“I have to use the bathroom!” Katherine whisper-yelled into Sophie’s ear.
“Want me to come with you?” Sophie asked above the loud bass of the band. They’d finished their break and were beginning to play another song.
She waved the blonde off and grabbed her bag. “I’ll be fine.”
She’d scoped out the bathrooms as she and her friends had made their way to their seats earlier and hurried in the direction she remembered them being in. Quickly striding past the stand where a heavily tattooed man was serving alcohol, she ducked inside the door with a faded picture of a stick woman on it. Ignoring the distinct smell of mildew that soaked the air in the small space and the suspicious looking grim that clung to the walls, Katherine was pleased to note that only one stall was occupied and rushed into one of the many that remained available. She swiftly went about her business.
She’d finished and was washing her hands in the lukewarm water spurting from one of the sinks when the single occupied stall opened. Katherine tensed and nearly groaned aloud when she recognized the girl who exited it.
Priscilla Wright.
What were the odds?
“What are you doing here?” Katherine demanded before she could think better of it.
Priscilla, whose mouth had pursed in displeasure upon recognizing Katherine, crossed her arms defensively over her chest. “What? You think you’re the only one allowed to go out and do things? I heard that loudmouthed redheaded girl who follows you and Agnes around talking about how you were going to a concert to celebrate your impending claiming. Maybe I thought that I’d like to go out with my friends too. The world doesn’t revolve around you, Katie.”
Katherine was well aware that the world didn’t revolve around her, and was objective enough to admit that to Priscilla, it may seem as if she did think just that. But the blonde had demolished any urge Katherine may have felt to apologize about questioning her motives when she purposefully got her name wrong for what had to have been the hundredth time since she’d met the girl.
So instead of apologizing, Katherine rolled her eyes as obnoxiously as possible. “Whatever Paisley.”
Priscilla grit her teeth in obvious annoyance. “You’re not the only special one you know! I’ve found my mate too – someone who will take care of me and provide for me! Rip-”
Katherine bristled at the name. “You can’t be serious,” she deadpanned, not caring how rude she was being to the other girl. No one – not even Priscilla – deserved to be stuck with that asshole for the rest of her life.
The blonde stiffened at Katherine’s comment. “Of course, I’m serious. In fact, it’s already happened. Rip claimed me and made it official a few days after the Recruiting Rites. Shortly after your brute of an alpha threatened his life for some perceived offense he made against you.” He’d frickin’ licked her during the Rites! Priscilla had seen it with her own two eyes for God’s sake. “He may not be as important to the community as your Bastian,” the girl continued, “but he’s still an impressive catch. He’s strong, smart, charismatic-”
“He’s an asshole!”
Priscilla’s already pale face blanched in what had to have been a cross of embarrassment and anger. “Do you think I’m naïve?” she hissed. “I very well know that Rip is chauvinistic to his core and has a penchant for sleeping with whatever breathes. What red blooded male doesn’t? You think that your Bastian is so perfect? You just wait and see. You’re the naïve one. When you catch him pounding into some girl in the woods behind your house or maybe even in your own bed – and believe me you will – then maybe you’ll see that I’m right.”
Once upon a time, Priscilla’s spiteful words would have sent Katherine into a tailspin. Insecurity would have swelled within her and she may have even fought the urge to cry. But she wasn’t that girl anymore, and all Priscilla’s words had done was make her feel sorry for her. She recognized, too, that the blonde was trying to warn her in her own erroneous way.
“I’m sorry.”
Priscilla’s hard blue eyes softened momentarily at Katherine’s quiet apology. “Yeah, well, just don’t be surprised when Bastian disappoints you is all I’m saying. Men aren’t capable of loyalty or love like their female counterparts are, but they’re still useful in their own way.”
Rip had clearly tarnished Priscilla’s view of men as a whole, but Katherine knew for a fact that they were capable of love – that Bastian specifically was capable of it. He loved her. He’d told her so over and over again. And she loved him too.
