CHAPTER 6- THE PACK KEEPER

SAYA

I was wide awake all night.

My mother’s warning kept replaying in my head on a loop but instead of making me fear the grey-eyed man or want to stay away from him, it only left me with more questions and the more I tried to make sense of what she had said, the more determined I became to find out what she wasn’t telling me.

If she had expected me to simply forget about him and carry on with my life, she clearly didn’t know me very well.

“You’re unusually quiet.”Elara’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts as we walked toward the training grounds.

I glanced at her, then looked ahead again, wondering how much I could tell her without having to explain everything that had happened the previous day. I wasn’t even sure I understood it myself, and somehow saying it out loud made it feel too real.

“Thinking,” I said, keeping my voice casual.

“About what?”

I hesitated for a moment, weighing my answer before shaking my head. “Nothing important.”

Elara didn’t respond immediately, but I could feel her looking at me. She was clearly unconvinced, but she didn’t press for more. She just let it go and kept walking beside me.

By the time we reached the training grounds, I had managed to push it all back where it belonged, at least for the moment.Leadership training usually did that for me. It gave me something real to focus on, something that demanded my attention and left little room for mess in my head. Elara and I had practically grown up on these grounds, learning what it meant to one day carry the weight of the pack on our shoulders.

The air felt different as soon as we stepped onto the grounds. It was quieter than usual, with everyone gathered in one place instead of breaking off into their usual groups. Even the elders were standing back, listening to someone at the front. I couldn’t see who it was because the trainees were blocking my view.

I barely paid attention at first, until a few people moved aside and my eyes landed on the man standing at the front. It was him, the grey-eyed man from yesterday.

I stopped so abruptly that Elara nearly walked into me. “What?” she asked, following my gaze.

I didn’t answer. I was too busy trying to understand why he was standing at the front of our leadership training. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking completely at ease as one of the Southern officials stepped forward.

“Packkeeper Cassian, what’s your assessment of the border dispute?”

Packkeeper?My brows drew together.I thought he was part of the visiting delegation, just another Northern wolf here for politics. I hadn’t expected to see him standing in the middle of our training, much less have one of our officials asking for his opinion.

The way everyone waited for him to speak made it obvious that I’d been wrong.He wasn’t just a delegate, he had authority here.

Then, as if he could feel me staring, he looked up and our eyes met.

For one second, I waited for him to show that same recognition from yesterday, that strange, gut-deep certainty that seemed to pass between us in the garden yesterday. But his eyes moved right past me like I was just another trainee, another face in the crowd and he turned away, leaving irritation to flare hot in my chest.

My jaw tightened. So that was the game today. Yesterday he'd looked at me like I'd been ripped out of him. Today I was a stranger. Fine.

“Are you coming?” Elara murmured as she turned to join the others on the training grounds.

"Yeah." I answered following closely after her.

Training opened with a scenario — two territories, one border strip, both claiming ownership, no compromise.

“What would you do?” Cassian asked the group.

A few answers came quickly.

“Pick the stronger claim.”

“Force a treaty.”

“Split the land.”

Cassian listened to each answer without giving anything away, his expression unreadable. Then he looked at the group again.“What if neither side accepts your decision?”

"Enforce it," someone said.

"And if enforcement starts a war?" Cassian countered.

No one had an answer for that, so I raised my hand, and for the first time since I’d joined the group, he looked at me.

"Go ahead." He said flatly.

"Figure out why they both want the land," I said. "People don't risk war over dirt. They risk it over what losing the dirt means. Find that, and you find the real fight."

He tilted his head a fraction. "Then what?"

“Negotiate around the real thing, not the piece of land,” I replied with a shrug.

“And if they refuse?” he asked, leaning forward slightly.

“Then you find out what they’re willing to trade before you make a decision that gets people killed.” I shot back.

A few trainees shifted, and someone muttered under their breath, but Cassian didn’t react. He kept his eyes on me and said, “You’re assuming they’ll sit at the table. What if they don’t?”

“I’m assuming they want something badly enough to die for it,” I said, holding his gaze. “If I’m wrong, I’d rather know before I’m the one who starts the dying.”

