by Noelle Marie
"Aren't you coming?" he asked.
Katherine could feel the intensity of Bastian's stare as he gazed at her through the rearview mirror. He hadn't left the SUV either.
Ignoring how the blue eyes lingered on her, she shook her head. "I'm not hungry."
"You're eating," the man ordered from the driver's seat.
Katherine bristled at the authoritative tone, but didn't have time to retort before Bastian had stepped out of the vehicle and slammed the door. She turned her incredulous expression towards Caleb, who was looking at her sympathetically.
"Is he always like that?" Katherine demanded. "Bossing people around?"
Caleb shrugged helplessly. "It's his job. But, no, he's not usually so...” he seemed to struggle to find the right word, “harsh. He's actually very lenient in comparison to most other alphas."
Katherine ignored the blatant reference towards werewolves and made to leave the SUV when it became apparent that she would not be left alone even if she did refuse to go into the diner. She'd have to make her get-away some other time – sometime soon. Knowing that they were already in Minnesota made her nervous.
It was still early morning so the restaurant they'd stopped at was only serving breakfast – something no one in the group seemed to mind. But Sophie had chosen to sit at a booth instead of a table – something Katherine was bothered by.
Markus and Zane had already crammed into one side of the booth with the long-haired blonde, leaving Katherine stuck sitting across from them. She was directed to the very inside of the less-than-cozy booth. Bastian slid in next to her and Caleb sat quietly beside him.
She felt distinctly uncomfortable with Bastian's proximity despite the fact that he was keeping a more than respectable distance – practically forcing poor Caleb to sit on the floor as a matter of fact. Along with feeling uncomfortable, Katherine also felt unjustifiably hurt.
Did she smell or something?
Bastian certainly did.
She hadn't been close enough to the others to peg their individual scents just yet – besides Caleb, who inexplicably smelled of vanilla. It wasn't exactly a masculine smell, but it was nice. Like Caleb. It fit him.
Bastian, on the other hand, smelled like... it was hard to explain. He smelled earthy – like the smokiness of a campfire, the pine of an evergreen tree, and the freshness of rain all rolled into one. It was far from an unpleasant smell, and actually very, very enticing.
Katherine tried to distract herself from it and listened to the others make small talk as they glanced through their menus. She glared across the table at Markus when he made a particularly disgusting joke about sausage. He smirked back at her, but Sophie was quick to scold him. "Really? Can you be more immature?" She paused. "And unoriginal for that matter? Surely you could rub your two remaining brain cells together and-"
"Good morning! And what can I get for you lovely folks today?" The waitress's animated greeting cut Sophie off mid-rant. Katherine looked at the woman. She was older – mid-fifties probably – and smacking loudly on her gum. Her name tag identified her only as Andrea.
For a split second Katherine considered crying out to the woman – and the rest of the people sprinkled throughout the diner – that she'd been kidnapped by insane people who thought that they were werewolves. But even in her thoughts, the idea seemed ludicrous. She was more liable to get herself locked up in a nuthouse than her companions.
Forcing herself to concentrate on what was going on around her, Katherine quickly realized that everyone had turned toward Bastian when the waitress had finished asking her question. She fought the urge to roll her eyes when she realized that they waiting for him to order first. He was their so called alpha after all. Ugh.
But Bastian surprised her – and the others too if their gob smacked expressions were anything to go by – when he looked in her direction. It was clear that he was offering to let her go first.
When Katherine stubbornly kept her mouth shut, however, he began to look frustrated. As the silence stretched on, his shoulders tensed and she could see clearly that he was clenching his jaw.
"Well?" he demanded shortly.
Katherine narrowed her eyes, suspicious of the respect he was showing her. Was this his attempt at chivalry? She hadn't forgotten how he'd treated her thus far. Or before for that matter. Before everything.