Suddenly, spending the rest of her night listening to Tattered Dignity, as good as they were, seemed silly when she could be spending it with Bastian.
“Anyway, I better get back to my friends. See you around, Katherine.”
So Priscilla did know her name after all.
“You too, Priscilla,” Katherine replied distractedly. She wondered if her friends would be willing to cut the night short and head home early.
After watching Priscilla saunter out of the room, she dried her hands with a couple of stiff, brown paper towels she’d grabbed from a metal dispenser attached to the wall. She was so distracted by thoughts of Bastian that her ears almost didn’t register the sound of the bathroom door opening and slamming shut in quick succession.
But they definitely did pick up the quiet click of a lock slipping into place. And then an appallingly familiar voice.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Katherine recognized the owner of the arrogant drawl before he stepped into her vision, and her eyebrows crinkled together in consternation.
What was Rogue doing here?
She glared warily as he took one, two, three steps closer to her. “I could hardly believe my ears when I’d heard that Bastian had let his little pet out to play and thought I’d see for myself if it was true. And what do you know? The proof’s right here before my eyes.”
Katherine grit her teeth at the man’s derogatory words, forcing herself to ignore the fact that he’d just called her a “pet”. Rogue was clearly made of the same caliber stuff as Rip.
“This is the ladies’ bathroom,” she pointed out testily instead. “Are you as bad at reading as you are everything else? Or is it that you’ve got something to tell me?”
Something resembling rage flashed in his dark eyes, and Katherine forced herself to stand her ground as Rogue took another step towards her. “Watch your mouth,” he snarled at her. He was so close that his spittle landed on her face.
And just like that, she’d had enough of his gaudy show of presumed dominance. “I don’t take orders from you,” she snapped at him. Or anyone for that matter. “Now get out of my way.”
She grabbed her bag and attempted to walk past him, but Rogue immediately blocked her exit with his much larger body. When she tried to side step him, he merely moved into her way again. “Try and make me,” he taunted her.
Ignoring the feeling of foreboding looming in the bottom of her belly, Katherine shoved him.
She was taken completely off guard when he retaliated by pushing her back so hard that her body was sent flying into the wall behind her, and her head ricocheted off solid concrete. Rogue took advantage of the moment it took for her to regain her bearings by pinning her to the wall with his body and covering her mouth with one of his hands.
Not wanting his disgusting appendage anywhere near her, Katherine bite down hard on the rough skin of his palm, spitting out crimson as Rogue cursed and immediately snatched it back. The coppery taste of his blood in her mouth was downright nauseating, but it was a price she was willing to pay to keep his dirty hands off of her.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t overtly fazed by the act of violence. “Feisty,” he leered, his face still much too close to hers, “I like it.”
“Get off me,” she demanded, hating the hint of panic she could easily detect in her voice.
Rogue identified the root of her fear immediately. “Don’t worry, Katherin
e.” She cringed at the sound of her name coming out of his smarmy mouth. “I admit that it’s crossed my mind to try to steal you away from Bastian more than once. I’ve fantasized about my mouth on you here,” she shuddered in revulsion as he swiped his thumb roughly over her plump bottom lip, “and here,” he added provocatively, leaning in so close that she could feel his warm breath against her neck, his mouth a fraction of an inch away from the tender skin of the slender column.
Then the man shocked her by briefly pulling her away from the wall only so he could brutally slam her into it once more. Katherine saw stars as her head smacked into unforgiving concrete yet again. “But that was before I realized that perhaps I detested you even more than I loathed him,” Rogue sneered.
Katherine wanted nothing more than to assure the man that he wasn’t her favorite person in the world either, but that was made impossible when hands that used to be on her shoulders were suddenly wrapped around her neck, squeezing threateningly.
