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“I should have seen it coming,” Caden finally said. “Or at the very least not been so easily duped.”
“Duped?”
“Yeah,” Caden said, brows furrowing. He rubbed his palms on his jean-clad thighs and then raised his eyes and met Quinten’s gaze. “I’ve been living pretty much as a nomad since I was fifteen.”
Quinten leaned forward a little. “Fifteen? Were you traveling with your parents?”
Caden shook his head. “No, that’s when they died.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks,” Caden said with a little shrug, plucking at the bottom of his shirt. “It was a freak accident where their car got pinned under a semi. It took so long to extract them that not even their shifter healing could save them.”
“Jesus,” Quinten said softly. “That’s fucking horrifying.”
“Yeah. Took me a long time to feel comfortable in a car again,” Caden said with a humorless laugh.
“Why did that turn you into a nomad?” Quinten wasn’t exactly seeing the connection.
“The alpha in the pack we were living in… I didn’t know him that well. It was a fairly large pack but not close-knit. Everyone just kind of did their own thing, you know?”
Quinten nodded but kept quiet, encouraging him to keep going.
“After they died, I went to talk to him. I wasn’t sure what to do about the house, bills. I was so naïve. I just thought he’d direct me toward somebody in the pack to help take care of me. I was pretty much grown by then, but I was still in high school.”
Quinten remembered what Liam was like at that age, and he couldn’t help but disagree with the pretty much grown part. At fifteen, especially as a shifter, your life was a mess, no matter your family circumstances. The heightened senses added more hardships on top of the regular teenage angst.
Everyone around you was surging with hormones, distracting you. You were closed in a classroom with thirty people who couldn’t control themselves, and yet you had to keep a part of yourself locked down tight.
It used to make Liam grumpy as hell. He’d come home in the evening with a headache and want nothing more than to flop down on top of Quinten and take a nap.
That Caden had been that age when he lost his parents and their grounding connection and managed to survive was impressive as hell.
The fact that he’d gone to his alpha for help and not gotten it was infuriating.
“He told me that he didn’t abide by freeloaders in his pack,” Caden said with a scowl, mimicking a deeper, more growly voice. “I told him I could get a job, but he said I wouldn’t be able to earn enough to keep the house while I was in school, and he wasn’t willing to take on a charity case.”
“What a dick.”
Caden must have been lost in his memories because he jumped in place a little, gaze darting up and a small smile creasing his face. “He really was. He tried to imply that there were… other things I could do to earn my keep.”
Quinten’s fists clenched. “He what?”
Caden shrugged. “Yeah. I don’t know. It was kind of weird. He wasn’t really hitting on me, so I don’t know if he meant, like, his Enforcers, but it was pretty heavily implied that I could stay at the alpha house if I was willing to do some… extracurricular things.”
“That piece of shit,” Quinten said through clenched teeth. He pulled out his phone. “What’s his name? Where’s this pack located?”
Caden’s soft laugh drew his attention back up. “It’s fine. You don’t have to go into protective mode on him. It was a long time ago.”
Quinten disagreed, but he decided not to push it since he knew there was a lot more to the story. He tucked his phone under his thigh and then spread his arms over the back of the loveseat. “So you left?”
Caden nodded. “I did. I guess I thought I could just find another pack, that someone would be willing to take me in. But more often than not, there was the same kind of mentality that I was too young to be able to earn my keep, that I didn’t offer anything to the pack. So why should they waste resources on me?”
Quinten shook his head, wishing he was more surprised.
“When I was sixteen, I ended up with a couple of humans as foster parents. They were actually pretty nice, not abusive like you hear a lot about, but not super engaged. I don’t know if it was because of my age, but they pretty much just let me do my own thing as long as I didn’t cause too much trouble for them. They kept a roof over my head and food on the table in exchange. So I got a job and saved up some money. When I was eighteen, I bought this old Honda that I wasn’t even sure would get me across the state line, but it did. It lasted for…”
Quinten studied his face. He wasn’t sure what Caden was thinking about, but he looked wistful. “How long did it last?”
