Shy (Once Bitten, Twice Shy, #2)

by Marie, Noelle

  Katherine couldn’t bring herself to lie. “I could never promise that. Besides, I think I prefer playing the knight in shining armor over the damsel in distress.”

  Markus snorted. “Whatever, princess. If you’re not even going to agree to that, the least you can do is eat your damn beef stew. There’s still a chance Bastian might kill me, after all. Consider it the last request of a dying man.”

  “He would never blame you, Markus,” she immediately denied. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  The hunter had been after her.

  Nonetheless, she eyed the steaming bowl of beef stew she’d set on the night stand. It did smell delicious. And he had said please. That was as rare as a raindrop in the Sahara when it came to Markus. “Fine,” Katherine muttered, “But don’t think I don’t know what you just did there.”

  Markus didn’t deny the rather obvious manipulation and merely grinned as she dutifully scooped a spoonful of stew into her mouth. “Happy?” she asked around a mouthful of tender meat and potato.

  “I will be if you finish that. I want to rub the empty bowl in the others’ faces. They tried to bar me from seeing you. Something about how my special brand of honesty would somehow damage your already “fragile psyche”. But I told them you just needed a little tough love.”

  Katherine rolled her eyes, the words “pompous jerk” coming to mind, but she didn’t say them aloud and couldn’t deny being secretly relieved that the man hadn’t been avoiding her like she thought he might have been – that he apparently didn’t blame her from his injured arm.

  Katherine had the portion of stew Markus had given her tucked away in less than five minutes, a little embarrassed of how fast she’d scarfed it down as she stared at her suddenly empty bowl. It’d been as scrumptious as it had smelled, and she glowered at the barren dish, wishing that it would somehow magically refill itself.

  Markus had the nerve to laugh at her. “You want seconds?” he offered in a rare show of gallantry.

  But Katherine didn’t get a chance to reply.

  Because it was at that exact moment that she was almost certain she saw the tiniest bit of movement out of the corner of her eye. Her gaze swiveled to Bastian.

  She could have sworn she’d just seen his hand twitch.

  And there it went again.

  The chair she’d been sitting on toppled over when she shot out of her seat and grasped desperately at the hand she was sure now she’d seen move, squeezing it in a death grip with her fingers.

  “Bastian?” she called hesitantly, badly wanting to hope that he’d respond, but afraid to let herself at the same time.

  She thought her heart might burst from happiness when his hand once again moved, this time in response to her voice – spasming in her unyielding grip before wrapping itself around her hand and returning her violent squeeze.

  Then his brow furrowed and he groaned.

  “Bastian!” she exclaimed eagerly.

  Her excited eyes met Markus’s.

  “I’ll tell the others,” he affirmed, without her even having to open her mouth, immediately making his way towards the door.

  “Wait!”

  He jerked to stop, looking over his shoulder in consternation. “What?”

  Katherine bit her lip. “Can… Can you give me a minute alone with him first? Before you tell them?” She felt unbelievably selfish for asking – she knew the others were waiting as anxiously as she was for the man to wake up, especially his sister – but she needed to have him to herself before they all barged in the room. Just for a few minutes.

  Thankfully, Markus seemed to understand. “Sure,” agreed easily enough before offering her his patented smirk. “But no funny business, princess, the man was just shot a few days ago.”

  Katherine sputtered in disbelief, heat exploding across her cheeks at the insinuation, but Markus didn’t even stick around to tease her about it, swiftly leaving the room. And as soon as he closed the door behind him, her entire attention was absorbed by the man slowly waking on the bed, and she had no room to feel embarrassed.

  Bastian’s eyes fluttered open, and like he could sense exactly where she was, the intense blue of them immediately met worried green.

  “Katherine,” he spoke softly, his voice cracking half way through from lack of use. Her name was said with such relief and devotion that tears immediately sprang into her eyes.

