Page 57 of Pack Kasen: Part 2

“I’m not a bird. You don’t have to feed me from your plate.”

“And I’ve told you, I have too much.”

“Why?”

He blinks. “Why?”

“Why do you have too much food?” I’ve seen him load his plate down with food before, but this is excessive, even for him.

“Maybe I wanted to share.”

“With me?”

“With you. Eat, woman.”

I feel my eye twitching at that ‘woman.’ I’m getting ready to snap at him when I glance at the rest of the room.

Now everyone else is eating.

They weren’t before.

Why did it feel like they were waiting for me to eat first?

I could have gotten my own plate but Aren was insistent that I eat from his.

It is strange behavior.Suspiciousbehavior.

My eyes narrow on Aren. “This wasn’t some kind of bonding ceremony that I wasn’t aware of, was it?”

It would be just like him to take advantage of my lack of knowledge about being a shifter. My memory of a lot of things is patchy. Maybe it’ll all come back when I remember the family I never knew I had.

More humor creeps into his amber gaze. “You have a suspicious mind.”

“It pays to be. Seriously, we’re not married now, are we?”

Still smiling, he nudges his plate of food to me, and passes me the knife and fork, seemingly accepting that I am not content to be fed like a bird. “We were married the moment we met.”

“What!” The knife and fork remain in Aren’s hands because I’m not taking them until I get an answer.

“We are mates, Kat,” he explains. “In shifter law, that means we’re married.”

I continue to stare at him.

“If it makes it easier, think of it as a marriage of souls,” Finan offers.

I shake my head as panic invades my mind. “No, it doesn’t make it easier.”

It makes me wonder what is happening in my mind and body, because before I left Burning Wood, after saving Leo, Aren called me his mate, and I felt the stirrings ofsomethingcome alive inside me.

What if I go back to the city and I start to… miss him?

I stare at him in horror.

He’s back to talking with Finan.

As if he feels my attention, he glances at me, then the knife in my hand and ever so slightly leans away. “What? You’re not going to stab me, are you?”

“No,” I say faintly.

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