by Noelle Marie
For a moment, Bastian seemed uncomfortable and glanced away, but when his eyes met hers again, they were still the honest blue they’d been since he’d chased her out here. “One of the worst lies I’ve ever told is that I wished I’d never laid eyes on you.”
Katherine’s breath caught in her throat.
“It makes me a truly awful person because I know that my actions – biting you, taking you away from your home – have caused you so much pain. But I’m ashamed to say that despite it all, I’m glad – so very glad that you’re here with us – with me. And I’m terribly sorry that I feel that way.”
Katherine didn’t know what to say, but Bastian’s words… they made her feel warm all over. She was both elated and… uncomfortable. She cleared her throat. “Wow. What is that? Three apologies in one day. Must be a record for you.”
Bastian seemed disappointed at her flippant response to his declaration. Katherine nervously chewed the flesh on the inside of her cheek. “Well, I’ve lied to you too, if it makes you feel better,” she finally volunteered.
Bastian glanced at her curiously – hopefully, even. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” she admitted, forcing herself to keep her eyes locked on his. “That whole I don’t even like you thing? It wasn’t true.” For a moment she lost her nerve and looked down. When she peeked up again, she was glad she did. The smile on his face was glorious.
“Katherine?”
“Mm-hm?” she asked, slightly dazed.
“I like you too.”
Moments after his confession, he was hauling her from the mossy stump she’d perched herself on. She released a surprised squawk, but he just laughed and started heading in the direction she assumed was home.
“I can walk you know,” she pointed out indignantly.
Bastian grimaced. “Your feet,” he said.
Katherine glanced down – they were in rather bad shape. “Oh.”
They’d almost made it back to the house when Katherine was reminded of something she’d been meaning to ask the man. “Hey Bastian?”
“What is it?”
“Will you teach me how to fight?”
His response was not what Katherine expected – anger saturated his voice. “What? Why would you want to learn how to fight?”
Katherine frowned. “Well, I figured that the whole incident with Rip could have been avoided if I’d just known how.”
“No.” His voice was hard. Final.
Katherine was flabbergasted. She had thought for sure that he would agree to her idea. Especially if she brought up Rip. “No? But why? I need to learn. Even forgetting what happened with Rip, you never know when I might need to-”
“I said no, Katherine. It’s my duty to protect you – to protect all the members of my pack. You don’t need to learn anything.”
She tried once more. “But-”
“No.”
Knowing not to push Bastian – she certainly didn’t want to ruin their newfound truce – Katherine agreed to drop the subject.
#
Later that night, when Bastian had enclosed himself in his study, Katherine approached Markus, who was idly napping on the coach in the living room. “Markus?”
He cracked one hazel eye open, gazing at her questioningly. “Yeah?”
“Will you teach me how to fight?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Oomph.”
Katherine landed on her butt. Hard.
But that was okay. Really. The shooting pain stemming from her tail bone would complement perfectly the dull ache that encompassed her right knee and the small, but smarting finger-shaped bruises encircling both her wrists. She was fairly certain she’d managed to wrench her shoulder as well.
“You’re doing it wrong.”
If Katherine heard that one more time, she was going to rip the smug prick’s head off. And by smug prick, she meant Markus. Not for the first time, she questioned her decision of asking him to teach her how to fight.
“Maybe I wouldn’t keep doing it wrong if you’d stop throwing me to the floor every time I tried to do it right,” she grouched. Despite its fluffy appearance, the carpet in the living room was abysmal at softening the blows her body took as she was constantly tackled to the ground. “I’m hardly going to be able to flip you over my shoulder if I can’t even feel said shoulder.”
“Right. Because your opponent will be terribly apologetic if he accidentally hurts you while you’re sparring,” Markus drawled. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I knock you over? Here, let me help you up and make sure you’re okay before we continue to try to maul each other.”
