Shy (Once Bitten, Twice Shy, #2)

  She was tearing some meat from the dead animal's bones when she caught a flash of fur so white to her immediate right that it could only belong to Sophie. It confirmed what Markus had told her a week ago – the whole pack had followed her to Middletown.

  She didn't have much time to dwell on that fact when she caught a hint of his unique smell in the air again and was forced to take off.

  What preceded was the most intense game of hide and seek that Katherine had ever participated in. There were not many places to hide in such a small forest, however, and as she bolted yet again from the scent that was relentlessly pursuing her, she felt an unexpected ping of sympathy for the rabbit she'd managed to hunt down.

  Was this how the poor creature had felt? A toxic combination of adrenaline and fear pumping fire through its veins? Panic taking over its thoughts as an inescapable predator grew nearer and nearer?

  Katherine evaded him for as long as she could. It wasn't long, however, before she was cornered, Bastian’s earthy scent as thick and heady in the air as ever. She ran. But as fast as she was, when she came upon a small clearing, the large, intimidating form of wolf Bastian leapt in front of her, cutting her off completely.

  She almost couldn't halt her momentum in time and nearly ran into Bastian. She managed it, though – barely – and immediately sprung back from him, a low pitched growl already escaping her throat as she glared at him.

  Ignoring the way that a small part of her rejoiced at finally setting her eyes on him after weeks of being unable to do so, Katherine crouched down into a defensive position, her ears flattening against her skull as she snarled at him.

  For a long moment, Bastian just stared, his wolfish eyes a searing blue as they swept over her form, taking her in from head to toe.

  Then he did something Katherine would have never expected. Unreadable azure eyes locked onto her furious green ones, he slowly lowered himself to the ground until his furry belly was pressed against the forest floor.

  He was prostrating himself before her. Asking for forgiveness, she realized dazedly.

  Katherine didn't have a clue how to respond.

  Her anger towards him didn't fade, exactly, but her wolf and human selves were both so confused and pleased by the sight of Bastian essentially bowing before them, that she allowed her defenses to drop for just a moment and hesitantly approached him.

  It was a mistake.

  As soon as Katherine had padded close enough, Bastian shot up from his position of false submission and sprung at her.

  While Katherine hadn’t seen the move coming, she still reacted quickly enough to avoid a collision with the massive wolf. Bastian's side brushed against hers – it shouldn't have been sensual, but undeniably was, she'd been denied his touch for so long – as she leapt out of the way. She was able to avoid two more attempted tackles before he finally managed to pounce on her.

  She snarled at him, snapping her teeth threateningly as she landed on her back. He towered over her, the light that radiated from the full moon behind him outlining his sleek form.

  Katherine knew he hadn't used his full strength to knock her over – she hadn't even been winded by her abrupt meeting with the ground – but that knowledge didn't subdue her anger in the slightest. And that anger was fanned into a flame of fury when Bastian had the nerve to settle himself over her and nuzzle his long snout into the crook of her exposed neck. He panted as he unabashedly took in as much of her scent as he possibly could, his body molding itself to hers to prevent her from escaping.

  Part of Katherine – the part still enamored with Bastian – was shamelessly pleased, perfectly content to lay under the dominating wolf and let him shower her with affection.

  Mostly, though, Katherine was just pissed.

  Incensed and desperate to be released from the unwanted embrace, she twisted and turned, contorting her body in ways that shouldn’t have been possible in her attempts to break free from him. She growled and nipped at him in a decidedly unfriendly fashion.

  He ignored her actions completely.

  She fruitlessly struggled for what had to have been close to an hour before she finally accepted the fact that Bastian was not going to move. She was stuck there – underneath him – indefinitely.

  As much as that realization sparked her anger, it also caused a wave of calm to wash over her. And so she permitted herself to do what she'd been attempting to avoid the entire night and looked into Bastian's eyes. They were as gentle as she could ever recall them being and were staring at her with such adoration that she felt just the tiniest bit of the hurt he'd knowingly caused her fall away and disintegrate. His chest began to reverberate as he not quite growled, but not quite purred at her either – hum, maybe, was the correct term for the noise he was making.

