She froze, gripping the edge of the towel tighter. “I forgot clothes,” she squeaked, ready to die from embarrassment.
He smiled at her. “I’ve seen it all before,” he said quietly, still sounding weak.
“This is different, Bass. I…I’d just been a wolf. The last thing on my mind was being naked and having you check me out.”
She turned her back to him, rummaging in her wardrobe for something easy to slip on.
“I feel like a complete dick now because I was definitely checking you out, all naked and beautiful in my arms.”
She spun around to face him, her face heating. The light had returned to his eyes, the smile on his lips, wicked and playful. “You, Sebastian Evernight, are a bad, bad wolf!” she said in mock outraged.
“And, you, Katalina Winter, look adorable when mad. Come here so I can kiss that look from your lips.”
“No! I can’t believe you were looking at me,” she huffed, grabbing the nearest dress in her wardrobe and pulling it over her head. She wiggled the towel out from underneath.
“Come on, Kat. I couldn’t help it! I’m a man after all. Come here. I’d come to you but it appears I’m not as indestructible as I first thought.”
No, you’re not. She looked from one injury to the next. With a heavy sigh, Katalina perched lightly on the edge of the bed. “I thought you were going to die. What happened last night?” she asked tentatively, still shaken from the night before.
“I was too busy rushing to get back to you that I didn’t notice them waiting for me. They jumped me. The first went down easily, the second not so much. From there, it’s all a bit of a blur.”
“You’d taken two out when I got to you, but the third”—a shudder rolled through her—“you didn’t even move. I was so mad, so frightened. There was no chance of me controlling my wolf. One minute I was me, the next…”
He lifted an unsteady hand to gently caress her cheek. “You saved me.”
“It scares me, Bass…being a wolf.”
“Why?”
“Because this wolf, this animal inside me…she’s wild, untamed. What happens when I like what she makes me?”
He looked at her for a few minutes. For a moment, Katalina thought he wasn’t going to answer her. However, the look in his eyes said he would. He just needed to find the right words.
“Do you think I’m a monster?”
“What? No!”
“Then why would you think you’d be one? When I’m a wolf, life becomes simpler, but I’m not two people. Being a shifter doesn’t mean you have a nice side and a bad side. You’ve always been a shifter, Kat. You’d just never changed. Your wolf has always been in here.” He placed his hand over her heart. He continued, “She’s not a monster. She’s wild and free, but no monster. We don’t kill for the sake of killing. At the heart of who we are, we are loyal. Nothing comes before those we love.”
She swallowed the tears blocking her airways. She didn’t know how to reply. She opened her mouth not sure of the words that would spill out. “I need you to get better, Bass. I’m holding on, but…but my grip…it’s faltering.”
He smiled sadly at her. “One day, you’ll see what I see. One day, you’ll be shocked with the knowledge of how strong you actually are.”
Katalina curled into a ball on the bed beside him. She felt exposed to the world, the grip on her sanity wavering. Bass wrapped an arm around her, and with a shaky breath, she hoped he was enough to keep her tethered.
Chapter 19
Katalina didn’t do much else that day. She slept for a while next to Bass, and only left him to throw a stick for Arne. Standing on the threshold, Katalina threw the stick out onto the drive, and waited for Arne to return it to her. Every once in a while, he’d stop and whine, staring off into the distance.
“I know, boy. I’m sorry, but it’s not safe out there.” She didn’t even feel especially safe standing on the porch. She kept her hand on the door, ready to slam shut if anyone came near her. She wondered if Jackson would give up since he’d lost two of his men. Did the one she attacked make it back with her message? Was it Jackson who’d left her garden empty of all evidence?
The phone rang.
“Arne! Come on!” She slapped her leg frantically, trying to get him to move faster. “Move it!” He sauntered inside, not seeming at all bothered by the phone ringing.
Katalina slammed the door shut, threw the dead bolt across, and raced for the phone.
