Luminous

by Noelle Marie

  Regardless, it became apparent soon enough that his interest was reciprocated. The way they gravitated towards each other was... disturbing to say the least. Watching them interact was akin to catching a glimpse of some bizarre mating ritual on the Discovery channel, and being too weirdly captivated to look away – even though you desperately wanted to.

  Katherine watched them trade insult-laced compliments every day, like it was some sort of foreplay. For example, Sam had descended the stairs in a curve-hugging, off-the-shoulder, cashmere sweater the other day that had probably cost as much money as Markus’s entire wardrobe – she’d done well in her divorce settlement.

  Markus’s response?

  “What the hell do you think this is, blondie, a damn photo-op for Vogue, or something? Who are you trying to impress?”

  Sam’s reply?

  “Certainly not you. Anyway, the last I checked, I’m not the one who wanders around here without a shirt on. Maybe you should think about who it is that you’re trying to impress.”

  Or perhaps there were compliment-laced insults; it was hard to tell.

  Either way, there was an electric sort of sexual tension underlying it all that made Katherine want to simultaneously blush and barf.

  Attraction bloomed elsewhere as well, although it formed between two much more endearing people. Katherine really should have foreseen it.

  Caleb and Serena.

  With Bastian’s help, it had been easy enough to locate the girl. Like most of the western colony’s women and children, she had surrendered to his troop when they had invaded, and she had been assigned to stay with whatever pack in Haven Falls was willing to take her in. Serena, along with many others, had wound up with Luther. In fact, in an ironic twist of events, she was currently staying in what used to be Melanie’s room with three other women.

  When Katherine had tracked her down and insisted that she visit, she had the pleasure of seeing Caleb catch sight of Serena for the first time. She’d watched as Caleb’s brown eyes widened with a kind of awe she’d never seen in them before.

  Serena had flushed when she’d noticed him, her tanned cheeks coloring crimson at his dumbstruck expression. The girl had spent the rest of that first visit staring at the floor.

  At Katherine’s request, Serena had shown up the next day, though – and the next – until she spent nearly every day at the Prince house.

  She progressed from staring at the floor to sneaking peeks at Caleb through her hair, to finally being able to look him in the eye. Caleb took Serena’s wariness in stride. Despite the flush he often wore in her presence, he constantly made an effort to pull her chair out for her, and walk her to the door. After finding out that she’d survived on a very limited diet of raw meat, nuts, and the scant variety of fruits and plants that the Canadian wilderness had to offer, Caleb also insisted on making her a new dish to try every time she visited.

  It was sickeningly sweet, really, but Katherine got to enjoy the leftovers and wasn’t about to complain.

  Serena didn’t know how to accept the positive attention, and usually just quietly allowed Caleb to serve her whatever he wanted. The girl was fascinated by how they lived – Katherine could tell by the enthralled way she would watch Caleb expertly maneuver around the kitchen – but also, easily overwhelmed. Katherine understood. She’d only been forced to live in the western colony for a handful of weeks, and even she had experienced a bit of a culture shock upon returning to Haven Falls.

  For his part, Bastian had only eyed Serena suspiciously the first few times she visited; it didn’t take long for him to realize that she was basically harmless. Katherine hoped that one day, he would even be able to see past her relation to Gerard and allow her to join the pack, as Caleb’s mate or otherwise – though Katherine was betting on the first scenario.

  It had taken Serena a while to work up the nerve to ask about Caleb, but eventually she had done just that. She had delivered the question to Katherine a week ago in a hesitant voice, hands clenched nervously in front of her.

  “Does Caleb... I mean, he couldn’t... he doesn’t have a mate, does he? I haven’t seen anyone around.”

  Katherine offered the girl a mischievous smile. She’d been waiting for Serena to ask something like that. “No, but I happen to know that he’s interested in someone.”

  Surprise flashed in Serena’s eyes. “Oh.” Followed by disappointment. “Of course, he is. I’m sure she’s wonderful... smart, and pretty, of course. She’d have to be to catch his eye.”

  “I certainly think so,” Katherine agreed, amusement lacing her tone. “She’s you.”

