Bitten (Once Bitten, Twice Shy #1)(41)

CHAPTER TEN


Three days passed before Katherine woke from her fever induced slumber. In her state, however, it felt as if mere hours had gone by – hours she spent curled around her dream wolf, his fur covered body pressed against her own frail form as it was wracked by violent shivers.

When she did finally manage to peel her heavy eye lids open, she immediately noticed that she was lying on a large bed – in an unfamiliar room. She probably should have been more concerned, but was getting awfully used to waking up in strange places with only hazy memories to remind her how she'd gotten there. She was numb to the experience.

In this particular instance, she remembered very little. She knew she had tricked Caleb – stolen the keys to the SUV and taken off in the gigantic, green vehicle. She also recalled arriving at her sister’s house in Minnesota – how she’d banged desperately on Samantha's front door and broken one of her flower pots.

Her last memory was of Bastian showing up. His wet shirt clinging tightly to his sculpted chest as he stared at her with his too blue eyes was one of the few things she could remember vividly.

Katherine supposed that he was the one who had brought her here.

But when? And how?

She licked her dry lips and worked a hand through her hair – the dark curls were as wayward as ever – as she attempted to recall exactly how it was she'd ended up here – wherever here was.

Try as she might, however, she just couldn’t remember. She had been sick, she thought? There had been a horrible pressure in her chest – a tightness that threatened to squeeze the very oxygen from her lungs. She'd had a headache too – could still feel faint traces of pain in her temples, in fact.

Perhaps she really had been as weak as she had been in her dream.

But sick enough to sleep the day away and not remember how she’d gotten here?

She could think of no other explanation.

But that still didn’t answer the question of where she was.

Even the room she was in was veiled in darkness. The lights were off and the blinds on the windows were seal shut with no rays of daylight peeking through the gaps. There was no clock in the room so she could only assume it was night.

Though she felt far from tired.

And now that she was up and aware that she was in an unfamiliar room – in an unfamiliar bed – she couldn’t very well just go back to sleep.

She was just itching to explore.

Katherine was hesitant to do so, however, as she very much doubted that she'd truly been left to her own devices. She knew that Bastian must have been nearby. He wouldn't leave someone else to watch her. Not after the last time he'd left and put the others in charge of babysitting her.

Ugh. Babysit. She despised the word.

Suddenly paranoid that she was being watched from the shadows of the room, Katherine reached over and flicked on the lamp she spotted on the nightstand.

The lamp's light cast an eerie glow on the rest of the room, but quickly revealed that no one was spying on her from the darkness. She would’ve given a sigh of relief if her breath wouldn’t have caught in her throat as she got her first real look at the room she was in.

It was beautiful.

The room was decorated in rich shades of brown with little accents of green – like the curtains on the tall windows or the silken sheets of the bed. It was sparsely decorated – the bed, nightstand, and mahogany dresser were the room’s only furniture – but that only served to draw attention to the gleaming hardwood floors.

But it wasn't the shiny floor or five drawer dresser that caused Katherine to lose her breath.

It was the splendid fireplace the took up half the wall opposite the bed. It was magnificent – gloriously rustic with an abstract design of some sort looping around its gold frame. The pile of logs in its pit weren't currently burning, but she knew it'd make an even more awesome sight when they were.

Not able to resist the temptation to examine the fireplace more closely, she disentangled herself from the comfortable sheets of the bed and knelt on the fur rug – if she had to guess, she'd say it used to be bear – that was laid directly in front of the fireplace.

Up close, she could see that the frame wasn't painted gold as she'd first thought, but truly seemed to be made of the expensive material. She could also see that the looping design wasn't made up of vague shapes as it had looked like from her place on the bed, but detailed figures.

Detailed figures of wolves.

Katherine felt her stomach clench when she noticed, but she couldn't find it in herself to think the design any less beautiful for it. She idly traced the indented gold with her fingers before the desire she felt to explore the rest of the room could no longer be ignored. Hands on her knees, she pushed herself off the floor.

She'd noticed earlier – when she'd turned on the lamp – that the room had three doors. Briefly glancing at the other two, she hesitantly headed towards the one closest to the fireplace.

She opened it to reveal an immaculate bathroom.

Its decor matched that of the bedroom's. The walls were painted a pale green color and the tiled floor was a checkered brown and white. Serving as the room's center piece was an enormous whirl pool bathtub. The large rectangular mirror above the sink was very impressive as well.

Unfortunately, she caught a glance of herself in its reflective surface.

She looked like a heathen.