  The soothing, gentle vibrations caused her eyelids to suddenly feel absurdly heavy. She valiantly fought the urge to close them. But surrounded by Bastian’s overwhelming warmth, she felt the safest she had in a long time, and they slowly slipped closed without her permission. Moments later, a mercifully dreamless sleep overtook her.

  What seemed like days – but was actually only hours – later, she struggled to open her eyes as consciousness beckoned. It took a moment for her green orbs to focus, but when they did, they immediately latched on to the same blue eyes that she'd fallen asleep looking into. Now, though, they were set in an indisputably handsome and undeniably human face.

  "Good morning."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Katherine blinked. It took a moment for her to regain her bearings and realize just exactly where she was and just exactly who she was pinned underneath. When she did, a fury so strong she thought her heart might burst enveloped her.

  "I don't see what's so good about it," she spat, splaying her hands over his bare chest and shoving at him with all her might. "Get off me!"

  The fact that they were both naked did little to calm her palpitating heart.

  Bastian, blue eyes trained on her face, refused to move an inch. "Why? So you can run away from me again?" he asked in a gravelly voice. "I don’t think so."

  The man's blatant dismissal of her wishes just stoked the fire raging within her. A strangled scream threatened to bubble up her throat, but she swallowed it down, and instead lifted her hands from his chest just to bring them back down as hard as she could at taut flesh.

  She slapped at his chest once. He grunted. Twice. He winced. What he didn't do, however, was budge.

  "If you don't get off of me right now," she finally threatened, "I'll never talk to you again."

  He must have sensed the truth in the statement because he searched her eyes for a moment before shifting and removing some of his weight from her. He still had her pinned to the ground, however, when he made a demand of his own. "No running."

  Katherine struggled not to squirm under his intense stare. "Fine," she forced out between gritted teeth.

  "Fine what?" he goaded.

  Katherine’s glare sharpened. "Fine, I won't run."

  Those seemed to be the magic words, and the man pushed himself off of her, rising slowly to his knees.

  Once freed, Katherine immediately sat up, curling her own knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them in an attempt to preserve her modesty.

  Bastian made no such attempt to hide his own nudity, and Katherine fought to keep her eyes focused on the expanse of skin above his waist and not on what she knew was dangling below it.

  For a long moment the two stared silently at each other.

  The longer the silence stretched on, however, the more uncomfortable Katherine became. Eventually, muscles tense with nerves, she could take it no more. "You lied to me." The words were accusatory and positively drenched in anger and hurt – so much hurt.

  Bastian physically grimaced at them, running a distressed hand through his dark, unruly hair. "You didn't give me a chance to explain," he countered.

  "Explain what?" Katherine exploded, infuriated that his immediate response to the accusati
on hadn’t been to acknowledge his wrong doing and apologize. "You told me that my parents were dead," her voice broke on the last word and traitorous tears wet her eyes. "And worse, you know what that's like! You know firsthand what it feels like when the fingers of grief grab viciously at your heart and squeeze. And yet still you told me this heinous lie. Why? What could have possibly possessed you to do that?"

  Tears had escaped and her chest was heaving by the time she’d finished her rant. She desperately tried to gain control of her breathing, noisily gasping in oxygen while wiping furiously at her wet cheeks at the same time.

  Bastian's features were pinched in concern, but when he reached forward to comfort her, she glared so fiercely at his hand that he reluctantly let it drop back down by his side. Katherine managed to suck in a few lungfuls of air. Sniffling pathetically, she added, "For the longest time, I blamed myself for their deaths, you know."

  Bastian seemed physically pained by the words she shot at him like arrows. "You're breaking my heart," he admittedly softly.

  "I'm breaking your heart?" Katherine demanded incredulously. "This is all your fault!" she practically shrieked.