Katherine bit her tongue and forced herself to blink away the tears that immediately sprang into her eyes as the image of her bleeding father once again assaulted her vision. She didn't even want to think of her mother and how she... how she had gone.
How could she eat when her insides were such a jumbled mess?
"I'm not hungry," she managed to spit out. She felt stupid that she had to keep repeating herself, but she wasn't about to attempt to eat. Her stomach quivered at the very thought of food – and not in a good way.
"What was that, dear?" the waitress asked as she leaned forward, straining to hear.
The sight of Bastian's balled up fists was the only indication that he, at least, had heard her – though Katherine had no idea why her refusal to eat upset him.
"I said," Katherine enunciated loudly, both for the waitress's benefit and for the sake of riling Bastian, "that I'm not hungry."
The woman shrugged before turning her attention towards Bastian. "And for you, honey?" she asked, her voice developing a more flirtatious inflection. She blinked furiously in a way Katherine suspected she thought to be attractive, but Bastian missed it, his blue eyes refusing to remove themselves from Katherine's form. Eventually, he turned to look at the bottle-blonde grandma.
"She’ll have the ham and eggs special – extra ham – with a large glass of milk," he ordered smoothly. "As for me, I’m keen on…"
Katherine didn’t hear the rest because she was too busy staring at the man, in disbelief that he had the gull to order for her. A sort of self-righteous fury began to build in the pit of her stomach and she knew her heated cheeks must have been painted an angry red.
If he felt her accusing eyes fixated on the side of his face, Bastian made no effort to acknowledge them. Was the man deaf? She had said countless times that she wasn’t hungry!
Katherine waited tensely for the others to order their food. When the waitress sashayed away, she immediately addressed the man. "What was that?" she demanded.
"What was what?" he asked, feigning ignorance.
"You know what! Why did you order for me? I said that I wasn't hungry."
The man's dark eyebrows raised incredulously. "Of course you're hungry."
Before Katherine could retort, Zane interrupted their argument from his spot across the crowded table. "He's right you know. By my calculations, you haven't eaten in over twenty-four hours. And those with our... well, our condition... have particularly ravenous appetites."
Zane's words only angered her further. He – no, they – were not supposed to make sense. But the cold rationality of Zane's statement could not be denied. And that, coupled with the smugness she could practically feel coming off of Bastian in waves, was quickly making Katherine see red.
She was only vaguely aware of Sophie clearing her throat across the table over the ringing in her ears. "Bastian," she spoke quietly, "you have to understand that Katherine has been through quite the ordeal. It probably feels like all of her choices have been stripped from her. And when you took away yet another one by ordering for her-"
Katherine had enough of being talked about like she wasn't even there. "Stop trying to psycho-analyze me!" she shouted across the booth, not caring if she was drawing attention to herself. "I'm sitting right here!"
"As if we could forget," Markus snorted, apparently not satisfied until he'd inserted himself into the argument as well.
Katherine turned her heated glare onto him, but said nothing more. She was too ticked to even open her mouth.
Her angry stare, however, spoke volumes.
The next few minutes passed tensely. Everyone was quiet and it seemed to Katheri
ne as if they were merely waiting for her next outburst. Their silence, however, wasn't as gratifying as she’d thought it might be. Instead of feeling proud that she'd managed to shut them up, she only felt more weighted down. And disappointed in herself that she was letting them get to her.
When Katherine heard the footsteps of the waitress returning, she was almost relieved to see the gum-smacking flirt.
Or she would have been if the footsteps had belonged to her.
Instead, when she looked up from uncomfortably studying the table, she was forced to meet the eyes of a stranger.
The man was tall with wild-looking hair that was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail at the nape of his neck. Despite his casual lean against their table, his leer caused Katherine to discreetly pull herself closer to the booth's padded wall. She estimated him to be around Bastian's age, maybe a bit older. And she wasn't sure how, but as soon as she saw him, she knew. He was one of them.
Maybe because it was how they reacted when they saw their unexpected company.
