Page 73 of Pack Kasen: Part 2

“Was that another smile?” I tease her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, sounding severe.

“It takes a lot for a shifter to want to move from their pack,” I tell her, wanting to move closer to her, but I meant what I said before about wanting to be her friend.

I tell myself to be satisfied with what I have now. Just us, sitting on the grass, talking. It won’t be enough for long. My wolf wants more. So does the man. But for now, this is more than I thought I would have with Kat after the way I treated her.

I can’t look at the cabin that houses the silver cage without seeing her in it—nearly dying in it. If she ever forgives me for what I did, I never will. And Finan… if he hadn’t pushed me to open my eyes as much as he did, I would have killed her. The only reason I still have a mate at all is because of him.

She deserves a mate who would give her the world.

I can’t give her up. I can only try to be the mate she deserves and not hurt her again.

And I will kill anything that hurts her or threatens to.

Maybe that will be enough to convince her to stay with me.

“Pack is our family—our bedrock. The thing that ground us from childhood. We grow up knowing we have safety and security because of our pack. Pack is everything.”

She looks at me. “So why would a shifter want to leave his and join another?”

I shrug. “A couple of reasons. Sometimes they want to start over, find love, change something they aren’t happy with. The same reason a regular human would want to move.”

“What about bitten humans? Or are all of them ferals?” she turns to ask me.

“Not all of them are ferals.” I choose my words carefully. We’re entering a topic I didn’t expect her to want to discuss. "Perhaps around two out of every ten bitten humans. However, this is just an estimate. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how many humans get bitten.”

Her eyes widen. “Just two?”

I hold her gaze, serious. “But those two have the potential to cause a bloodbath if we don’t stop them.”

“So if there had been a feral in my college campus…”

“Is something I try not to think about,” I tell her softly.

If a feral got into a dorm, dozens could have died.

After a long moment, she looks away. “Do you take in the bitten humans as well?”

“If I think they will fit in the pack. Not all Alphas would.”

“Why not?”

"Educating a newly bitten human is a significant responsibility. Not everyone is willing to invest the effort, just as not everyone possesses the skills to be a teacher.”

“Could you?”

I shake my head. “Patience isn’t one of my strengths. Gregor, however…”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. What happens if a bitten human tries to join a pack, and no pack wants them?”

Shit. I hoped she wouldn’t ask me that.

At my pause, she turns to look at me.

“Aren?”

“They become lone wolves.”

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