  "I know!" Bastian shouted back, pulling hard now at his hair. "Don't you think I know that? It killed me to tell you that your parents were dead and to watch your face crumble in devastation. To hear your goddamn cries for them as you mourned! But you know what? If given a choice, I would do it all over again!"

  Katherine was stunned by the horrifying confession.

  "Do you want to know why?" he asked, plowing on before she could possibly answer. "Because as screwed up as it was, I did it for you. I did it because I was scared to goddamn death that if you thought your parents were still alive, that if you worried over them and longed to be with them, you'd never accept the wolf that became an integral part of your soul the moment I bit you. That you wouldn't have had a chance in hell of surviving your first change."

  Katherine trembled at the despair that Bastian seemed to have somehow injected into the words.

  "But do you know what?" he continued. "You lived. You're alive. And no matter how angry you are at me, I could never be sorry for that."

  Katherine took in the explanation, twisting the man's logic over in her mind and trying to apply it to his actions. But something didn't quite fit.

  "And afterwards?" she demanded shakily, still reeling. "After I had survived the first change? Why didn't you tell me then that my parents were alive?"

  Bastian eyed her warily. "I was afraid," he admitted, each word sounding forced, like she'd pulled them one by one from his mouth with a pliers.

  Katherine frowned in disbelief. "Afraid? You? Of what?"

  Bastian lowered his gaze to the ground, the hands resting on either side of him digging into the earth. Long fingers clutched at grass and dirt. "I was afraid that if I told you the truth – that I had lied about your parents being dead – you’d hate me. I feared you would reject me as your alpha and as your mate. I thought that you'd leave the pack – that you'd leave me – as soon as the opportunity presented itself." Katherine nearly jumped out of her skin when Bastian raised his fists and pounded them into the ground with supernatural strength. Loose dirt flew into the air. "But that's no excuse," he murmured so softly that she almost didn't hear him. "I knew the distress that my lie was causing you, and yet like a coward, I couldn't bring myself to own up to it. I've wronged you and for that, I am immeasurably sorry." His torso slumped forward unexpectedly, and his head hung dejectedly from it as he humbled himself before her.

  The words were so painstakingly honest – the apology so obviously sincere – that try as Katherine might to hold on to her righteous anger, it began to slip through her fingers like quicksand. The hurt, though, that his lie had caused was still there, throbbing in time with the beat of her heart.

  "Sit up," she finally muttered. "You look ridiculous." The words themselves were harsh, but the bite they had previously contained was suspiciously absent.

  Bastian glanced up at her through the fringe of his wild hair, slowly pushing himself back up onto his knees. "Does that mean you forgive me?"

  The question was spoken quietly and with genuine surprise so Katherine didn't immediately scoff. "I don't know," she admitted honestly instead, rubbing her shins with her hands as she pulled her legs impossibly closer to her chest. "But... I think I understand at least why you did what you did."

  "Thank you," he said, resting his own hands on his bulging thigh muscles. "Though I'm not sure I deserve your understanding," he added hesitantly.

  She wasn't sure that he did either, but Katherine kept that thought to herself.

  "I missed you," Bastian spoke again, trying to make eye contact and engage the brunette, but Katherine's gaze had fallen to her knees.

  Despite everything, she'd missed him too. But her turbulent emotions wouldn't let her say it back even if she wanted to. And she wasn't even sure if she did want to.

  Bastian tried again. "We found the SUV broken down on the side of the highway just outside of the Canadian border. I was so damn worried about you. What happened? How'd you make it to Middletown from there?"

  She could tell that they were questions that had been plaguing him since he'd found the vehicle so she had mercy on the man and answered him. "I was in such a hurry to leave Haven Falls that I forgot to take any money with me and the SUV ran out of gas," she blushed a bit in embarrassment at the confession. "When it did, I hitchhiked the rest of the way here."