  “Me?” Serena repeated, hope-tinged disbelief in her voice. “I don’t know. Do you really think-?”

  “Serena,” Katherine interrupted exasperatedly, “it’s pretty obvious that he adores you.”

  “But... why? I’m nothing special. I don’t deserve someone like him.”

  Compassion softened her. “What you deserve is to be happy.”

  It was a piece of advice that Katherine knew she ought to take herself.

  After all, she had everything that she’d ever wanted: her first and second families – even Serena – blending together to fit seamlessly into her life. She even had everything she never knew she wanted in the form of little Maggie.

  Despite all of it, though, the fact remained... Katherine wasn’t okay.

  Nightmares plagued her, all of them featuring Gerard.

  Huge, clawed hands gripping her pregnant belly. Pinpricks of blood welling around the sharp talons as they dug into her skin.

  The grooves of a booted foot pressed against her cheek.

  Forceful fingers ripping off the zipper of her jeans.

  Flames licking at her skin as the smell of charred flesh clogged her nose.

  A flash of yellow eyes.

  Some were actual memories, some just figments of her imagination born of fear, but whenever she closed her eyes to sleep, they all jumbled together to make her heart race in terror. Every other night, she would wake up terrified, a film of cold sweat on her forehead and a scream stuck in her throat.

  And even though Gerard was dead, it was like he wasn’t.

  He even haunted her during the day. Little things would set her off.

  Markus would pat her on the head in his usual condescending manner or Sophie would pull her into an unexpected hug, and Katherine would find herself silently talking herself down from a panic attack. Once, she’d even had to swallow down vomit when Caleb had brought back black cherries from the market.

  Even as bile had churned in her stomach, though, Katherine didn’t want anyone to know. They – everyone – worried about her enough as it was. Bastian worried.

  The only thing that seemed to calm her during those moments was scooping up Maggie – or snatching her from whoever had inevitably insisted on holding her – and hugging the baby to her chest.

  It was one of the reasons why with close to a dozen people constantly clamoring for a turn with her, Katherine made it a point to sneak away with Maggie at least a handful of times each day. She would take the time alone to just hold her – to rub her back and smell her hair, to relish that sweet newborn scent that clung to her. Sometimes Katherine would even sing to her. As off-key as her voice was, Maggie seemed to enjoy it, usually offering her a gummy smile when she would try – and fail – to hit any note higher than a c sharp.

  She wondered if all mothers felt the same innate connection with their children as she felt with Maggie, or if it was just because of all they’d been through together that Katherine felt so close to her. Either way, holding Maggie had a cathartic effect on Katherine. Her presence chased thoughts of Gerard away, while no one else’s did.

  Not even Bastian’s.

  Out of everyone, he was the hardest to conceal her anxiety from. It was next to impossible to hide her nightmares. She tried to blame her restlessness on the stress of caring for a newborn, but Katherine knew Bastian must have suspected the way she tossed and tur
ned at night was due to something more than that.

  After all, he’d woken her from nightmares more than once by peppering kisses on her forehead, her nose, the gentle slope of her chin – her hero in waking and sleeping hours. Whenever it happened, he would wrap his warm arms around her shaking form and hold her. Only once had he questioned her about it.

  “Bad dream?” Bastian asked.

  Katherine pressed her lips together, nodding.

  “Do you remember what it was about?” he asked, pulling her trembling form to him and resting his chin on top of her head.

  Katherine shook her head, burying her face in Bastian’s chest so he couldn’t see her expression. She remembered enough: blood, fire, Gerard. But she didn’t want to share.

  Bastian didn’t push.

  He was so understanding.

  It only made her feel worse for keeping him at arm’s length. As embarrassing as it was to admit, she and Bastian had yet to be intimate since she was kidnapped a month and a half ago.

  It hadn’t been such an odd thing right away – she had just given birth – but with each passing day that she didn’t allow more than innocent kisses and touches to be exchanged between them, Katherine knew that it was only a matter of time before Bastian questioned her odd behavior. It hadn’t been that long ago that she had been begging him to have sex with her for the first time, after all.

