance, with the wind blowing their scents away from me, I can see his mouth moving fast. He can and will talk to anyone who will listen.

Leaning against the side of the house with my hands stuffed in my pockets, I smile as I watch Leo chatting away and Kat nodding or smiling.

Leo’s life fell apart when his dad, a new prospect who was unwilling to settle in Burning Wood, deserted Dania. He had mistreated her and failed to offer the stability and security she required after leaving the pack with him.

It had been a mistake letting her go with him. I’d known it at the time, but Dania had fallen in love. She wanted to be with Quinton, and I wanted her to be happy, even if I’d suspected I was making a mistake by giving them my blessing.

I’d quietly warned the beta to look after Dania. He’d said all the right words, but they’d been hollow. What he thought I wanted to hear rather than words he had meant.

Dania returned four years later with Leo, but there was no sign of the man who had promised to take care of her. She had lost so much weight that she’d been near starving. And she’d been ashamed. If she’d been a wolf, she would have had her tail between her legs.

I knew that if she didn’t have Leo to care for, who needed the security of a pack, she might have been too ashamed to come home.

Leo had been different then. He was quiet, timid, and always alone.

I bought him the lion so it could be his first friend when he didn’t have one and didn’t seem to want any. Finan had prepared a suite of rooms in the bunkhouse for Dania and Leo, filling it with everything he thought they would need—more clothes, furniture, and more—a sanctuary so they could have space to recover.

And slowly, Dania had ventured out of her rooms in the bunkhouse with Leo to eat with the rest of us in the log house.

But he’s bloomed ever since then. When I see him, his mouth is moving at a rate of fifty miles a second. He’s running, hiding, and talking to anyone who will listen to him.

And he seems to have found a friend in Kat, or she’s found one in him.

I can’t interrupt them now.

I turn back to the house to discuss with Emilio, Joy, and the kitchen staff what they want to do with their celebration. The pack is growing and the party will be a big one.

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