  She badly wanted to throw herself at the man, but was mindful of the gruesome wound hidden under the bandages wrapped around his chest and so did nothing more than squeeze the hand in hers even tighter.

  Bastian, apparently, wasn’t nearly as concerned with his injury. Lunging forward, he grabbed Katherine around the waist, and before she could protest, pulled her into bed with him, curling his body around hers and digging his face into the crook of her neck. He pressed his nose into the sensitive skin of her claiming mark, inhaling her scent like it was a drug before pulling away just enough to be able to look into her eyes. “Thank God you’re okay.”

  Katherine’s eyes widened in disbelief. “I’m okay?” she demanded, the slightest hint of anger, irrational though she knew it to be, leaking into her voice. “You… you stupid man! You’re the one who was shot! You’re the one who’s been unconscious for days! Don’t you ever do that to me again!”

  Then she shocked the both of them by crashing her mouth onto his. Grasping him by either side of his face with greedy hands, she kissed him for all she was worth. She moved her lips against his and reacquainted herself with the warm cavern of his mouth, having spent the past three days terrified that’d she’d never be given the opportunity to do exactly that ever again.

  Then, just as quickly as she’d begun the kiss, she ended it. Jerking away, she ripped her lips from his. Her chest heaved as she struggled to suck in oxygen.

  Bastian looked as dazed as she felt.

  “If it means getting kissed by you like that, I’d gladly take a bullet to the chest any day of the week.”

  Katherine knew it was a joke – a throw away comment not meant to be taken seriously – but tears welled in her eyes anyway. “Don’t say that,” she scolded sharply before her bottom lip began to tremble. “I – I thought I’d lost you.”

  And then completely against her will, she burst into tears. Burying her face into the uninjured side of his chest, she bawled inconsolably.

  “Hey,” Bastian protested gently, voice raised slightly in alarm. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Katherine.” One hand began rubbing her back while the other stroked her hair.

  Katherine struggled to catch her breath, gulping in air as she tried to get a handle on her wayward emotions.

  “Shh, beautiful. It’s okay. I’m okay. Just breathe.”

  After a few moments, Katherine was able to calm herself by mirroring Bastian’s breathing pattern as he inhaled and exhaled beside her. “I’m sorry,” she muttered pathetically.

  “Don’t be sorry,” he objected, one hand tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as the other remained on her back, continuing to rub it in a soothing motion.

  “But I am. I’m so sorry. If… if it wasn’t for me then none of this would have happened!” It felt liberating to say the truth aloud. “He was after me,” she continued, forcing herself to choke out the words. “The hunter, he was after me.”

  She could feel the weight of his stare on her, but at that moment, a lump of guilt the size of Mount Everest had taken up residence at the bottom of her belly and Katherine couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

  “You can’t possibly believe that,” Bastian objected. “That man was a hunter. While it was clearly his aim to kill you first – some sick bid of revenge for getting the best of him all those months ago – eventually he’d have tried to off all of us.”

  “Maybe,” Katherine conceded, “but…” she took a deep breath, gathering her courage, “he only knew where to find us because I’d practically given him the directions,” she blurt it out so quickly that the words nearly ran together.
“In Middletown, when all those news stations were covering my so-called miraculous reappearance, I told them that I’d been staying in Fort Saskatchewan. He saw the broadcast and went there looking for me. At some point, I guess he met up with Rogue,” she heard Bastian inhale sharply at that tidbit of information, “and he told him exactly where to find me – where to find all of us.”

  “What?” Bastian exclaimed furiously, but she ignored him.

  “So, you see? He never would been in Fort Saskatchewan, never would have met up with Rogue, and never would have found us if it wasn’t for me. This is all my fault. I… I’m so stupid!”

  For a long moment, the only sound that could be heard was Katherine’s heavy breathing as she waited for Bastian’s response.

