Bitten (Once Bitten, Twice Shy #1)(83)

Before she could bring herself to be truly bothered by his presence, however, Mack began butting his head into her side, attempting to move her toward where the other young wolves were forming a sort of line. Melanie and Leander scurried off to the side, clearly having chosen to observe, but not participate in, the soon-to-begin race.

Katherine let Mack lead her to where she was supposed to go, but was feeling more and more uneasy about her decision to do this. Bastian was probably looking for her – likely worried to the point of anger. Not to mention the fact that her friends hadn’t had time to tell her the route of the race before the moonlight had shone down upon them and they’d all turned into giant, hairy beasts.

Glancing at Agnes, who was readying herself on her right, Katherine supposed she could just follow her. She knew she’d be able to keep pace with her easily enough and besides, like she’d professed earlier, it wasn’t like she actually cared what any of the alphas thought of her. If she got last… oh well.

So why had she even agreed to race in the first place? Katherine really didn’t know.

Before she could consider the question too closely, however, the wolf she suspected to be Briggs was lifting his head and howling loudly into the wind. The other wolves who were lined up with her dashed off.

Okay. So clearly the howl was meant to serve as the starting signal of the race – like an air horn of sorts.

Springing into action, Katherine leapt forward a beat after the others. She quickly worked to spot Agnes’s gray coat in the blur of furry bodies that rushed toward the trees. And… there she was.

Katherine swiftly fell into step behind her friend, though it didn’t seem like Agnes really noticed her new shadow as her full attention was dedicated to moving her powerful limbs.

…Now, don’t get Katherine wrong, because Agnes was fast.

But the fact of the matter was Katherine was faster. And within minutes, she was fighting the urge to dart past her. Although the results of the race hardly mattered to Katherine, she longed for the feeling of joy – of freedom – that nothing but running could bring her. She yearned to fly through the trees like she had the last full moon. The temptation to do so was strong, but she managed to resist. Barely.

It wasn’t worth the risk of getting lost.

But, of course, Katherine’s intentions to stick to Agnes like glue ceased to matter when another wolf – large and fur close to the same color of chocolate brown as her own – knocked her off balance and sent her body slamming straight into the trunk of a nearby tree. She couldn’t stop a pained yelp from escaping when her torso met the rough bark, but forced herself to stay on her feet. Paws. Whatever.

Her assailant had stopped to watch her as she stumbled, and she growled at him, attempting to discern his identity as she snapped at his ankles in retaliation to the harsh shove. She knew it couldn’t be Rip because Leander had said he wasn’t competing in the race. Maybe it was one of his friends?

Before she could decide for sure – though she was fairly certain it was Jason Collins, one of her more boorish classmates – he pushed her back into the same tree. This time, she did fall, and the other wolf took off, howling as he did so. The sound was high-pitched and sounded suspiciously like laughter. All too soon, he was out of sight.

And Katherine was alone.

And had no real idea of where she was.

Exactly the situation she didn’t want to be in.

Growling in frustration, she ignored the painful twinges coming from her rib cage and gave chase. Katherine ran in the direction that Collins had gone, but it didn’t take long for her to realize that she wouldn’t be able to catch him. Or Agnes for that matter. She attempted to make her way back to where Collins had jumped her, thinking that surely there were some paw prints on the ground she could follow to the finish line of the race.

Unfortunately for Katherine, the wind had picked up since she’d arrived at the clearing with her pack more than an hour earlier and the only paw prints to follow anywhere were her own. It didn’t help that everything was white and all the trees looked the same as the last.

None the less, she tried to find her way out of the forest and back to the clearing. It took a long while of fruitless searching for Katherine to finally admit that she was lost.

Why, oh why, had she agreed to participate in the stupid race?

As Katherine looked for a way out of the woods, her eyes frequently traveled up to gaze at the full, glowing moon. She watched apprehensively as it got closer and closer to the highest point in the sky.

Bastian was going to be taking on Rogue soon and Katherine was terrified. Terrified that her absence would somehow cause him to lose and what that loss would mean for Bastian. What it would mean for her.

She was also more than a little afraid of what it would mean for her if she couldn’t find her way out of the forest and back to the moon gathering by daylight. She’d transform back into a human when the sun rose and Sophie had the backpack that contained her change of fresh clothes. If she didn’t make it back to the clearing by the time the moon set, well… she’d be both lost and naked in this dark, cold forest.

How utterly humiliating.

It was right then – when she was on the verge of panic and all these horrifying scenarios were running through her mind – that Katherine saw a strange marking on the trunk of a nearby tree. It was almost as if some of the bark had been ripped off by… claws? Werewolf claws?