Bitten (Once Bitten, Twice Shy #1)(67)
Sophie eventually released her, but only to clasp her hand around the brunette’s elbow as soon as she had done so. “Come on, honey. There’s a stream not far from here where we can wash up a little.”
“Okay,” Katherine agreed and let the other girl pull her along.
After only a few minutes of walking, they arrived at the stream. The current was moving slowly, allowing Katherine to catch a glimpse of her reflection on the water’s surface.
Christ. And she thought Sophie had looked haggard.
Whereas the blonde had had a few leafs tangled in her hair, Katherine was pretty sure a whole tree had somehow managed to dislodge in her mahogany locks. Or at least a large branch of some sort.
It took Katherine a solid half hour to pick all the leafs – and sticks – out of her hair and wash her face clean of mud.
When she was finished, she and Sophie headed back to the clearing. “Hopefully the guys are awake and actually dressed by now,” the blonde commented idly. She smirked in Katherine’s direction. “Sorry you had to see that, by the way,” she teased.
Katherine scrunched her nose, making sure to act properly traumatized by it all. But she couldn’t exactly say she was sorry that she’d seen Bastian in his birthday suit.
It turned out that the men were awake and properly clothed when the two girls returned to the clearing. Katherine accepted a shy hug from Caleb and even a one armed squeeze from Zane when he spotted her. Markus, of course, didn’t move to touch her, but she was more than okay with that. She took the fact that he didn’t immediately begin insulting her when she entered the clearing as his way of telling her that he was glad she was okay.
It was Bastian’s response to seeing her that surprised Katherine the most. For someone who’d spent half of his time avoiding her the past two weeks, he nearly crushed her in a bone-crushing embrace when he saw her. He held her in his arms for a solid minute. When Bastian finally pulled away, he kept his hands wrapped around her biceps.
His eyes roamed over her form and Katherine suspected he was searching for any visible injuries. Not that he could see much. She was practically drowning in the oversized clothes Sophie had given her. Eventually his roving eyes met hers and blue bore into green.
“You’re okay,” he muttered, tightening his grip on her arms for a second before finally letting them go. He rubbed the back of his neck with one of his hands. “I’m… glad.”
For perhaps the first time ever, Katherine smiled at Bastian.
“Me too,” she said, truly meaning it. “Me too.”
And for once in her life – at least, the wreck her life had become since that fateful night on Miller Road – things were looking up.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The immense relief – the pure joy and elation – that Katherine felt regarding surviving the change lasted for all of a day. If she thought her life would miraculously improve after she’d made it through her first full moon, well, she was wrong.
Horribly, dreadfully, irrevocably wrong.
In fact, it was as if changing into a werewolf – if only for one night – had somehow messed with her head and caused her hormones to go completely haywire.
She was still the same person. She could still look in the mirror and see little Katherine Mayes staring back at her. And yet…
It was like she had no control of herself.
Not two days after she’d survived the change, she’d burst into tears when Bastian had returned from an impromptu trip to Haven Falls baring a brand new leather jacket – an exact replica of the one she’d inadvertently torn to shreds during her transformation. To Katherine’s utter mortification, her eyes had wetted, the oncoming tears sticking to her eyelashes and clumping the fine hairs together as she frantically tried to blink them away, as soon as the man handed her the jacket. He’d also given her a pair of fleece white mittens and a matching hat with large flaps for her ears.
She’d barely managed to croak out a soft “thank you” before retreating to her room where the waterworks had really started. She knew her reaction to his thoughtfulness had undoubtedly bewildered Bastian, but she really couldn’t help it.
It had just been such a nice thing to do. And Bastian was hardly synonymous with the word nice.
Even if she did find herself drawn in again and again by the earthiness that seemed to define his natural scent, by the lone dimple the appeared on his right cheek whenever he tried to suppress a smile, by the intensity of his dark blue eyes…
Occasionally, Katherine would even catch herself thinking of the firm muscles of his back – picturing the expanse of sculpted, tanned skin as she allowed her mind to wander back to how it’d felt to wake up next to him on the hard, forest ground.
Despite the draw she felt towards him, however, he still infuriated her most of the time. Quite often, she’d have to resist the urge to punch him.
Same with Markus.
That, though, Katherine could boast she had finally done.
It had happened the morning after Bastian had given her the leather jacket. Markus, who’d been in the same room as Katherine when she’d received it the night before, poked fun at her tearful response over breakfast. She couldn’t even remember exactly what it was he had said – though she seriously doubted it was as offensive as some of the comments he’d made in the past. She just knew that her newly volatile temper had flared and before she’d even made the conscious decision to do it, she’d hauled off and slugged the man right in his impertinent mouth.