  “Katherine,” he said softly, grasping her chin so that she was forced to look into his eyes. She braced herself to see disappointment shining out of them, but to her surprise, all she saw was gentle understanding. “This was not your fault. You did nothing to invite that hunter to come after you. And you certainly didn’t give him directions to our house. That, apparently, was Rogue.” His jaw twitched. “I swear to God, I’m going to track that fool down and-”

  “Don’t bother,” Katherine interrupted softly. “He – he’s already dead. After the hunter picked him clean of information, he killed him.”

  Bastian stiffened as he absorbed yet another truth bomb she’d dropped on him. “Good riddance,” he muttered after a moment. “I only wish I had had the pleasure of doing it myself.”

  Katherine swallowed, forcing herself to return to the subject at hand. “So… so you don’t blame me then? For getting you shot? For… for you almost dying?”

  His blue eyes softened immeasurably. “Katherine, you haven’t done anything to warrant any blame. And I didn’t die. I’m right here.” He frowned with something resembling consternation. “Thankful as I am for it, I must admit to being curious as to how it’s possible. The bullet I was hit with was a silver one.”

  Katherine winced. “Well, I pulled it out of your chest,” she answered honestly, describing the way she’d dug her fingers into his torn, bloody flesh in the least graphic way she could think of.

  Bastian stared incredulously. “You… you pulled it out of my chest?”

  Biting her lip, Katherine nodded.

  “But you were tied to a tree!” Bastian’s eyes sparked with anger as his words forced the memory of it to the forefront of his mind. “How could you have-?”

  Katherine held her bandaged wrists in front of herself as proof. They’d previously been covered by the sleeves of her shirt, but now the stark whiteness of them was plain to see. She was just glad he couldn’t see the gauged skin underneath. “I freed myself,” she assured.

  “He did this to you?” he demanded harshly, but his touch was undeniably gentle as he examined her bandaged wrists.

  “Well, technically I did it to myself.”

  Bastian didn’t look impressed.

  “What? I couldn’t just let you die right there in front of me!”

  But the wrath that had his blue eyes flashing black wasn’t directed at her. It was directed at the hunter who’d cuffed her to the tree in the first place.

  “That damnable bastard, I’m going to-”

  “He’s already dead,” Katherine reminded him quietly.

  His jaw twitched. “He’s lucky that my wolf was so eager to get his teeth and claws into him that he inadvertently granted him a quick death. It was more than he deserved. I don’t know what I would have done to him if I’d found you in any worse condition than you were already in.”

  “How did you even find me?” Katherine asked hesitantly, morbidly curious if the scent trail she’d been forced to leave behind had worked.

  Bastian frowned at the question. “When you didn’t arrive at the claiming ceremony after Sophie, Zane, and Caleb had left to fetch you, I thought perhaps that you’d gotten cold feet – that maybe you’d even run off.” Despite the fact that shame filled his voice at the confession, Katherine couldn’t help but feel hurt by it. Not that she could really blame the man for thinking she had ditched him. She’d be the first to admit that she had a penchant for running off when she got stressed. “I left to retrieve you myself, but when I got to the house, everyone was in a panic and Markus… Markus was bleeding out, clinging to consciousness on the living room floor. He told me what had happened.” Bastian paused. “I don’t remember doing much thinking after that. I transformed and took off running before anyone could even think of trying to stop me – not that anyone would dare. Katherine, I… I feel awful for thinking you’d run away.”

  “It’s okay,” she assured softly. It wasn’t, not really, but she understood.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “from there it was just a matter of tracking your scent to the clearing he was keeping you at. It killed me to see the way he had you chained to that tree. And you were hardly wearing anything.” Katherine could have sworn his hand was trembling as it gently caressed her cheek. “Katherine… he didn’t… did he?”

  “He didn’t…?” she repeated, confused.

  Oh… Oh!

  “No!” Katherine nearly shouted when she realized what he was asking. “No,” she assured again. “In fact, I believe he said he’d never lower himself to lusting after a dirty animal like me.”

