Page 19 of Pack Kasen: Part 2

Huffing, she swings around and stalks away.

I wait until she’s disappeared inside, then I fish out my cell phone from my pocket and speed dial number one.

I press the phone to my ear with no hope that this call will be answered.

Because I didn’t just steal Kat’s address from the faculty office when I broke in. I stole her cell phone number. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to call it, and yet again, it goes unanswered.

I told myself she was sleeping when I called her early this morning. It’s nearly nine a.m., now, but I have a feeling that if I were to call her at two in the afternoon, my call would still go unanswered. Either she doesn’t answer calls from numbers she doesn’t recognize, or she suspects it’s me. I have my suspicions it’s the latter rather than the former.

A phone call won’t get Kat back here. Speaking to her face-to-face will.

I hang up my phone, toss it aside, and strip.

* * *

“Aren, you can’t hide in the forest forever.” Finan walks out of the house as I return from a long run that only my growling belly forced me to come back to deal with.

The sky is a dark blue as late evening sets in. I barely ate any of my breakfast, missed lunch, and I don’t intend to miss dinner with the delicious food smells that have been drifting out of the house and into the forest. I amstarving.

“I can hide in the forest or I can kill Tagge. Those are the only options available to me.”

“Theonlyoptions…” He echoes.

His face is blank, but I know exactly what he’s thinking.

I scowl at him. “Stop being so reasonable. You know how I feel about it when you give me that look.”

“I do.”

“Are you sure you can’t see a future with his sister?” I ask him, hopeful.

“No.”

“No, you need time to think about it or no…”

“The other no. Aren.”

I glare at him. “Okay.Fine. I’ll go back to the house, kill Tagge, and I can go back to the city and get Kat.”

“Did she sound interested in coming back?”

“She did.” I nod firmly.

He raises his eyebrow.

“What have I told you about that eyebrow?” I warn him.

He lowers it like a well-trained circus performer.

“Aren?” Tagge yells from the decking. “When are you going to stop pretending you have a mate?”

“I’m not pretending,” I yell back.

“As if I’m going to believe that you happened to meet your fated mate right when you ran out of excuses to take Shira as a mate.” He walks toward me as he speaks, glaring all the while as he pulls Shira along with him.

She has her cell phone in her left hand and seems more interested in it than anything else.

“I don’t want her,” I snap, and glance at her. “No offense.”

---