She grabbed the man’s wrists with her own hands, frantically trying to pry them off of her. She grew increasingly panicked as his fingers pushed harder and harder into her neck, the pads of them digging viciously into her skin.
Katherine couldn’t breathe.
Rogue continued talking to her like he wasn’t in the middle of crushing her throat. “Your death will destroy him even more than if I had claimed you as mine. You know, Cain had this theory that you two were destined mates. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and kill two birds – or wolves rather – with one stone.” He laughed uproariously at his own joke.
The noise sounded distorted to Katherine’s ears and her vision was beginning to darken around the edges. The man’s mention of Bastian, however, had her desperately clinging to consciousness. Rogue may not have known it, but Cain was right about them being destined mates, and Katherine would never forgive herself if she’d inadvertently cause Bastian’s death by dying herself. Because she knew without a single doubt that her death – especially a violent one at the hands of Rogue – would kill him.
Katherine was struggling to fight back against the black rapidly encroaching upon her vision when quite suddenly, she was thrown to the floor.
She stayed down, merely pushing herself up onto her hands and knees as she sucked in precious oxygen and tried to wrap her mind around the fact that she’d almost been choked into unconsciousness. Her harsh gasping was excruciatingly painful as air rushed past the tender insides of her esophagus.
She was painstakingly aware of Rogue watching her with assessing eyes. “But then again,” he murmured, “maybe you’re not such a lost cause. Perhaps you just need stronger hands than Bastian’s to mold you into the proper submissive bitch.”
Katherine was sickened by the implications behind his words. But she’d make damn sure the man never had a chance to touch her. Rogue had made a mistake by tossing her to the floor. She’d landed right by the bag she’d dropped when he’d pushed her into the wall the first time. Inside was the sparring knife that Markus had gifted her for her birthday – the knife that she was suddenly grateful Bastian had insisted she bring with her to Fort Saskatchewan.
When Rogue took an aggressive stop towards her, she wasted no time in plunging her hand into the bag, pulling the blade out, and quickly unsheathing it.
Keeping the weapon pointed in Rogue’s direction, Katherine slowly got to her feet.
She could tell by the way that he abruptly halted his movement that he was taken off guard by the ballsy move. When she met his eyes, though, they were bright in what she was almost sure was amusement.
He actually smiled at her, his teeth gleaming in the dim lighting of the dank bathroom. “And just what are you going to do with that, girl?”
His complete dismissal of her as a potential threat, even armed, stung. But if Rogue thought for even a moment that she was going to cower in a corner as put his filthy hands on her, he was dead wrong. She brought the blade forward with a whoosh. The motion took Rogue by surprise and he was slow to react, barely able to bring his arm up in time to stop the knife from plunging into chest. Instead, it sliced through the flesh of his lower arm like butter.
It wasn’t a fatal wound, but certainly a bloody one as the red substance that gave his body life poured forth from the deep gash.
She didn’t know which of the two were more shocked as they stared wide-eyed at the wound.
She’d just stabbed him.
But then Rogue was coming at her, so Katherine stopped thinking and swung blindly at him again. This time, though, he was ready for her and easily grabbed the wrist of the hand that wielded the knife. He brutally twisted the limb, and the knife clattered uselessly to the ground. She whimpered as he kept twisting her wrist. He had to have been a second away from snapping it completely when he harshly tugged her forward by the appendage.
Rage had turned his eyes into black, soulless orbs. “Have it your way, then. I’ll ravage you and kill you. Then I’ll dump your wrecked body at Bastian’s feet and watch him fall apart.” Contempt dripped from his voice.
But the man’s powerful wrath had distracted him, and Katherine took immediate advantage of that fact by using her free hand to dig her fingers into the seeping wound on his arm. “Screw you, asshole!”
Rogue immediate released her, clutching his arm as he howled in pain. Leaving her bag and knife behind, Katherine bolted, pushing free the flimsy lock on the door before rushing out of the bathroom.
