Bitten

by Noelle Marie

  Markus’s reaction had surprised her. After he’d gotten over the shock of being hit in the face, he’d laughed. Apparently, she didn’t pack quite as much of a punch as she’d thought.

  Sophie, at least, had been impressed. She’d thumped Katherine on the back, congratulating the small brunette for finally giving Markus what he deserved.

  Whether the man had deserved to be hit or not, however, Katherine couldn’t bring herself to look at Bastian after she’d done it. She’d avoided him for the rest of the day, afraid she’d see a disappointed frown aimed her way if she allowed her eyes to meet his.

  Not that she cared what the dark-haired man thought.

  Really.

  She didn’t.

  And anyway, punching Markus had been nothing compared to what’d happened at the school three days later. Bastian had finally allowed her to go back on Monday – a full five days after she’d survived the full moon on Tuesday night – and Katherine was equal parts proud and ashamed to admit that she’d gotten into a no holds barred girl fight with none other than Priscilla Wright.

  Katherine scanned the books lining the shelves of the school library. She was looking for something – anything – that might pertain to the immunity system or healing process of werewolves. It was Free Study and for once, she was planning on doing exactly that – study.

  When the scratches she’d obtained from running through the woods on Tuesday had disappeared by the next morning, she’d been reminded of how quickly her head injury had healed when she’d first been brought to Haven Falls. Her curiosity had been piqued to say the least.

  After a few minutes of searching, Katherine finally found something she thought may be useful – Anatomy of a Werewolf by Harold Spalding.

  She grabbed the book, brushing the dust from its spine, before turning around.

  And coming face to face with Priscilla.

  The blonde had her arms folded across her chest. Her eyes were bright with anger and her pink mouth was set in an unattractive scowl. One of the girl’s friends – Katherine didn’t know her name – stood beside her with a similar expression on her face.

  Katherine was understandably confused – and more than a little annoyed.

  She hadn’t been to the school in nearly a week and within hours of coming back, she’d already managed to do something that ruffled Priscilla’s feathers? Really?

  “Can I help you?” Katherine asked tersely, irritation lacing her voice.

  Priscilla stepped forward into Katherine’s space, forcing her to take a step back in turn. Unfortunately, in the confined space of the library, that meant backing up into a shelf.

  “Yes,” Priscilla hissed. “You can help me – and yourself for that matter – by staying away from Rip.”

  Hadn’t they already had this conversation weeks ago?

  “You tell Rip to stay away from me,” Katherine retorted, in no mood to squabble with the other girl.

  She could already guess what had brought about this particular outburst, but it was hardly her fault that Mr. Sinclair had put Katherine and Rip in the same small group in Werewolf History that morning. And she certainly hadn’t asked for Rip to start whispering lewd comments in her ear once he’d sat next to her.

  The boy was repulsive.

  And Katherine was seriously beginning to doubt that even Priscilla deserved to be shackled with someone like him.

  “Please. Like Rip would ever truly be interested in a scrawny thing like you,” the blonde snapped. “You could never handle a real man like him.”

  Priscilla thought Rip was a real man? Seriously? Maybe they did deserve each other.

  The blonde took another step into Katherine’s space. If the brunette was a half foot taller, they’d be nose to nose. “No one even knows how you even survived the change on Tuesday. I mean, you have to know how pathetic you are. You’re just like that Melanie girl – an absolute disgrace. I don’t know how Bastian can stand carrying the shame of having turned someone like you. No doubt he wishes he’d have just left you to die.”

  Tightly clutching the book she’d picked out with one hand, Katherine shoved Priscilla away from her with the other. “You can leave me alone too,” she spat, turning to leave.

  Before she could take more than two steps, however, the other girl had her long fingers wrapped around her elbow in an unyielding grip. “Did you just push me?”

  She actually had the nerve to sound affronted.

  “That depends,” Katherine replied, somehow prying her arm out of Priscilla’s clutches. She dropped her book to the floor and this time used both her hands to shove the blonde away. “Do you consider that a push?”