Although she couldn't see Caleb's reaction over Bastian's dominating form, Sophie and Zane immediately tensed. Markus glared. And Bastian – well, he edged himself closer to her in an unexpectedly protective gesture. So close that that his muscular thigh pressed firmly against her slender one. She was also fairly certain she heard a low growl originate from deep within his chest.
The strange man only seemed amused, however, and actually chuckled at the less than welcoming reception – though it was clear that his laughter didn't stem from true mirth. "Honestly, a simple hello would have sufficed."
"What are you doing here, Rogue?" Bastian snarled and Katherine found herself thankful that she wasn't on the other side of the man's deadly glare.
This Rogue person, however, merely rose an eyebrow. "I see your manners remain as appalling as ever Bastian. Color me surprised." His wandering eyes met Katherine's. "But surely you're not so impolite as to not introduce me to your... friend. Who might this young lady be?"
Katherine wanted nothing more than wipe the fake smile straight off the man's face. His eyes were bright with something dangerous and the dark orbs disconcerted her more than she was willing to admit.
"You could use a little work on your manners yourself," Sophie snapped at the man at the same time that Bastian informed him that Katherine wasn’t any of his damn business.
The man's smile only widened in response to their outbursts. "Now, now. I was only asking an innocent question."
Innocent? The man came across as anything but.
"So did Bastian," Markus pointed out coldly. "Why don't you answer his question and tell us why you're here?"
"Council business," the man quickly responded. "I'm afraid I can't divulge the details. You know the rules." They may have, but Katherine certainly didn't.
“Did Cain tell you to trail us?” Bastian demanded, not sounding particularly enthused about the possibility. Not that Katherine had any idea what it meant.
The man, completely ignoring the question, inclined his head towards her. "Does she know-"
"Yes," Bastian snapped, not allowing Rogue to finish his question. But Katherine knew exactly what it had been. Does she know about us?
"Is she-"
"Yes," Bastian repeated sharply. Is she one of us?
Katherine didn't know what possessed her to open her mouth. "She is right here," she informed both men, though she immediately regretted it.
It was one thing to throw the snarky words at Bastian and the others, but quite another to throw them at this man.
Rogue's eye lit up with a positively feral glint. "Of course you are," he agreed with her. "And your name?" The man leaned over their table, reaching out to her with his hand as if offering her a handshake.
Before the man's limb could get near her, however, Bastian was up on his feet and this time Katherine knew she wasn't imagining the threatening growl. Rogue quickly snatched his hand back, but instead of looking startled or frightened – as any sane person would – his eyes gleamed with excitement.
"I see," he murmured to himself, eyes glancing from Bastian to Katherine and then back again.
Bastian looked ready to throw himself at the man, but before whatever was happening could escalate any further, the waitress reappeared, balancing two large trays in her hands. She spared Rogue an interested glance. "Is there a problem here?" she asked between gum smacks.
The man flashed a smarmy smile at her – though Katherine was sure the woman thought it charming. "Of course not ma'am. I was just leaving." He locked eyes with Bastian’s once more before turning and making his way toward the door.
The waitress – Andrea, Katherine reminded herself as she once again spied the name tag – shamelessly watched the man's backside as he left. Then she turned her attention back on the men at the table – Bastian, in particular. She not-so-subtly winked as she placed his overflowing plate of bacon in front of him. "Big boys gotta' eat," she simpered.
After asking if the group needed anything else and getting a negative response, the waitress reluctantly took her leave.
Katherine glanced down at the plate in front of her and felt her mouth begin to salivate at the sight of thick slices of greasy ham. But despite her his stomach's demands for substance, she couldn't force herself to take a bite.
She looked across the table at the others, but watching them stuff themselves only churned her stomach. "Is anyone going to tell me what that was all about?" she demanded, determined to avoid eating the food in front of her.
"Eat," was her only response. It came from the man next to her and she realized quickly that no one was going to answer her.