Katherine gnashed her teeth together in an effort to stop from laying into the sarcastic man. After all, as much as she hated to admit it – and she truly did hate to admit it – Markus had a point. If she was in a real fight, she couldn’t expect whoever she was facing to go easy on her.
With more than a little effort, the small brunette was able to pull herself off the floor. She briefly attempted to rub the pain from her backside before squaring her feet and once again turning to face her pugnacious teacher. “Okay, let’s try again.”
Before Markus could charge her, however, an exasperated groan from the couch caught both of their attention. “You two are insane. I’m not going to sit here and watched you get thrashed yet again Katherine. I mean, come on Markus, how do you think Bastian will react when he finds out you’ve been manhandling her?”
The owner of the voice was Zane, of course. He’d been moaning all afternoon – and all the previous afternoons they’d held these little sessions – about how careless the both of them were being. He was convinced that Markus would take it too far at some point and since their pack didn’t have a designated healer, he would be the one to end up having to cart Katherine to the town’s general healer – Bastian’s friend, Gabriela Atkins –and have to explain to her and their alpha what exactly had happened to land her there.
Truth be told, Katherine could understand Zane’s concerns. She didn’t think that Bastian would take too kindly to the fact that they – she, Markus, and Zane – were going behind his back this way.
Okay, so she knew he wouldn’t.
But Katherine was certain that she needed to learn how to fight! And since Bastian had adamantly refused to teach her, she’d felt like she had no other choice but to turn to Markus for help. And to be fair, she’d told him upfront that Bastian would be none too pleased if he ever learned of what they were doing.
She’d originally only intended to involve Markus in her little scheme. However, he’d quickly persuaded her into including Zane in their lessons. Apparently, he was the first of the pack to master voluntary transformation and Markus couldn’t exactly teach her how to fight in her wolf form without her learning how to change into it first.
A fun fact Katherine had learned? Born werewolves don’t actually transform into their wolf forms until after they hit puberty. There would be no puppies running around at the upcoming moon gathering.
The moon gathering – it was the first one she was to attend and taking place the very next night. Her pack would be there with her, but Katherine couldn’t deny that she was nervous. Bastian would probably be too busy with the Rogue situation to guide her through it like he had her first transformation.
Rogue. Despite whatever Bastian believed, Katherine did have the upmost confidence in his fighting prowess. Logically, she knew he could easily beat Rogue in a battle of strength, endurance, or even intelligence. But that didn’t stop the slight nausea from rising in her gut whenever she thought of what could happen to her if by some twist of fate, he did lose to Rogue. For Bastian’s sake, though, she’d been doing her best to hide her increasing anxiety as the day – or rather, night – of the fight loomed nearer. She and Bastian had actually been getting along ever since their rather intense talk in the forest and she didn’t want to destroy the tentative peace they’d established.
In fact, earlier that week he’d even taken her to the waterfall that
Haven Falls was named after. She didn’t know how it looked like in the spring or summer time, but in the winter, it was a breathtaking sight – absolutely worth the hike through the snow that they’d had to take to get there.
“How much longer?”
Katherine couldn’t believe that she’d actually been excited when it had started to snow two weeks earlier. The fat flakes had been so white and pretty falling from the sky. She’d watched from the house’s windows as they began to build up on the ground and didn’t stop building until at least a foot of the stuff covered the once green grass. It wasn’t until she’d had to walk through the heavy snow the day after that her disdain for it had begun to grow.
And after a nearly mile long hike where she’d had to bring her boot-clad feet up to nearly her knees to get over the drifts? Well, that distain was quickly growing into contempt.
“We’re nearly there – just a few more minutes. Are you sure you don’t want me to carry you the rest of the way?”
It would be easy for Katherine to be offended by Bastian’s question if he didn’t sound so genuinely concerned for her. As it was, she was huffing and puffing to keep up with the tall man whose powerful legs easily maneuvered through the wet sludge and snow.