Her red dress masked the blood that had splattered onto her well enough, but it didn’t occur to Katherine that her right arm was covered up to nearly the elbow in the red substance until the stranger she bumped into as she flung herself from the bathroom scrunched his brow in concern. “Are you okay?”
Not even close.
Not stopping to answer, Katherine ran, weaving her way through the crowd, ignoring the odd looks she was thrown as she hurried towards where she’d left her friends what had to have been close to thirty minutes ago.
Agnes was the first to spot her. “Katherine, we were starting to get worried-” she gasped, her eyes widening as they took in her bloody arm. “Oh my God!”
“We need to go. Now.” Katherine startled at the sound of her voice. Her usually soft tenor had been diminished to a weak, croaky rasp.
“What happened? Where are you bleeding from?” That was Sophie.
“Did you get your period early?” …And that was Penelope. What the frickin’ hell?
The girl must have realized how daft the question was as she immediately ducked her head in embarrassment.
Katherine chose to overlook the idiotic comment entirely. “The blood isn’t mine. I’ll explain on the way home, but come one. We have to hurry.” The words felt like knives against the tender walls of her damaged throat as she forced them out of her mouth.
Penelope seemed a bit put out as she’d apparently finally succeeded in garnering the attention of one of the college boys sitting behind them. All three of said boys were looking at Katherine with varying degrees of alarm, but she ignored them completely in favor of snatching Sophie’s hand and hurrying her trio of companions along.
They scurried through the throng of Tattered Dignity fans and made it to the parking lot in record time, quickly loading into the gigantic SUV that had brought them there. Sophie gave the keys of the vehicle over to a pouty Penelope so that she could sit next to Katherine on the long drive home.
Once they were on the road, the blonde patiently coaxed the story out of Katherine, grabbing the brunette’s hands and interlacing their fingers in an attempt to comfort her when they started to shake.
So much had happened in only half an hour. She and Priscilla had come to a sort of understanding. Rogue had choked her. She’d stabbed him. He’d threatened to rape and kill her.
He almost had.
The thought that she’d not only nearly died, but would have undoubtedly taken Bastian down with her, was too much for her psyche to handle at the moment, so she stubbornly pushed th
ose facts to the back of her mind.
An almost serene – and entirely fictitious – calm washed over her as she relayed to Sophie and her friends what had happened, using as little words as possible to save her throat the agony of speaking. She told them everything – from the surprise she’d felt at seeing Priscilla at the concert, to the fear that had nearly overwhelmed her as Rogue had wrapped his hands around her throat.
Penelope and Agnes were shocked. Sophie, who knew just how vindictive the man could be, was even taken off guard. Not because she didn’t think that Rogue was capable of such violence, but because he’d been stupid enough to anger Bastian in such a way.
“He’s going to be so furious,” she murmured softly. “I’m so sorry, Katherine, I should have never let you go off alone.”
Not wanting to continue damaging her throat by talking, Katherine merely shook her head. It wasn’t Sophie’s fault any more than it was her own that Rogue had attacked her.
The blonde released one of Katherine’s hands so that she could examine her neck. Sophie’s cerulean eyes swirled in anger as they took in the undoubtedly nasty bruising. “Don’t worry,” she assured in a voice brimming with emotion, “Bastian will take care of him. He’ll make sure that that dog will never hurt you again.”
The only thing that was stopping Katherine’s heart from pounding with anxious fear was the irrevocable knowledge that what Sophie had said was true.
Bastian would take care of Rogue.
And he’d take care of her too. For once, that was all Katherine wanted – to be taken care of.
They made it back to Haven Falls in record time. Penelope dropped off Agnes and then herself, both of the girls giving Katherine a tight hug before taking their leave.
Sophie hopped behind the wheel to finish driving them home.
“I-,” Kathrine winced, each word she forced out causing more pain than the last, “I should clean up before he sees me.”
Shy (Once Bitten, Twice Shy, #2) Page 22