  “You vile, little bi-”

  Priscilla didn’t even bother to finish the insult before vaulting at Katherine, yanking hard on the brunette’s hair – almost like she was trying to rip it from her scalp.

  Katherine immediately had a hand wrapped around one of the girl’s wrists, her fingernails digging into the blonde’s skin as she attempted to stop her from pulling out her brown locks. She closed her other hand into a fist, hitting Priscilla hard in the stomach.

  The blonde let go of her hair for only a second, but that was all the time Katherine needed and she pounced. The two girls were reduced to an undignified pile on the floor, limbs flailing as each tried their hardest to hurt the other.

  Priscilla’s friend, who’d been watching the entire debacle, released a loud squawk as they went down and it wasn’t long before the librarian intervened and separated them.

  She and Priscilla had immediately been escorted to the secretary’s office. The secretary? Yeah, Mrs. Wright – Priscilla’s mom.

  Mrs. Wright, who hadn’t bothered with her usual fake smile, completely berated Katherine, not even giving her the chance to tell her side of the story. The only upside to the entire ordeal had been that apparently, the school had no principal. It was up to pack leaders – or alphas, in other words – to discipline their underlings.

  Mrs. Wright had told her in no uncertain terms that she’d be informing Bastian of her “atrocious behavior.”

  But Katherine wasn’t wholly convinced that she had. If she did, Bastian hadn’t confronted her about it. He certainly didn’t punish her. She somehow suspected he’d be criticized for not punishing her, though, and kept the that little tidbit – that she’d gotten off scot-free for tussling with Priscilla Wright – to herself.

  “Katherine!”

  She was startled out of her reverie by the sound of Melanie’s voice. “Yeah?” she asked, quickly surveying the cafeteria and realizing that nearly everyone had left.

  “Are you alright?” Melanie asked, furrowing her brow. “The bell rang a while ago. We need to get to class.”

  “I’m fine,” she assured her friend, picking up her empty plate before following the other girl out of the room. “Just tired, I guess.”

  Katherine wasn’t lying either – she was tired. It had been a long week. She was just glad it was finally Friday.

  “Have you decided if you want to go to The Bistro with us tonight? We were talking about possibly going to Mack’s place afterwards to watch a movie or two at the lunch table, but I don’t think you were really listening.”

  Katherine smiled sheepishly at the black-haired girl. “Sorry about that.”

  “That’s okay,” Melanie grinned back. “But have you decided? Are you going to come?”

  Katherine shook her head. “I don’t think so. I really am exhausted.”

  She reasoned that Bastian probably wouldn’t let her go even if she did want to – not without a chaperone anyway. The man really could be ridiculous sometimes.

  For a second, the corners of Melanie’s lips slipped into a frown, but she recovered quickly. “Oh. That’s understandable. I remember what it was like after I survived my first transformation. It really messed with my head.”

  “Yeah,” Katherine agreed, her mind once again wandering back to the last week and her own erratic behavior and fluct
uating emotions. Soon, the two girls arrived at their classroom.

  Pack Dynamics and Mating Rituals passed without incident. P.E., too, flew by. For once, Markus had arranged for the class to play a somewhat non-violent game – badminton. She and Melanie partnered up to play against Mack and Leander until Markus dismissed them a little after three thirty.

  He pulled Katherine aside, however, before she could reach the locker room. “I have to clean up some equipment from the field behind the school before we leave. If I’m not here by the time you’re done showering or whatever it is you girls do in there, just meet me at my truck, yeah?”

  “I think I can manage,” Katherine muttered, yanking her arm out of Markus’s grasp and making her way to the locker room to shower.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the warning – he’d been ready and waiting in the gym to take her home every day since she’d started school again. It was just that she despised being babied. And ever since she’d survived the change, that was exactly what the pack had been doing – babying her.

  It was maddening.