“H’llo?” she said breathlessly.
“Kat? It’s me. Why are you so out of breath?”
“I was outside with Arne, had to run. Are you on your way back?”
Please say no. Please say no.
“No, sorry. I’ve just arrived at your aunt’s. I’m going to spend the night and set off tomorrow afternoon, spend some time with Dillon.”
“Okay.” She remembered too late she shouldn’t sound so cheerful.
“Katalina, is everything okay there? You are being careful, right?”
“Everything’s great, Gram. Don’t worry.”
Her grandmother paused for a second. “You’re taking precautions, right? I know you are eighteen now, and well, he’s a nice boy.”
OH, MY GOD!
“Gram, stop! S-stop!” she stuttered into the phone. A wave of embarrassment heated her cheeks.
“I’ve got to say these things now, Kat. I’d love for your mother to be here, but…I know what young people get up to. I used to be young once myself. Hard to believe I know—”
Katalina cut off her words, wanting the floor to open up and swallow her. “STOP! I’m a virgin, Grandma. We do not need to have this conversation. We NEVER need to have this conversation, so stop, okay? Stop before I can never look you in the eyes again.”
“Oh, well, okay, dear, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Bye, Gram.”
She put down the phone and stood shell-shocked for a moment before Arne knocked against her knees after something.
“Can you believe she said that?” she muttered to the dog.
“You do realize he can’t understand you, even though you are a shifter.”
Katalina’s head shot up. “Get back in bed!” she snapped, pointing a finger.
“No…don’t make me. I’m going to go insane if I lay there any longer.”
“Fine. Sofa.” She pointed one hand, the other rested on her hip.
“Did I ever tell you, you are hot as hell when bossing me about?”
Her stern face slipped. She fixed it quickly but he saw.
“Stop being a smart ass and sit down.”
“Can I get some food?” he asked, lowering himself to the sofa so slowly Katalina couldn’t watch.
All your fault, all your fault…
She willed the voice in her head to shut up.
“I fed you an hour ago.”
“My body’s burning more fuel so I can heal faster.”
All your fault… There was that voice again, taunting her, reminding her he was injured because she couldn’t let go.
“I think we have some chips and a pizza in the freezer?”
“Your culinary skills never cease to amaze.” He flashed her a wicked smile.
Katalina stuck out her tongue and turned quickly on her heel so he wouldn’t see the smile on her face. She loved that he showed her this side. This Bass was fun, playful and a little wicked. She wondered how many people saw more than the intense, logical, Sebastian Evernight. Smiling, she opened the freezer and secretly wished that this Bass was hers alone.
Bass ate the whole pizza, bar one slice Katalina nibbled on. He was asleep minutes after finishing, the TV playing unwatched. Katalina sat on one end of the sofa with Bass’s legs across her, trapping her in. She reached for a book that had been left abandoned on the lamp table. Her mother’s bookmark still marked the place she’d read up to.
Although she didn’t read romance novels often, Katalina had to do something. The TV didn’t hold her interest and simply sit
ting was a dangerous thing; her mind would wander, going to the places she wasn’t ready to go. She left the bookmark on the page it had marked; the thought of losing her mother’s place made her stomach churn and twist uncomfortably. Opening the first page, Katalina left her world for a little while, knowing reality would soon come calling, once more.
*****
Katalina’s grandmother was due to arrive back in less than an hour. Katalina’s nerves were high. She felt jittery and unsafe within her own skin.
“Katalina, will you please sit. Your pacing is making me nervous and I am not the kind of person who gets nervous!”
Katalina paused to glare at Bass. He sat on the sofa chair, flicking through channels, looking bored and sexy all at the same time. He didn’t look nervous. She wondered if he ever got nervous, or feared anything.
“I can’t help it. I feel…I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin. It’s like I can feel disaster approaching. She’s going to notice you’re hurt, and then there is Jackson. How long can I possibly forget he exists?”
