by Noelle Marie
Not bothering to wait for further confirmation, Bastian pulled Katherine out the door. She could practically see the steam coming out of his ears as he marched her down the hallway towards the building’s only exit.
“Bastian! Hey Bastian, wait up!”
The sound of someone calling out Bastian’s name caused him to abruptly spot and spin around. “What?” he barked.
It was Agnes’s alpha – her long red hair in a bit of disarray as she struggled to catch up with them – who was attempting to get his attention.
“Is that any way to greet a friend?” she asked, feigning a huff. Katherine tried to recall her name. Atkins, she was fairly certain, was what Briggs had called her. Was it a last name?
When Bastian merely rolled his eyes at her question, she playfully punched him in the arm. “Quite a show you put on in there,” she commented. “Lord knows it’s the most entertainment I’ve had in a while.” She finally focused her gaze on Katherine. “Quite funny, wouldn’t you say?”
Katherine wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. Because, no. To be quite frank, she hadn’t found any part of the meeting funny. Confusing? Sure. Anxiety-inducing? Definitely. But funny? No.
And Katherine didn’t like the dynamic between Bastian and this woman either. Despite his surly attitude, it seemed like Bastian was familiar with her. They were friends, no doubt. Maybe even more.
Not that it was any of Katherine’s business. She didn’t care what – or rather who – Bastian did in his free time.
Still, she couldn’t help but think that the redhead was much too old for Bastian. She had to be pushing thirty. There was no way they were together together. Just no way.
Thankfully, Atkins didn’t appear to notice that Katherine hadn’t answered her question. Instead, she’d turned back toward Bastian. “Well,” she demanded, “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
Bastian finally slipped his hand from Katherine’s – seemingly startled that they’d been holding hands in the first place – before loosely gesturing towards Atkins. The small brunette ignored the pang of irritation she felt.
“Katherine, this is Gabriela. As I’m sure you’ve deduced my now, she’s another alpha of Haven Falls and one of the town’s best healers. Gabriela, this is Katherine, my… well, she’s the newest member of my pack.”
The redhead, Gabriela apparently, offered Katherine a smile. It seemed genuine, but Katherine could only muster up a half-hearted one in return. She didn’t know what was wrong with her.
Before she could dwell too much on it, however, Bastian was bidding his friend an abrupt good bye and placing a hand on the small of Katherine’s back, leading her out of the building and to his SUV parked on the side of the road.
If Bastian was expecting a silent ride back to the house, however, he was in for a disappointment. As soon as he’d put the car into drive, questions were spewing from Katherine mouth.
“Why did you agree to fight that jerk – Rogue? And what’s an alpha fight anyway? Why didn’t you tell me what we were getting into before dragging me to this meeting?”
Bastian took a deep breath, running a hand through his wild hair with the hand not grasping the steering wheel. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know for sure what the meeting was about. I suspected, of course, but-”
“Then why didn’t you tell me your suspicions?” Katherine demanded.
Bastian frowned at the interruption. “I didn’t want to unnecessarily concern you.”
“Yeah, because waking me up at the crack of dawn and dragging me to an alpha meeting didn’t concern me at all,” Katherine agreed sarcastically.
“I’m sorry,” he bit out through clenched teeth. “In hindsight, perhaps it was counterproductive to keep the truth from you.”
The apology – the idea that Bastian was capable of apologizing, let alone admitting that he’d done something wrong – shocked Katherine into a temporary silence.
But the silence was exactly that, temporary.
“Yes, well, thank you,” she managed to sputter. “But you know, we wouldn’t even have been put in that situation in the first place if you’d have just restrained yourself from going after Rip. I don’t know what Markus told you, but the only injury I sustained from our little confrontation in the locker room was a cut on my forehead. Hardly worth the trouble you caused by attacking him in retaliation.”
Katherine knew it was the wrong thing to say – even as the words poured from her mouth, she could see the way Bastian stiffened, the way furious tremors began to take hold of the tense muscles of his arms.
He turned to face her, not at all minding the dirt road he was driving on. His blue eyes, darkened with palpable rage, were made to look nearly black. “I’m your alpha. You don’t get to question my decisions. What I did, I did to protect you. You’re my responsibility and you can be damn sure that I wasn’t going to let that boy get away with forcing himself on you.”
Katherine fought to keep her cheeks from reddening in mortification. “He was hardly forcing himself on-”
“Markus told me what he saw happen in that locker room!” Bastian boomed before snorting derisively. “A cut forehead.”
Katherine pursed her lips together tightly, forcing back the angry words that threatened to spill out of them. “Are you going to answer my other questions?” she asked instead of cursing him like she wanted to. “What’s an alpha fight and why’d you agree to one with Rogue?”
Some of his anger seemed to deflate at the change of subject. He turned his eyes back to the road. “An alpha fight is exactly that – a physical fight between two wolves wherein at least one of the contenders is an alpha.”
When no further explanation was forthcoming, Katherine rolled her eyes. “Gee, thanks for that riveting description.”
The grip Bastian had on the steering wheel tightened, but despite his obvious ire, he acquiesced to her less than subtle request for a better answer to her question.
