Sometimes, that evening still replays in my mind.

All this time, he didn’t really care, did he? He spent time with me just because of the contract. Because I was his master. Did he even like me? At all? Would he even know the difference between just doing things and actually liking things?

All of his apathy. It started to make sense. Why he never questioned anything I did. Why he always did what I asked him to. It was because I ordered him to do all of those things.

But even if he was a servant. He might know what safety was. But did he know the difference between right and wrong? Did he know it was wrong for me to kick him and push him and call him those names? Did he have morals? Or did he act like this only because he was an omega, because of the seer?

What the fuck was going through his head, as he lived here?

I spend the walk home thinking about these things, but finding no answers. I want to go to Merle’s again, like last time, but she’s still teaching the kids at the center. Despite all these questions about Kai, I smile when I think of her. On that evening, as we walked back from our lesson, when I got so angry at Kai, and I wanted to hit him, but couldn’t, I ran to her house. She listened to everything I did and said to him. And when I came back home after those long hours, it was like something big had changed between me and her.

But then he was there. Curled up on his bed, like a wolf pup. I heard his breathing – so peaceful, like the rhythmic breeze on a summer day. But I couldn’t tell if he was really sleeping, or just waiting like always. As I stood there, I remembered the stupid game in the forest. Him lying on the ground as I kicked him, curled up, his face so blank as I hit him across the face multiple times. Him on all fours, howling to the moon, naked, looking at me for my approval.

I end up at the edge of the forest, the shame in my stomach turning into dread. It was still early afternoon, but I had no intention of stepping into the forest alone. Those wolves still appeared in my mind – the same way they appeared from the shadows and between the trees as we tried to leave.

The feeling of his fingers in my hair as we lay in the meadow, under the moon. His sweet breath. I blush as I look into the trees.

He was so calm about it, too. Stepping in front of me, like it was, without a doubt, his duty to protect me. I frown. Was that a part of the contract, too? If they couldn’t kill me at all, was he just putting on a show for his clan? Showing them he could protect and serve me and watch over me? Was it just routine for him, every day, with those same goals in mind?

So who was he? When you took away the contract, the master, the slave, what was he like?

I turn and walk away from the woods, thinking about who Kai really was and how I really didn’t know him at all.