Silence settled over the group and his jaw tightened slightly as something shifted in his eyes, so subtle I almost missed it, but I caught it anyway. Sharp interest flickered there before his expression went blank again.

“Good,” Cassian said, his voice giving nothing away.

One word, that was all I got.

Elara leaned closer with a grin. “Pretty sure you impressed him, smarty pants.”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t care,” I rolled my eyes, trying to ignore the butterflies stirring in my stomach, but the look Elara gave me said liar louder than my chest could argue back.

By the end of the session, I understood why Cassian had the reputation he did. He didn’t talk just to hear himself. He fixed mistakes without humiliating anyone. He listened first then spoke, and when he spoke, it mattered. I watched him because he was good at this and not because my wolf sat up every time he moved, not because the air felt heavier when he turned his head. Definitely not that.

What actually got under my skin was how well he could teach everyone except me. He talked to the group, answered other trainees, and whenever I spoke his eyes went anywhere but mine. By the time he called it, I was done being polite.

The others began filtering out, and Elara stopped to chat with another trainee, leaving me with a perfect excuse to go after him.

“Packkeeper,” I called after him as he turned to leave the training grounds.

He stopped, then he turned to face me, his face giving nothing away. “Yes?”

I folded my arms, trying to look tougher than I felt. I wasn’t about to let him see how much his behavior was getting under my skin. “What exactly is your problem with me?”

“I don’t have a problem with you.” His voice was so calm that, for a second, I almost believed him.

“You haven’t looked at me once since we started,” I shot back, refusing to let him off that easily.

“I was conducting training. I had no reason to be looking at you,” he replied, his gaze shifting away.

“Funny,” I scoffed. “You seemed to have plenty of reasons to look at everyone else.”

That finally made him look at me. Something almost like amusement flickered in his eyes before disappearing so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it.

“You should go home, Saya.” He said in a low, subdued voice.

I hated the way hearing my name in his voice made my anger falter. For a second, I forgot what I was even mad about, and that only irritated me more.

I folded my arms tighter across my chest. “Why?”

His eyes held mine for a moment before he glanced toward the darkening sky. “It’s getting late.”

I glanced toward the entrance a few steps away, then back at him. “That’s not an answer.”

His eyes met mine, steady and unreadable. “It wasn’t supposed to be.”

I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out what he wasn’t saying. Then I took a step closer, my frustration giving way to a flicker of uncertainty. “Did I do something?”

His expression barely changed. “No.”

“Then why are you avoiding me?”

His jaw tightened, the only sign that my question had struck a nerve. “You should be careful around me,” he said instead.

I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said.”

“That tells me nothing.”

“It wasn’t meant to.” He shifted his bag onto his shoulder and started toward the exit.

“Cassian,” I called after him, hating the way his name felt in my mouth, like I’d said it a hundred times before.

He stopped, and for a second, I considered letting him go. I could feel the warning in my mother’s voice at the back of my mind, telling me to leave it alone, but curiosity got the better of me.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I called after him. “Why did you look at me like that yesterday?”

His shoulders went rigid. “What do you mean?”

“Like you knew me.” I swallowed, suddenly more aware of the weight of his gaze. “Like it hurt,” I added.

He turned slowly, closing the small distance between us. His face wasn’t angry, and it wasn’t afraid. It was older and looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.

“You remind me of someone.” He replied quietly

My heart kicked in my chest “Who?”

His eyes moved over my face, lingering as though he wasn’t really looking at me anymore, but at someone else layered over my features. For a brief moment, his expression softened, the usual distance in his eyes replaced by something almost pained, almost familiar.

Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. His jaw tightened, his eyes turned unreadable, and the cold composure returned to his face.

“Forget I said that,” he said, turning away.

I watched him walk through the exit, and this time, I didn’t stop him. I just stood there, watching him disappear as my mind kept circling back to the words he’d left behind.

You remind me of someone.

That wasn’t a wall. It was a door, cracked open.Whatever Cassian was hiding, I was part of it and I didn’t walk away from doors. I kicked them in.