  Bastian’s grip around her tightened as a muted growl escaped his throat, the vibrations of which caused the chest she was pressed flush up against to shake. “As relieved as I am that he wasn’t foolish enough to touch you,” he bit out, “you are not a dirty animal. He is – was – nothing but a soulless tripe. You, on the other hand, are in possession of the most beautiful soul I’ve ever seen.”

  The compliment warmed her from the inside out, and she pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek in gratitude. Then she pressed a not so chaste kiss directly to his mouth. Moving her lips sensually over his, she tried to impart the depth of her feelings for him into the kiss.

  She loved him so much.

  Bang.

  Katherine nearly jumped out of her skin when they were rudely interrupted by the bedroom door being slammed opened. Jerking away from Bastian, Katherine rapidly tried to calm her palpitating heart as her pack mates rushed into the room, Markus leading the way. He had the nerve to raise an eyebrow at the intimate position he’d caught them in. “So much for not getting up to any funny business, though I suppose it wasn’t that part of Bastian that was shot.”

  Katherine buried her face into her hands in mortification, and Bastian shot her a bewildered look, somehow missing the terribly tacky innuendo.

  But as everyone crowded around the bed to verify with their own eyes that Bastian was, indeed, awake and in good spirits, Katherine’s embarrassment was quickly forgotten. After all, Bastian was going to be okay, and she was surrounded by people she loved and who loved her in turn. She didn’t have room in her heart to feel anything but joy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Lub dub, lub dub.

  The only thing louder than the steady beating of drums filling her ears was the sound of her heart palpitating violently in her chest.

  Katherine swore she could feel it straining against her ribs, fighting to burst free as it pulsated within her.

  Lub dub, lub dub.

  Smoothing down the flawless animal furs she was swathed in, Katherine tried to distract herself from the feeling as her legs carried her closer and closer to the sound of the drums. To the clearing where Bastian – and the entire town, her restless mind supplied – was waiting for her to arrive.

  Bastian had recovered faster from the gunshot wound than she’d thought possible, and already it was the night of the claiming ceremony, rescheduled a mere week and a half from when it’d originally been planned.

  To tonight.

  Only a few minutes from now, in fact, and she’d be standing before Bastian.

  The realization caused both anxious trepidation and heady excitement to simultaneously swell within her, a
volatile mix that made her head swim.

  And her heart race, apparently.

  A few hundred lub dubs later, the clearing was in sight, and although the hood of furs that was pulled over her head prevented anyone from seeing her face, Katherine could still feel hundreds of eyes swivel towards her as she and her pack mates emerged from the woods. She concentrated on keeping her own eyes connected firmly with the ground, intently focused on not tripping over the hard, uneven landscape.

  She already had to dance in front of everyone. She didn’t want to add to the monumentally embarrassing occasion by tripping as well.

  Her pack mates, who’d escorted her to the ceremony, began leading her to the large fire blazing in the center of the clearing. Smoke swirled high into the air, intent, it seemed, on somehow reaching the moon that glowed overhead. The smell of incense hit her nose as she got closer to the fire – the aroma of pigs and deer roasting over a handful of smaller fires on the outskirts of the clearing assaulting her senses as well.

  Risking peeking up from the ground, Katherine quickly confirmed that, indeed, the entire town had shown up for the event. It seemed that the delay of the first ceremony had only added to the excitement of this one. People surrounded the massive fire on all sides, some standing while others lounged on the forest floor, but all of them were watching her. Their gazes burned hotter than the fire itself – Bastian’s intense stare the hottest of them all.

  He had essentially refused to let Katherine leave his side since she’d been “stolen from him” a little over a week ago, as he’d so aptly put it, and it’d been a nearly impossible feat to convince him that she wanted to get ready for the claiming ceremony the way that tradition demanded.

  Out of his sight, in other words.

  Miles away from him.

  It was only after she’d agreed that the entire pack – sans him, of course – could stay behind to watch over her that he’d finally allowed it at all.