  Only made more so by the fact that she knew she was at least partially to blame for their behavior. She did start crying when Bastian bought her a new coat, after all. And then went and punched Markus in the face the very next morning for making fun of her for it.

  Still, the kid gloves were a little much.

  “See ya, Katherine. If you change your mind about hanging out with us later, we’re heading out to The Bistro ‘round six.”

  Nodding in acknowledgement of her friend’s comment, Katherine waved good-bye to Melanie and Agnes with one hand and used the other to towel dry her hair. After throwing her brown locks in a sloppy ponytail, she took advantage of the empty locker room and shucked off the towel still wrapped around her waist to tug on her red sweatshirt and jeans. She quickly picked up her tote bag and slung it around her shoulder, readying herself to leave.

  It’d be vindictive of her to make Markus wait for too long.

  Besides, she didn’t particularly want to deal with the attitude she’d catch if she did make him wait.

  Pushing the heavy locker room door open, she stepped into the gym. She didn’t make it more than a few feet, however, before something – or rather, someone – yanked hard on the hood of her sweatshirt, propelling her backwards.

  Twisting around, Katherine glared at the perpetrator.

  It was Rip. How utterly surprisingly. And he’d even brought a friend. She wasn’t completely sure, but she thought his name might have been Thomas or Tommy or something.

  “Hey kitty cat, where do you think you’re going?”

  Kitty cat? Really?

  Katherine had no patience for Rip today – or any day, really. And if she were being perfectly honest, the moniker he’d just bestowed upon her was a little too close to the nickname her deceased dad had often used – Kit.

  “Can’t you take a hint, you thick-headed prick?” she spat. “I don’t want anything to do with you! Why can’t you just leave me alone and pay attention to your actual girlfriend for once? Maybe then she’d get off my back too!”

  “Aw, don’t be like that,” Rip cooed, even having the nerve to move forward into Katherine’s space.

  Refusing to be intimidated, the small brunette stood her ground. “Does Priscilla know you like to spend your free time harassing other girls?”

  A muscle along the meat head’s jaw twitched. Finally, a reaction!

  “Hey man,” Rip’s friend injected, rubbing the back of his neck in a seemingly nervous gesture, “maybe we should go. Priscilla would be pretty mad.”

  Rip snorted. “Right. It’s Priscilla you’re concerned about.”

  Tom – she was pretty sure it was Tom – shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever, man. I don’t want to be caught bugging her and get the snot kicked out of me by her alpha. His scent is all over her.”

  Huh. So that whole Bastian peeing on her thing was finally coming in handy.

  “Yeah, why don’t you listen to your little friend and run along now, Rip?” Katherine jabbed. “And get it through your head, would you? Not even if the survival of the human race depended on it, would I ever even consider, and I quote,” she whipped out quotation fingers, “getting down and dirty with you.”

  Rip narrowed his eyes at her and refused to drop his glare as he addressed his friend out of the corner of his mouth. “What are you, Tom? An omega? If you’re so worried about being caught, make yourself useful and guard the gym door.”

  Rip’s friend still looked uneasy, but did as he was told.

  Katherine felt a nervous flutter in her stomach. “Why do you need someone to guard-”

  Before she could finish her sentence, Rip had his strong fingers wrapped securely around one of her wrists and was dragging her back into the girls’ locker room.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Let go of me!”

  He did let go of her – practically throwing her into a row of metal lockers. Katherine carefully rubbed her tender wrist with her uninjured hand. “What’s your problem?” she demanded.

  “Funny you should ask,” Rip jeered. “You. You are my problem, Katherine.”

  She was dumbfounded. “I haven’t even done anything to you.”

  Rip laughed, but it was a mocking sort of sound. “Maybe not,” he conceded, “but I’m getting awfully tired of you turning me down, sweetheart. You’re starting to make me look bad.”

  “You make yourself look bad,” Katherine scoffed.

