Chapter 94 - ABOUT KYLE'S PACK

Kyle didn't leave my side until we got to the car in the parking garage that was attached to the building. He drove us home and then walked with me all the way up to our new condo. I felt like I had been spending so much time in this house lately. It was like I wasn't going anywhere else but here and the office. I guess it was OK for now but it was going to get tiring soon.

"So, what kind of outfit do you want to wear tomorrow?" Kyle pulled me into the bedroom and sat me on the bed. "You can pick whatever you want." I knew he was not being truthful right now. I most definitely couldn't pick whatever I wanted, and I would prove that right now.

"My usual then. Comfortable blue jeans, a tank top or t-shit and my leather jacket. And let's not forget my boots of course." I described what I usually wore to work every day which happened to be what I was wearing right now.

"Nope. Pick again." He was even grinning as he went back on his promise.

"You just said I could pick whatever I wanted." I leveled a firm stare at him. I knew this was coming so I wasn't upset but I was still going to call him out on his bullshit.

"OK, you can pick anything you want that is nice. This is a meeting that my entire pack will be at. It is treated as a formal affair because a lot of people will either hookup or search for their mate. It is also where important information is shared among everyone."

"Important information like you finding your mate." I crossed my arms and frowned at his explanation.

"Exactly. This is a big moment for me. I get to introduce you to everyone. I will only get this chance once. So again, you can pick anything within reason." He turned back toward the closest and opened the door.

While I just glared holes into his back Kyle continued to search my clothes for something he deemed appropriate to introduce me to everyone in his pack. I didn't even know how big his pack was. My old pack had been considered small with just about two hundred wolves in it. I wonder how many felines were in his pack. I probably should just ask.

"Kyle, how many people will be there tomorrow?" I saw him stiffen when he heard me.

"The whole pack. It's small compared to other feline packs so you don't have to worry about anything."

"How small is small? And where is your territory? Is it here in Boston or somewhere else?" He was looking less comfortable with every question that I was asking him.

"Boston is definitely part of it." He was evading the question.

"That doesn't tell me much." I grumbled at him. "Come on Kyle, tell me. Where is your territory and how many felines are in it?" I heard him sigh, he knew I wasn't going to give up so he might as well just tell me now.

"Look, Jacy, the thing you need to know is that there are a lot less felines than there are wolves."

"I know that." I snapped at him. I didn't need his explanation to know that. It was common knowledge in the shifter world that there were more wolves than there were for any other breed of shifter. No one really knew why it's just the way it was.

"OK, well, you know how a lot of wolf packs will cover just one city, or at most the whole state. There are literally hundreds of wolf packs throughout the country and thousands in the world."

"Yes Kyle. I know how my own culture works, but thank you so much for helping me to understand it. I don't think that my delicate little female brain could have comprehended that at all." I batted my eyelashes at him like I was some brainless twit. He didn't appreciate it at all and just looked at me with an unamused glare. When he was ready to continue he sighed and closed his eyes so he could focus.

"Well, there might be about ten feline packs in this country. Possibly a few more but I wouldn't bet on it."

"That's a lot less than I expected." I blinked and looked at him in shock.

"Yes, and oddly enough the areas that are more densely populated with felines have smaller territories. It is odd but it's to even out how many are in one pack at a time. There is a pack in Colorado that is probably the second largest in the country, if not the largest now. But they only cover that state and that is it."

"OK, where are the other high traffic areas?" I was curious enough to ask, I might as well know since I was part of his world now.

"There are massive ones in New York, Florida, and California. Other than those four large areas the rest of the country is broken up into regions."

What he was saying made sense. If there were fewer felines in the world and they were spread out then it would be hard to have a close knit pack like we wolves had. We wolves accounted for at least twenty-five percent of the world's population and that was saying something when there were so many other supernatural creatures that we shared the world with. All of the other types of people that weren't human counted for about twenty to thirty percent total. That meant that humans actually only made up about half of the world's overall population if you actually dug deep enough to look at them all.

Not all of the non humans were shifters though, and that was where things got complicated. Still, to be part of a species that outnumbered all but one of the others, that meant something. And it kind of made me feel bad for all the other supernaturals in the world, those who didn't grow up with the same type of support system that most wolves had. It was something that we wolves always needed and longed for. Maybe Kyle was right, felines were more independent because they didn't need that network of family and friends there for them like we wolves did.

"So, the remaining territories," Kyle's voice cut into my thoughts and brought me back to reality, "are broken up into big chunks with spread out feline populations. My territory goes from Maine down to Georgia then over to Mississippi and north through Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan. All the states that lie in that area except for New York are part of my territory."

"That is a big area." I felt a bit of shock at hearing how vast his area was. "That sounds like more than one fourth of the remaining states."

"If you're judging by size it is the biggest in the country, but going off the population of felines it is about the same as the others. Plus, they were divided up a long time ago when the population was booming in other areas."

I was trying to wrap my head around this as best as I could. He was the Alpha of a large area pack that he said was small but spanned that big of an area. It even included where I was from. Then there was still the fact that he still hadn't told me how many people were in his pack. I don't think I was going to like this number.

"Kyle, how many people are in your pack?" I know I sounded nervous right now, that's because I was.

"A little over a thousand." That's about what I thought he was going to say. He was telling me there were five times as many people in his pack than the one I grew up in. That meant he was going to parade me around in front of a thousand people tomorrow. Oh yay me. "It's not really that bad. It's only one sixth of the total population of the felines. It's not that many really."

I felt like he was trying to console me but I was just spinning out of control. What the hell was going to happen at this meeting? What was he going to do? What was I going to do? Was I supposed to just stand there and be his arm candy or was I supposed to do something special? This was a lot of pressure to thrust onto me at the last goddamn second.

"Why didn't you tell me about this sooner?" I yelled at him. "Why did you wait to tell me about the meeting until today?" I was growling my words, my anger flaring.

"To be honest I nearly forgot. If I hadn't gotten a message from my cousin this morning asking me about the meeting for tomorrow I would have missed it myself. There has been a lot on my mind lately you know." He looked like he was really sorry about it all. I guess I should forgive him.

"Fine, but don't forget to tell me again. I don't like these kinds of surprises." He looked like I had just made his day by not being overly mad at him. I'm glad I could make his day. Too bad I was going to be flipping out for the rest of mine. This was just going to be a fun couple of days for me, wasn't it. Panicking about a massive meeting and then actually going to that massive meeting. Gee, thanks Kyle.