Bass gave her a sad smile. Getting to his feet, he attempted to hide his pain, but she saw it; that split second where his mask slipped.
“How much pain are you really in?” she asked.
“I’m—”
She cut him off, “Do not lie to me!”
“All right, it has been a while since I have been as injured as I am, but Katalina, I really need you to stop worrying. I’m going to heal. My shoulder will be fine by the morning.”
“And your stomach?”
“Few days at most.”
“I just feel…feel so responsible.” Instantly, she felt better for sharing.
“Baby,”—he hugged her gently—“I volunteered to bring you here, remember? No one makes me do anything. This is what you needed, and I am in the business of giving you what you need.”
“What about what you need, Bass? I’ve been so selfish.”
Bass let her go and walked away. Sitting on the sofa, he couldn’t keep the grimace from his face. “Will you stop blaming yourself for everything!” he growled.
Katalina sighed. “If I don’t hate myself, who do I hate?”
“Do you know what you need, Kat? You need to be a wolf.”
“What?”
“Strip off. Summon the change. It will do you good. Your brain needs a reset; being a wolf, if only for a little while, will do that.”
“I can’t go outside. It might not be safe… Someone could see me.”
“Change in here then. Just escape that mind of yours, which seems insistent on torturing itself.”
She frowned at him, about to argue.
“For once, will you just do as I say?”
He sounded tired, exhausted from life. She hated it. Hated he’d lost the fight that she loved about him and was familiar with.
“Okay.” Katalina disappeared into her bedroom and stripped off her clothes.
Taking a deep breath, she thought of her wolf, willing her to take over. Pain snatched away all thought as her body snapped and broke, changed and mended. One minute, she was human, head full of thoughts, and the next, she was nothing but scent, sound and wolf.
She padded out on paws seeing her house through new eyes and scents; sweet and acid, sounds: the mumble of the TV, the distant call of a bird, the far off hum of traffic. She was wild and free; her mind full of simpler things, free of stress or worry, and the burden of guilt.
Katalina explored the house before heading toward Bass. There was nothing but him in her focus. His scent filled her nose while his heat warmed her fur. Their connection pumped through her blood, a wild beautiful thing.
“Hello, my gorgeous winter wolf,” Bass murmured softly, pressing a kiss to her head. “Someday soon, we are going to run together again.”
His words conjured up an image: the night of her first change. She could almost touch the memory, feel the wind in her fur, the scents all around her. Images of Bass tumbled across her mind. Her shadow wolf, dangerous and beautiful, fierce and loving, he was everything to her wolf, the purpose of her being. And then she remembered the first time she’d seen him, but it wasn’t a wolf memory rather a human one. The change came naturally as if shaking off a coat.
“You knew, didn’t you? The first day we met, you knew who I was to you.”
A glint in his eyes and the smile on his face did funny things to her heart. “Of course I did.”
“Why did you know and I didn’t?”
“I think you did really, deep down in the part of you locked away.”
She remembered how she felt the moment he left, the hollowness, and the sudden, desperate urge to follow him.
“You acted so cool, so indifferent. You intrigue me, Katalina Winter.” She laughed at her attempt to mimic him.
“You do intrigue me.”
“I hope it’s a little more than that?”
“Oh, so much more,” he said, his voice a rough caress as his eyes heated with desire.
Remembering she was naked, Katalina became self-conscious. She looked down at herself, crouched by his legs, just as her wolf had. Her wolf took over once more.
“No fair,” Bass whined, but the cheeky smile on his face gave him away.
Katalina nipped at him and gave him a playful growl, before running off to her bedroom. She returned minutes later, dressed and feeling a little less crazy.
“Better?”
“Yes.”
“Good, because I hear a car coming.”
Katalina angled her head to listen, and sure enough, she heard the distant purr of an engine, and the crunch of gravel as the car turned into her drive.
She let out a long, low breath, shaking her hands before facing the door.