  Rip shook his head. “You actually think you could do better than me?” he asked, the disbelieving expression on his face matching his incredulous tone.

  “Even Priscilla could do better than you,” Katherine insisted – though of that, she wasn’t completely certain.

  “Priscilla knows her place. You, however,” Rip took two steps forward, forcing Katherine to back up against the lockers he’d thrown her into, “apparently still need to learn yours.”

  Katherine put two hands up, pushing against the boy’s bulging pectorals in an attempt to shove him away from her. “Back off. Right now.”

  Rip didn’t budge. Instead, he grabbed Katherine’s shoulders, holding her still. “Lesson number one,” he whispered, his foul breath hitting her face and causing her nose to crinkle, “no one says no to Rip Briggs.”

  Without further ado, he crashed his lips onto hers.

  Shocked at his audacity, Katherine gasped against Rip’s lips – which he apparently took as an invitation to thrust his tongue into her mouth.

  The invasion forced her to quickly regain her bearings and she bit down on Rip’s slimy tongue. Hard.

  She may or may not have tasted blood in her mouth.

  Regardless, digging her sharp teeth into his tongue had its intended effect and Rip pulled away with a snarl. He spat on the ground and Katherine couldn’t say she was sorry to see that his saliva was tinged red.

  Rip wiped some of the excess spittle from his mouth, and she could have sworn his hazel eyes darkened to near black as he sneered at her. “You asked for it now, you stupid girl.”

  It was when the prick began advancing towards her that Katherine finally realized she was in serious trouble. She immediately tried to sidestep him and get to the door. With a rough yank of her ponytail, however, Rip manage to simultaneously thwart her attempt at escape and slam the side of her head into the corner of a metal locker.

  Pain exploded from where her temple hit the hard edge and the sensation of blood trickling down her face absolutely incensed Katherine. She tried to kick the jerk where she knew it would hurt him the most, but missed. She only managed to connect a few hits to his shins before he was able to restrain her. He easily encircled both her wrists with just one hand and pinned them behind her back. He pressed his chest flush against hers.

  “Let go of me!”

  Then Rip’s mouth was on hers again, muffling her protests. “Don’t worry, kitty cat,” he sighed against her lips, “by the time I’m t
hrough with you, you’ll be begging for more.”

  Katherine was forced to swallow an angry cry when she felt his free hand begin working its way up her sweatshirt. She tried to focus solely on her anger and not the fear causing her stomach to quiver as she attempted to somehow wiggle out of his grasp.

  But the fear was winning out.

  Tears were rapidly filling her eyes when suddenly, Rip was torn off of her. Katherine watched dazedly as his body went flying into a wooden bench opposite from where he’d trapped her against the lockers.

  Breathing deeply and forcing oxygen into her air-deprived lungs, she turned to face her rescuer.

  Markus.

  But he wasn’t paying attention to her. He only had eyes for Rip. Markus didn’t even let the meathead get to his feet before tackling him to the ground. He held Rip by the throat, his firm grip on the boy’s neck causing him to sputter and wheeze.

  With Rip sufficiently detained, he finally chanced a glance at Katherine. His brown eyes were the most serious she’d ever seen them. “Get out of here,” he demanded, voice gruff. “Go out to the truck and wait for me there. Don’t stop to talk to anyone.”

  Katherine couldn’t make her legs move.

  “I said to get out of here!”

  Markus’s raised voice finally forced her into action. She dashed out of the locker room and didn’t slow her pace until she had reached Markus’s truck, pulling on the monstrosity’s rusted handle and lifting herself into the cab.

  Only after leaning over the driver’s seat and jabbing down the lock button, did Katherine allow the relief to wash over her. She adjusted the rearview mirror so she could examine the wound on her head. There was some faint bruising and a little blood still oozed from where the skin had been broken, but it didn’t look too terrible. Besides the small injury to her temple, the only evidence of Rip’s attack was Katherine’s wild hair – nearly half of the still damp waves had fallen loose of her pony tail.