“I’m fine,” she managed to force out between breaths.
Bastian looked doubtful, but trudged forward. Katherine trailed behind him. And then, just as he had promised, they were there. Surrounded by pine trees with branches that were heavy with snow, was the most magnificent waterfall she had ever seen. Huge icicles hung from the contours of a cliff – like the rushing water had literally frozen as it had cascaded down the dark hunk of rock.
Katherine was speechless.
“Pretty, isn’t it?”
The sound of Bastian’s voice quickly snapped her out of her daze. She turned to face her companion – and he looked just a little too pleased with himself.
“It’s gorgeous,” Katherine agreed honestly.
Bastian grinned, his upturned lips bringing out the dimple on his right cheek. “I knew you’d like it,” he muttered, seemingly to himself, before gesturing widely toward the west, beyond the trees surrounding the waterfall. “The moon gathering always takes place a few miles from here. Before the full moon rises this Wednesday, that’s where we’ll need to be.”
As soon as he mentioned the moon gathering, his smile drooped, disappearing entirely until nothing of it remained but the hard, somber line of lips that Katherine was too used to seeing on Bastian’s face.
Wanting to bring that smile back, Katherine acted impulsively. She bent down low and gathered a wad of snow between her hands. She hastily packed it into a ball before letting loose and chucking it right at the distracted man’s head.
Her aim was true and the ball of wet snow smacked into Bastian’s cheek with a splat. The look of shock on his face was so hilarious to Katherine that she couldn’t stop an undignified bark of laughter from escaping.
And then she got her wish. Bastian smiled the biggest smile she’d ever seen – from him at least. His eyes sparkled and the white of his teeth gleamed in the sun shining overhead.
Katherine’s only coherent thought was that the beauty of the frozen waterfall had nothing on his smile.
“Oh, so that’s how you want to play it, huh?” he asked, wiping the remains of the snowball from his face. “You know what this means, right?” He paused. “War.”
Katherine knew he was going to lunge at her only a moment before he actually did. She tried to dodge him, but was too late and could only shriek in surprise as he wrapped his arms around her waist and tackled her to the ground. She retaliated the only way she could, grabbing a fistful of snow and smashing it into Bastian’s face. In no time, however, he had her arms pinned and was demanding that she apologize for her dastardly deed. “Come on, say you’re sorry.”
Eventually, between peals of laughter, she did. “Okay, okay! I’m sorry… I’m sorry I didn’t think of doing that sooner.”
Bastian’s grin sharpened into something positively diabolical. “Hm, not exactly the apology I was looking for,” he said, using his free hand to gather a large snowball and hold it threateningly over Katherine’s form. “Don’t make me do it,” he warned.
“I’m sorry,” Katherine squealed. “I’m sorry!”
“I’m not sure if I believe you” he teased, bringing the snowball back behind his head as if to throw it down.
Katherine had resigned herself to a face full of snow when at the last second he changed his trajectory, hurling the sludge at a nearby tree. Chuckling at her slack-jawed expression, Bastian released her arms.
Unfortunately, it was at this time – as they were smiling at each other, both of their faces tinged red from the cold – that Bastian seemed to realize the rather compromising position they were in and quickly pulled himself off of her. He helped her up, but refused to meet her eyes as she patted the snow from her coat and pants. He jerked his head in the direction they’d come from. “We should head back to the house.”
Katherine sighed, knowing that Bastian was planning on forgetting that their brief snowball fight had ever happened. “Okay.”
“Oomph.”
Katherine was literally knocked out of her thoughts as she was thrown to the floor. Again.
“I wasn’t ready!” she cried, winching as a sharp spark of pain, originating from her tail bone, once again shot up her lower back.
Markus didn’t seem at all apologetic. “Oh yeah? And what’s the first rule of fighting that I taught you?”
Katherine rolled her eyes, but begrudgingly answered. “Always be aware of your surroundings.”