“Kat, you look like you're about to announce to your grandmother that you’re pregnant, or running away. Go do something.”
She shook her head, smiling at herself. “I think I may have damaged my head in that accident.” She headed into the kitchen to put on the kettle.
“Wonderful, I get to live with a brain-damaged mate for the rest of my life.” His laugh rumbled toward her.
“You can’t talk. You don’t even live in the real world!”
“Tell me, Katalina, what is it you do in this ‘real world’?”
“You know, lots of things, Facebook, Twitter, see a movie.”
“I saw a movie once.”
Katalina came out of the kitchen, a look of disbelief on her face. “Once?”
“Yes, once, when I was a child, with my grandmother.”
Katalina shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid there is no hope for you.”
“I’d like to see this ‘real world’, Katalina. Will you show me?”
“It would be my pleasure, but you must show me how you disappear into the shadows.”
He laughed at her. “I don’t disappear, Kat. I’m just camouflaging myself. You may find it difficult with white fur…” His sentence trailed off as the door opened.
“Gram, I just put on the kettle. Do you want one?” Katalina called, heading back into the kitchen.
“That would be wonderful, darling.”
Chapter 20
As night fell and her grandmother remaining unsuspecting, Katalina wondered what she’d been so worried about.
“Well, dear, I’m going to bed.”
“Me too, night, Kat.” Bass kissed her on the cheek before getting to his feet and walking off to the room. She knew he wouldn’t spend the night in there, even though she’d told him to not sneak about injured.
“Night.” Katalina gathered the mugs and took them into the kitchen.
Arne whined and scratched at the door.
“Hold on, boy. Let me wash these,” Katalina called from the kitchen.
“I’ll let him out, Kat,” her grandmother replied.
Katalina turned on the tap. She heard the sound of the lock turning and Arne’s paws as he bounded over the wooden porch, followed by his bark as he chased whatever prey
he’d found.
She switched the tap off.
Silence.
Her feet were moving before her wolf senses kicked in, but she knew, even before she saw; Jackson had come for her.
Her grandmother stood in shocked silence, her back pressed against the wall. Jackson’s eyes locked with hers. She was expecting terror, or even the slightest linger of fear, but all she felt was pure, white-hot rage.
“OUT!” she yelled at the man who’d made her, yet had no right to claim the title ‘father’.
Bass was beside her a moment later. “Katalina, calm down,” he whispered.
But it was too late for that. She’d been bottling her rage, her sorrow, her confusion for too long and now it burst from her like a raging storm: savage and unrelenting.
“I said GET OUT!” Her eyes glanced at Arne, who lay unmoving in the snow. “What did you do?”
Jackson looked behind him. “Oh, he’ll be—” His words blew out of him, along with his breath. Katalina was shocked by how far he stumbled from her push, but it didn’t stop her attack. She screamed as she hit him. He fell back, hitting the porch with a thud, looking at her in complete shock.
“How dare you!” Jackson rumbled, his eyes flashing with anger.
His words only enraged her more. She went as if to leap onto him but found arms pinning her back.
“Katalina, no!” Bass’s words didn’t reach her. She could think of nothing but ripping Jackson to shreds. “Kat, please.” Bass trapped her against the wall.
Katalina felt the roll of pain signaling the change, her body shuddered.
“Kat, stop!” Jackson growled. She felt the power of the alpha in his voice, but she brushed it off, a scream converting to a snarl ripping from her throat.
“You can’t control me!” she spat, her body trembling. Not even caring what her grandmother thought—who still stood frozen against the wall—she couldn’t think beyond the red haze of anger.
“Kat, look at me!”
Katalina glanced at Bass, his voice strained, sweat covering his forehead. She stopped struggling immediately. She was hurting him, but it didn’t stop her wolf from wanting out, from wanting to sink teeth into Jackson. She shook her head, her hands, and her skin on fire. Her body felt too tight. This mask needed to come off; she needed to let her wolf out.
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