“Typically, an alpha fight occurs when the beta of a pack makes the decision to vie for the alpha position of that pack. Occasionally, however, an alpha will challenge another alpha to a fight because he has something he wants – like a member of that alpha’s pack.”
“And that’s what happened today?”
“That’s what happened today,” he confirmed.
How could he be so calm about this?
“Why did you agree?” she asked, trying to mask how upset she was at that fact. Couldn’t he have just said no to Rogue’s challenge?
“I didn’t exactly have a choice,” Bastian replied, almost as if he could read her mind. “If I didn’t agree, I feared Cain would simply order me to hand you over to him.”
Katherine blanched. “He could do that?”
Bastian shrugged, but when he met her eyes a moment later, she had her answer. Yes, he could do that.
“But what if you lose?” Katherine demanded, fighting the near hysteria building in her chest.
Bastian looked almost offended by her question. “I won’t lose,” he assured.
“But what if you do?”
“I won’t,” he repeated, adding a hard edge to his voice.
“You can’t possibly know that!”
“Do you have no confidence in me – your alpha? I assure you that I’ll win. Now this discussion is over.” His words rang with finality.
But Katherine wasn’t done. “You can’t-”
“Be quiet!”
She snapped her mouth shut. Chauvinistic pig.
Katherine stewed in her anger, but forced herself to remain silent for the rest of their journey home. Within minutes, they’d arrived at the house. Feeling petulant, she whipped off her seat belt, slammed the SUV’s door as loudly and obnoxiously as she could, and stormed up the porch steps to dish out the same treatment to the house’s double doors.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“What happened? Are you alright?”
Ignoring a bewildered Zane and Sophie, Kath
erine marched straight past them to her room. Once there, she paced for a minute or two, trying in vain to keep down the turbulent emotions she could feel rising to the surface.
“Stupid jerk,” she mumbled to herself.
She knew better than to let him get to her like this.
When the pacing didn’t help calm her down, she decided a nice, long soak in the tub was the next remedy she would try. Thankfully, it proved to be the perfect solution for stifling her stormy emotions. Slowly, but surely, the hot water forced her muscles to relax. She felt invigorated when she stepped out of the bathtub, quickly dry her hair and throwing on a clean pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt.
As she slipped the shirt on over her head, however, her stomach rumbled grumpily, reminding her that she’d yet to have breakfast. Knowing there were bound to be left-over banana muffins in the fridge from yesterday – she and Caleb were the only ones who liked them – she left her room and headed toward the kitchen.
She hadn’t quite reached her destination, though, when the sound of Bastian’s stressed voice reached her ears. A peek around the corner of the hallway wall revealed that he – along with Zane and Sophie – were sitting around the dining room table. And more importantly, blocking her entrance to the kitchen stationed behind it.
Great. Hadn’t she dealt with Bastian enough for one morning?
Katherine was debating what was more important to her, retrieving that delicious, crumbling morsel of banana heaven stowed away in the fridge or avoiding Bastian for another couple of hours when Bastian’s words – what he was actually saying, not just the vague impression of his tired voice – registered.
“-made look like a fool in front of the entire council.”
“Forget him, Bastian. Everyone knows what a parasite Rogue is.” Sophie’s voice was a bizarre cross of sympathetic and impatient. Clearly, he’d been unloading on them for a while – probably since they’d gotten back.
“Sophie’s right,” Zane agreed. “No one on the Council even respects Rogue. Don’t let his antics get to you.”
“Regardless on his esteem with the Council, I played right into his hands.”
“Bastian-”
“And you know what the most infuriating part of it all is?” he asked, ignoring his sister entirely. “He was right.”
Silence met his assertion. If the sound of her own heartbeat wasn’t hammering in her ears, Katherine would have been certain that the organ had disappeared altogether – broken and disintegrated at the meaning behind the man’s hastily spoken words.
“Come on, Bastian,” Zane interjected.
“That’s not true!” Sophie insisted.
“No,” Bastian disagreed, “Rogue was right – is right. Katherine – she’s a distraction.”
Katherine desperately fought back the tears gathering in her eyes. She was a distraction, was she?
“She takes up so much of my attention that I’ve been neglecting my other duties.”.
“What other duties?” Sophie spat.
“You know what other duties,” Bastian shot back, using the same tone he’d used with Katherine in the SUV. “She’s a weakness, Sophie – a weakness that I can’t afford. Most days I wish I’d never laid eyes on her.”
I wish I’d never laid eyes on her.
I wish I’d never laid eyes on her.
I wish I’d never laid eyes on her.
Katherine had heard enough.
Trying her hardest to smother the sob that threatened to reveal her position, Katherine pushed herself away from the wall she was hiding behind, her footsteps falling heavily on the floor as she raced past the dining room to the doors leading to the outside.
She needed to get away.
“Katherine?”
Bastian’s voice seemed disjointed to her ears. She didn’t process how shocked – dismayed – it sounded. She didn’t even bother to put on her shoes before she flew out the double doors. She ran barefoot through the lawn, heading towards the surrounding trees without thought.
