Afflicted Read Free

connection ended. Kaden felt like a weight had been lifted after he settled on an agreeable resolution when it came to Victoria. .  He’d got a whiff her arousal and it smelled so god damn magnificent. The urge to please her was overwhelming. And he’d heard her call him an asshole. Kaden exited the bank swiftly and gulped in fresh air. Even now her scent was stuck in his nose. It was inerasable.
    Of all the damned things that had to happen to me and this is what I have to deal with.
    “You got everything,” Kellie said as she walked into the kitchen.
    “Yep,” Kaden said, as he grabbed a beer, and placed the rest of the pack into the fridge.
    Taking a seat at the table, Kaden silently watched his mother put the groceries up. At fifty one years of age Kellie looked not a day over at least thirty five. Long black curls stopped at the middle of her back, she had the same identical eyes as Kaden but that’s all where the resemblance stopped. Kaden had taken on a majority of his father’s features.
    “So did you get what you needed to do in town done?”
    Okay, she isn’t going to like the shit that I am about to say, but she is the one that isn’t being honest.
                  He had to confront her about those houses. Didn’t she know the risk if a human was able to get their hands on one of those homes? Of course she knew. For whatever her reasons were for ignoring the debt, it still had to be paid. She was the wife of an alpha and had to act accordingly. The safety of the pack was at stake. All of the land in their hands was private property and needed to stay that way.  There wasn’t time to beat around the bush about it. Kaden had no choice but to reveal what he knew and the real reason he was in town today. He took a long good sip of the beer before finally answering his mother.
    “Not really. Actually I found out about some auction taking place this weekend.”
    Kellie whirled around to look at him, a bewildered expression on her face. She’d told him something completely different than what he found out at the bank from Victoria.
    “Kaden, you said you were going to leave it be!”
    “Yeah, you said that I should do that, but I thought I could do you a solid after talking to Rick, who was going on about fixing what Morgan’s done. Regardless I can’t believe you would let something like that happen. You know what the risk is.”
    He was the next in line after Morgan’s death to run the pack. In the end all responsibility shifted in his direction no matter what. Kaden was not going to let it be.
    “I told you not to worry about anything your father did. So what if those homes are up for auction. Ask yourself what have they done for you and me? Did they step in when your good for nothing father beat us until we hopefully passed out? Did any one of them think to stop him from taking that god awful whip to your back that day?”
    Kaden remember that day. How could he forget? He’d been seven at the time. And Morgan thought it was time Kaden learned his place. Only a monster could do that to a kid. Kaden couldn’t fathom treating his child that way if he ever had any.    
    “No, just because of how things were for us that doesn’t mean we have to do shitty things to other people. Well at least I don’t agree with that.”  
    “Honey, they deserve it and anything else bad to come their way. You should have been here to see how they reacted to your father and me allowing that girl, Victoria Lane, who works up there at the bank, move into one of the log cabins.”
    Kaden choked on the alcohol he’d been in the process of swallowing.
    “You allowed a human to move into one of the cabins? Are you crazy?”
    “She is a nice young lady, who needed a place to stay. Besides she always pays her rent on time and keeps to herself. It’s a damn shame how she has been treated.”
    “Treated like how,” Kaden partially growled. He didn’t mean to jump into protective mode. The wolf