  Bastian's jaw clenched tightly in an obvious attempt to censor his furious reaction to that, but ultimately the man couldn't help himself. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?" he demanded. "You could have been hurt, or worse-"

  Katherine shot him a glare so venomous that he closed his mouth with an audible snap. Certainly he knew better than to lecture her about a situation that he'd had a direct hand in causing?

  Bastian rubbed roughly at his stubbled chin. "Sorry," he muttered quietly.

  Katherine rolled her eyes at the rather lack luster apology, but nodded her head in acceptance of it anyway. “It’s alright.”

  "Can I hold you?" Bastian asked softly, taking her off guard.

  Katherine tensed at the question, refusing to meet the man’s blatant stare and digging her fingernails so hard into her legs that she was sure they’d leave marks.

  "Please?" he added when she didn't respond.

  Katherine hadn't been prepared for him to beg and shifted her gaze to eye him in consideration. "We're naked," she finally objected half-heartedly.

  Bastian snorted incredulously, his lips twitching as he fought back what she knew to be a disbelieving smile. "I don't care."

  Katherine was about to retort that she did care, but before she could get the words out, Bastian had sprung to his feet and in two quick strides, he had her incased in his steel-like arms. Air escaped her lungs in a whoosh as he wrapped the appendages around her and pulled her to him.

  She stiffened – her senses suddenly overwhelmed by the heady smell of him. She was struck by the crazy urge to bathe in the overpowering scent. When the shock of her intense reaction began to loll, though, Katherine managed to pull her arms out from where he'd trapped them between their bodies. Instead of pushing him away as a part of her longed to do, however, she relaxed into his arms and drew him even closer. Grasping the back of his shoulders with both hands, she squeezed him to her as tightly as she could and buried her face into the hard, flat plane of his chest.

  With one hand still wrapped firmly around her waist, Bastian allowed his other to creep up her back before coming to rest on the nape of her neck, his fingers threading themselves into the tiny hairs he found there.

  "No more lies," she murmured, lips brushing against heated skin as she spoke. "Promise me that there are no more lies between us and that there won't ever be any again."

  For a second, Katherine feared that the words had been too muffled for Bastian to hear, but after a moment of tense silence, he resp
onded to her plea, strong arms tightening around her as he answered. "If that's what you want then there's something else you should know."

  Katherine stiffened at the admission, disbelief coloring her voice as she dumbly repeated the words. "Something else?"

  Her attempt at wrenching herself away from the man was thwarted by his sturdy embrace. "Just listen," Bastian begged.

  "Why should I?" Katherine snapped, unbelievably irritated that he had the nerve to trap her with his body again.

  "It's about the present I gave you for your birthday," he hastily explained himself. "When you opened it, I told you that the ring inside didn't have to mean anything if you didn't want it to. But I lied. It did mean something – more than just something even, everything."

  He must have sensed that she no longer had the urge to flee because when she jerked back this time, he released her. Heart fluttering like a hummingbird against her ribcage, she dared to meet his brazen stare. "What is that supposed to mean?"

  It couldn't possibly mean what she thought it did... could it?

  Bastian kept his blue eyes trained on hers, carefully watching her reaction. "It means that I want to claim you as my mate. I want to mark you so that everyone can see that you are mine and that I am yours. I don't want anyone to ever question it. Not even you. Especially not you."

  Katherine willed her facial expression to remain blank, but nothing could stop the telling blush from staining her cheeks all the way up to the tips of her ears. "Claim? Mark?" she forced past her inexplicably dry lips. "Like... marriage?"

  Bastian gently grasped either side of her heated face, his calloused thumbs resting on the apples of her cheeks. "It is similar to marriage, yes, but more definite than even that. Didn’t you learn about claiming ceremonies in school?"

  Katherine could vaguely recall something about them, but that particular lesson had been taught during the fortnight of classes she’d missed while recovering from Cain's attack and the resulting pneumonia. She slowly shook her head in response to Bastian's question. "Not really, no."