“Katherine!”
His voice was more panicked now, but she didn’t acknowledge it – didn’t acknowledge him. She zigzagged around trees, running as fast as her legs could take her. She ignored the cold wind that nipped at her nose and paid no attention to the sharp rocks and thistled shrubbery that dug into the soft soles of her feet.
She just knew that she needed to be alone – to get away from Bastian. So she ran – she ran until she couldn’t run anymore, collapsing atop a large tree stump. She pulled her knees up to her face, trying to catch her breath. But it was made nearly impossible by the tears that had gathered at the base of her throat, choking her.
“Katherine, please. You need to calm down. Just breathe.”
Of course. Of course he had followed her.
“Shut up,” she managed to snap at him between hitched breaths. She refused to pull her head up and look at him. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. I don’t even like you!”
Katherine knew, even as she forced the words out, that it was the most pathetic lie she’d ever told.
“You can not like me all you want. Just please calm down. You’re scaring me here.”
Couldn’t he tell she was trying? It’s not like she wanted to have a mental break down in front of Bastian of all people. It was humiliating.
“What happened to not coming after me if I ran away?” she demanded, though the words were garbled by her tears and hiccups.
She remembered the promise he’d made vividly – though it’d been over a month since then. It had hurt her at the time – the idea that he would leave her to die if she ran away. Now, she just wished that he’d kept his promise.
Katherine tensed when she felt him tentatively place a hand on her upper back, rubbing it in slow circles between her shoulder blades as he spoke. “Just breathe.”
She was torn between ripping the hand away from her and shifting closer to him so he’d have easier access to her back. Eventually, though, when she got her breathing under control and had managed to subtly as possible swipe the tears from her cheeks, she forced herself to move away from him and his soothing fingers.
“Are you okay now?” Bastian asked hesitantly.
“What other duties am I distracting you from?” Katherine didn’t know why she picked that question from the dozens of others buzzing in her brain, but as soon as she’d asked him it, he tensed.
When his eyes met hers, though, they were the clearest blue she had ever seen them. “I didn’t mean it,” he told her, voice rough with an emotion Katherine couldn’t place. “You’re not a distraction – a weakness – or whatever you heard me say in there.”
What he’d said was that he wished he’d never laid eyes on her.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Bastian looked away from her and for a long moment, Katherine didn’t think he’d answer her. Then, just as she was about to get up and stalk away from him, he took a deep breath and turned to face her again.
“I lied to you earlier,” he announced, startling and confusing Katherine all at once, “when we first met and you asked me why we were in Middletown. I let you believe we were there on council business, but that wasn’t true.”
Katherine blinked. “Okay…” she trailed off, not understanding what that had to do with her question, but assuming that he’d explain.
“We had Cain’s permission, of course, but we were there because I – my pack – we,” he paused, as if struggling to get the words out, “well, we were tracking my parents’ killers.”
Katherine inhaled sharply. “What?”
Bastian’s eyes bore into hers. “The same hunters that went after you and your family… they murdered my mother and father.”
Katherine was vaguely aware that she was trembling – from the bitter wind or the new piece of information revealed to her, she didn’t know. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, truly meaning it.
“Don’t be sorry,” he muttered, once again looking away from her.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s I who should be apologizing. It was because of me – my vendetta – that we were even in Middletown to begin with. I bit you – changed you. Probably even led the hunters right to you and your family with my carelessness. I as good as killed your parents. Nearly got you killed too. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
The mention of her family stung, but Katherine kept the tears at bay. “It’s not your fault.”
The speed at which Bastian jerked his head around would have been funny in any other situation. His expression was beyond incredulous. “Did you not hear a word I just said?”
“I don’t care why you were in Middletown that night, and Caleb and Sophie – they told me why you bit me. They said your wolf – that he… he was attracted to my scent.” Katherine was glad that her face was already red from crying. “They said it wasn’t your fault. And I believe them. Those hunters – the ones that killed your parents – they’re the only ones responsible for what happened to my mom and dad.”
Even after all this time, she couldn’t bring herself to say it – that they were dead.
It looked like Bastian wanted to argue, but thought better of it when she jutted her chin out at him, just daring him to disagree with her. “Anyways,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck, “the other duties I was talking about, it was tracking those hunters. I’ve hardly even thought of them since you’ve joined our pack.”
“Oh,” Katherine muttered, having momentarily forgotten that he was telling her all this in answer to a question she’d asked. She bit her bottom lip.
“It’s not the only time I’ve lied,” Bastian continued, surprising Katherine.
She released her tortured lip. “Is that so?”
“Yeah,” he admitted, the corners of his mouth inching upward. “You obviously remember that I told you I wouldn’t go after you if you’d run again. Clearly, that was a lie.”
Katherine fought the urge to smile. “Clearly.”
He grinned at her reaction, but too soon his mouth leveled into a straight line. “But that’s not the worst or most hurtful lie I’ve ever told.”
“No?”
“No,” he agreed.
When he didn’t elaborate, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Well?” she asked. “Are you going to tell me or not?”