Bitten (Once Bitten, Twice Shy #1)(53)

What?

"Your wolf form?" Katherine deadpanned.

Bastian looked thoroughly annoyed. “What? Don’t tell me you still don’t believe?”

“No,” she snarked, then immediately backtracked. “I mean yes, I believe, but it’s not the full moon.”

"Though it can be difficult, once one experiences the change, it’s possible to transform at any time,” he explained.

Katherine desperately tried to stop her temper from erupting. "Then why didn't you just do that to prove your existence to me?" she asked in disbelief.

Bastian grimaced as he realized she had made that connection. “I thought it might do more harm than good. You already didn’t believe in werewolves. It would have been a shock I wasn’t sure your fragile psyche could handle if one of us morphed into a giant beast in front of you.”

Fragile psyche? Fragile psyche?! She’d show him a fragile psyche!

“You’re excused, by the way.”

Katherine’s body, which was trembling in anger at the insult, abruptly stilled. “Excuse me?"

The corner of Bastian’s lips jerked, as if he was fighting off an amused smile. "Exactly – you're excused. You may leave."

Who did he think he was?

She fumed silently, glaring at the brazen man, but the sight of his twitching mouth only served to infuriate her more. She marched out of the study, making sure to slam the door behind her.

Katherine was marked later that night. It was a wholly foul experience as far as the small brunette was concerned and she scrubbed her body down for an entire hour afterwards.

The only thing remotely pleasant about the ordeal had been once again seeing Bastian’s wolf form, though she’d nearly had a heart attack when he’d bounded into her room on all fours. He’d called himself a gigantic beast earlier, but she couldn’t help but think the creature he transformed into was majestic and even beautiful.

She just really wished she didn’t.





CHAPTER TWELVE


Katherine was not nervous.

She could not feel what seemed like hundreds of tiny butterfly wings flapping in her stomach. And she had certainly not had trouble sleeping last night or forking down her breakfast this morning due to said butterflies.

She wasn’t nervous and those stupid butterflies didn’t exist because she didn’t care what any of the people attending a frickin’ werewolf school thought of her.

Really, she didn’t.

Katherine could almost have convinced herself that that was true. If only she hadn’t spent over half an hour picking out what to wear and a further fifteen minutes gazing into the mirror, inspecting her appearance for imperfections.

The outfit she had finally decided on was a simple pair of jeans and a long-sleeved, black V-neck shirt. She’d also shoved a glittery headband that Sophie had insisted on buying for her at The Closet into her hair in a desperate attempt to tame the mass of brown waves. Katherine was no fashionista, but she thought she actually looked half-way decent.

Unfortunately, no amount of primping and preening at herself in the mirror would calm those inanely persistent butterflies.

Knock. Knock. Knock. “Katherine, are you ready to go? Bastian’s waiting for you in the SUV.”

Katherine released a small gust of air she hadn’t even been aware she’d been holding before leaving the bathroom attached to Bastian’s bedroom. She had absolutely no idea where the tall man had been sleeping the past two nights. Not in his room, obviously. She’d been taking his bed.

Which was really weird now that the petite brunette thought of it.

She’d even put away her new clothes in the room’s spacious closet, which, bizarrely enough, had been cleared of the shirts and pants that had occupied it earlier.

“Are you excited about your first day of school?” Sophie accosted Katherine as soon as she exited the room.

“Sure,” she agreed half-heartedly, retreating down the hallway to the front door and tugging on her knee high boots. She wasn’t about to admit how nervous she was to the blonde. Besides, Sophie seemed excited enough for the both of them.

She had one arm through her leather jacket and was reaching to pull open the door with the other when a hesitant hand landed on her shoulder. Katherine turned toward Sophie who was gnawing on her upper lip in a seemingly anxious gesture.

Maybe she wasn’t so excited after all.

The blonde released her tortured lip. “Katherine?”

“Yeah?”

“Bastian’s told you about recruiting, right?”

Katherine couldn’t stop her forehead from creasing and the edges of her mouth from forming a frown. There was that word again. Recruiting. Bastian had briefly mentioned it the other night, but as for explaining it? “No, not really,” she admitted.

Sophie huffed. “That just figures,” she muttered, visibly annoyed by Katherine’s answer. She tugged an aggravated hand through her blond strands before meeting the curious brunette’s eyes. “Recruiting,” she explained, “is how werewolf packs are formed. I assumed that my idiotic brother would have told you this since recruiting, for most wolves anyway, begins and ends during their last year of school – right before they turn seventeen.”

Well, that was certainly interesting. But Katherine failed to understand how it applied to her. Wasn’t she already a member of a werewolf pack – this pack, in fact? Wasn’t that the whole point of – Katherine scrunched her nose in revulsion as she remembered – getting marked by Bastian the other night?