She glowered at Bastian.
"I said eat," he repeated himself.
"No."
"No?"
"Are you deaf?" Katherine provoked, spitting out the words she'd only thought earlier. "No. As in I already told you I'm not hungry and am not going to eat just to please you."
The man swiped a hand through his hair in obvious frustration and grinded his teeth together as if his next words – or word, rather – took a lot out of him. "Please."
Katherine wasn't moved. And was about to inform the man thusly when an idea came to her. "A compromise."
"What?"
Katherine almost didn't realize she had spoken aloud. "A compromise," she repeated. "I'll eat, but only if you tell me who that man was and why you all seem to dislike him so much."
Across the table Katherine could see Sophie attempting to smother a grin as she watched their interaction. Zane, too, looked somewhat amused, though Markus just looked irritated. Caleb was hard to see over Bastian's tall form.
Bastian himself looked somewhere between bemused and annoyed. Katherine wasn't surprised. If how the others acted was any indication, he was used to his word being law. Well, Katherine was only all too happy to play the role of the outlaw.
“Fine,” he man eventually exhaled. But, of course, he didn't elaborate.
"Well?" Katherine demanded.
"As I'm sure you could surmise, the man's name was Rogue."
Katherine narrowed her eyes at Zane, not finding the tan man's interjection amusing in the least.
"A dirty scoundrel is what he is," Markus spoke up from his spot, stabbing a sausage smothered biscuit with his fork.
Yes, because that cleared everything up.
It seemed that Sophie was just as exasperated as she was because she sighed before quickly explaining what the others had not. "Rogue's another alpha from Haven Falls. He's only a little older than Bastian, who's the youngest alpha of the colony." She smiled proudly at her brother, who only ignored her. "Unlike Bastian, however, Rogue doesn't have a pack."
Katherine furrowed her brows in confusion. "But you just said he was an alpha. I thought-"
Zane quickly interrupted her. "Alphas without packs are known as lone wolves," he condescendingly explained.
"Rogue's always been jealous of Bastian."
Katherine shot
Sophie a quizzical look. "Why?"
"Because Bastian's important. And Rogue... well, you heard Zane, he doesn't even have a pack."
Bastian looked uncomfortable as soon the word important had left his sister’s mouth. "Sophie," he warned with a frown.
"I don't know why he's jealous because all alphas are important." She gave Bastian a pointed look. "They have places on the council."
Katherine couldn't help but feel that they were keeping something "important" from her – if Bastian's reaction to the word meant anything anyhow. Nonetheless, she trudged on with her questions. "The man – Rogue – mentioned something about that. He was talking about council business?"
Bastian sighed in a resigned manner before explaining. "The council acts as overseers of the colony. Its members make and enforce rules."
"And you're one of these members?”
"Yes," he replied stiffly.
Katherine rose an eyebrow, irritated at the one word answer.
Glancing at her untouched plate, Bastian offered her more information, though it was clear that he wasn't eager to do so. "There are sixteen of us – all alphas – who make up the Council. We all, with the exception of Rogue and one other, have packs."
"It's not unusual for young alphas to go packless for a while," Sophie added. "In fact, it’s the norm. Bastian here is just special." She threw him a grin.
Markus spoke through a mouthful of meaty gravy. "Ha! Everyone knows that an alpha is only as good as his beta."
Bastian rolled his eyes before turning them onto Katherine. Why did they have to be so blue? "There, you've heard enough. Now eat."
"Not yet," Katherine immediately disagreed, not able to resist voicing another question – a very significant question, at least to her. "The man – Rogue – said something about council business. Is that...” she hesitated, “is that why were you in Middletown that night?"
Katherine's inquiry was met with an uncomfortable silence.
After a few moments, however, Bastian responded. "Yes. Though it doesn't happen often, the head of the council sometimes sends packs to complete certain tasks – missions – outside of Haven Falls."