Bitten (Once Bitten, Twice Shy #1)(98)
“Yes, killed. You don’t really believe that the same pair of incompetent hunters that tried to do you in would be able to track and kill Bastian’s parents without a little inside help, do you?” he scoffed.
The air whooshed from Katherine’s lungs. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” he sneered, stalking toward Katherine like a predator approaching its prey, “that I set those hunters on my brother and his insufferable wife. Paid them a hefty price to kill the both of them. They were basically worthless – only managed to injure Brom. But his wife – Bastian’s mother, Margaret – she was grievously wounded. Brom and Margaret were so in love with each other – true soul mates. Within a week of her death, he too was gone from the world.” Cain smirked. “So I guess the hunters did their jobs after all.”
“That’s sick,” Katherine sputtered, completely aghast at the man’s confession, her stomach in a mess of knots. She knew she was feeling only a fraction of what Bastian would if he ever found out. “You’re twisted –completely warped in the head. How could you do that? You were his brother – and Bastian’s and Sophie’s uncle! When Bastian, finds out, he’s going to-”
“And how exactly is he going to find out, hm?” Cain interrupted, still grinning. “You certainly aren’t going to tell him. How could you… when you’re dead?”
She knew the man didn’t intend for her to leave the clearing alive as soon as he’d admitting to killing others for his head alpha title, but that didn’t stop the feeling of panic – of downright hysteria – from nearly overwhelming her for a moment.
Katherine looked once more at Melanie. She still stood under the evergreen. The girl looked horrified at the entire situation and her face had gone as pale as Katherine suspected her own had at hearing Cain admit to killing his own brother. “Melanie…”
“She’s not going to help you,” Cain boomed, his irritation with Katherine for refusing to show her fear obvious. “Don’t you get it? She tricked you. Agreed to help me get you out here alone so that my plans for you could come to fruition. All it took was a promise she’d be recruited into a respected alpha’s pack and she was on board.”
Katherine ignored the man. “Melanie,” she implored one last time, convinced that the girl couldn’t have possibly known what she was dragging her friend into, “please.”
But as fretful as Melanie looked – tears in her eyes and hands shaking at her sides – she refused to meet the brunette’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Katherine,” she choked out.
Katherine’s pleading expression hardened. “Fine,” she spat, turning back to face Cain, her bottom lip trembling against her will. “So you killed Bastian’s parents. Why target me? I’m no one important.”
Cain’s eyes grew impossibly darker. “Haven’t you figured it out yet, Katherine? Don’t you get it? When I kill you and show Bastian your mangled body, he’ll suffer the same fate as his dear old dad.” He offered her one last grin. “Death.”
And then he pounced.
In mid-air, Cain’s form changed. Where there was once a man, there was a gray blur and then a wolf. The massive animal was coming right at her. Katherine was only half aware of Melanie’s strangled scream as she leapt out of the way. She moved just in time, but the beast’s claws managed to imbed themselves into the left sleeve of her coat, tearing into the leather and the fragile skin underneath it.
Ignoring the searing sting emanating from the gashes on her arm, Katherine ran. She racked her brain, hoping that an idea – some sort of strategy – would come to her, but nothing that Markus or Zane had taught her about fighting would be useful against a three hundred pound wolf.
She briefly thought about sprinting out onto the icy pond under the frozen falls, but knew it was much too cold outside for the ice to be brittle enough to break under the animal’s weight.
Instead, she headed for the forest that surrounding the small clearing, hoping she’d be able to find a spot to hide – maybe have time to climb one of the trees. She hadn’t made it more than twenty feet, however, before Cain was upon her. He sprang at her again and though she tried to spring out of the way, her quickness was no match for the wolf’s speed.
The beast slammed into her back, knocking her to the ground and pressed her body into the snow with one enormous paw. Gasping at how Cain’s claws dug into the fabric of her coat and the tense muscles of her back, Katherine forced herself to move. Grabbing a jagged rock that was just within reach of her right hand, she desperately jammed it into the paw that wasn’t digging into her.
Letting loose a pain-filled yelp, the wolf immediately shot off of her.
She’d only bought herself enough time to get to her knees, however, before Cain’s uninjured paw forced her back to the ground, this time flipping her onto her battered back.
For the briefest of moments, Katherine lost her ability to breathe. The sensation of her bloodied wounds making contact with the ice cold snow was like nothing she’d ever felt before. The pain was excruciating.
Even as the edges of her vision threatened to darken, however, Katherine knew what she had to do. She had to transform. Cain could easily kill her in her human form. If she couldn’t change into a wolf in the next ten seconds, she was going to die.