“Exactly,” he agreed condescendingly. “You should constantly be prepared for an attac – Ow!”
Zane guffawed and Katherine couldn’t have stopped the haughty smirk from emerging if she’d tried. “You were saying?” she asked.
The glare she received in return to her question was enough to make her immediately regret the hasty decision she’d made to test Markus on his own rule. She supposed she shouldn’t have kicked the man in the knee cap as hard she could from her place on the floor. But he’d been the one preaching about vigilance!
“You’re lucky I don’t throttle you,” he muttered, yanking his pant leg up to examine his knee. It looked fine to Katherine.
“It’s not my fault that you weren’t prepared for an attack,” she pointed out, finishing his earlier sentence. “If I have to follow your rules, shouldn’t you be following them too?”
He must have come to the same conclusion as Katherine – that his knee, while obviously hurting a bit, wasn’t seriously wounded – because he allowed his pant leg to fall back down. “I suppose I should just be thankful you actually remembered one of the body’s five weak spots.”
“Eyes, nose, throat, groin, and knees,” Katherine obediently reiterated what Markus had told her many times by then. He’d made it clear their very first lesson that her small size would be a disadvantage in any fight she partook in and thus, she was to immediately go for her opponent’s weak spots – areas where he or she would be most susceptible to injury.
Markus had shown her how to straighten her thumbs to jab them into an attacker’s eye sockets as well as the proper way to butt her head to smash into the nose of anyone who might grab her from behind. Katherine had drawn the line at practicing groin grabs, however. Neither Markus nor Zane had protested.
One armed shoulder throws, however, was something they’d both insisted she learn. Markus had been trying to teach her the move for the better part of the afternoon, but every time she’d try to execute it on him she ended up on the floor.
Like now, for instance. Though, this time, she truly just hadn’t been paying attention.
“How is it that you can remember all that, but this move – this simple move – is too much for you?”
“It’s not simple,” Katherine disagreed, forcing her battered body to stand. “And even if it was, I just can’t do it. Yo
u’re too heavy and my arms aren’t strong enough to lift you.”
“It’s exactly because strength isn’t your strong suit,” Zane interjected, grinning a little at his pun, “that you need to learn this. The move uses your opponent’s strength – their momentum, if you will – against them.”
“…Oh.” It was the first time either man had explained it that way.
“Get in the position Markus showed you,” Zane ordered, leaving his perch on the couch to maneuver Katherine’s limbs how he wanted them. “Spread your legs further apart. Okay. And keep your hips centered under your torso. Make sure your head stays straight. Your body will always follow your head.”
Once satisfied that Katherine had taken the correct stance, Zane gave Markus the okay to move backward a few feet and get ready to charge.
“Alright,” Zane spoke softly in her ear, “instead of stepping forward when he comes at you, step backward. Use his power to throw him over your shoulder, not your own.”
Katherine nodded that she understood and Zane shifted out of the way. As soon as he moved, Markus rushed at her.
Ignoring the instinct to brace herself for impact, Katherine kept her body loose and just as Zane instructed, stepped backward when Markus got close enough. She grabbed just above the elbow of his right arm with her left hand and twisted underneath him so that his front was flush against her back. Then, reaching around with her other hand, she seized the collar of his shirt and with one mighty heave, flipped Markus right over her shoulder. He landed flat on his back in front of her.
For a moment, Katherine could only stare at the fallen man, shocked that she’d managed to pull it off. As soon as Zane broke out in applause, however, she could no longer contain her grin.
Markus scowled at her from his place on the floor, but she could clearly see the pride in his eyes. “Not bad, princess,” he complimented her. “Not bad at all.”
#
The next day came and passed too quickly.
Before Katherine knew it, the sun was setting and she – along with the rest of her pack – had been forced to set foot for the moon gathering. It was a long walk from Bastian’s house – though trek may have been a better word for it. There had to have been close to two feet of snow on the ground!