  Katherine wanted to want to have sex, but every time she thought of initiating something with Bastian, she would remember how Gerard’s fat tongue had felt invading her mouth, or the way his nails had scraped against her belly as his fingers had dipped into her underwear.

  The thought of associating Gerard with her sweet Bastian made Katherine sick. She could never do that to him.

  But she couldn’t ignore him either.

  Bastian hadn’t complained about their lack of sexual intimacy, but she could still feel his hot gaze on her at night, the way he longingly ran his fingers up and down her arm or flirted with the hem of the oversized t-shirts she liked to wear to bed.

  Katherine wasn’t sure if he suspected the real reason she was so reluctant to be with him that way. There were excuses abound, after all. Maybe he thought that Katherine was exhausted from caring for a newborn all day. Or maybe he thought she was turned off by the fact that the only thing not overflowing in the Prince house was privacy.

  While both of those things were true, neither were the reason why she was so skittish. It was the pair of yellow eyes that kept flashing in the back of her mind, promising violence and pain.

  Despite her misgivings, though, Katherine wasn’t about to let Gerard control her life – especially not from beyond the grave; she was determined to never let that happen.

  So she had resolved to do it – literally it – with Bastian that very night. After all, what better occasion to prove to herself that she could still enjoy sex with her mate without thinking of Gerard than Bastian’s birthday?

  Well, the night before he turned twenty, anyway.

  Katherine still felt guilty about the man’s last birthday. She’d had no idea he was turning nineteen until Sophie had shoved a present under his nose. With no gift to give him herself, Katherine had shamefacedly offered him a kiss. It was nothing compared to the present he had given her a handful of months later on her seventeenth birthday.

  She cherished the family heirloom he’d given her – the golden ring that featured a wolf with sapphires for eyes and a giant, glimmering jewel in its mouth. She rarely took it off, and it had been a stroke of pure luck that the simple chain necklace the ring was attached to had irritated her sensitive skin during pregnancy, and she hadn’t been wearing the exquisite piece of jewelry when she’d been kidnapped.

  She didn’t know what she would have done if Gerard had snatched it from her along with all the other things he’d tried to take, like her dignity, or the sense of control over her own life, for example.

  Anyway, Katherine was determined to give Bastian a gift that meant just as much. She was going to have sex with him, and she was going to enjoy it, damn it.

  Which was precisely how Katherine found herself locked in the bathroom, staring into the huge mirror there, as she patiently waited for the telltale sounds of Bastian entering their bedroom.

  After putting Maggie to bed, Katherine had dug through her underwear drawer, trying on all the different lingerie Sophie had bought for her over the past year and a half, but that she never wore. She couldn’t even look at herself in most of the get-ups without flushing red. Eventually, she’d decided on a modest, lilac-colored bra and pantie set. The silky material featured a lace fringe and was so light it was almost sheer, but it was still one of the more modest pieces of lingerie she’d shimmied on.

  Looking at her reflection, Katherine thought she looked okay. The color of the silk worked well with her skin, and the bra seemed to amplify what little cleavage she did have.

  Even though she felt as comfortable as she probably ever would in such fancy underwear, Katherine couldn’t quite ignore the way a hundred butterflies seemed to have spontaneously appeared in her stomach, their tiny wings beating against her insides as she waited for Bastian to arrive. She knew it was silly to be nervous, but it had been so long since she and Bastian had been intimate that it almost felt like the first time all over again.

  Katherine was shaking her hair out of the sloppy ponytail it had been contained in all day, allowing the dark tresses to fall in waves around her shoulders, when she heard the bedroom door open. There was the sound of feet shuffling across the floor, and then the bed squeaking under Bastian’s weight.

  Katherine eyed her reflection one last time, her eyes drawn to the faint stretch marks above her hips. Self-consciousness threatened to rear its ugly head, and she knew if she didn’t go out there right then, her nerves would get the best of her, and she’d end up changing into the typical dregs she tended to wear to bed.

  Katherine took a deep breath, and then exited the bathroom.

  Bastian was sitting on the bed when she stepped into the room. He’d already flung his shirt off – it lay in a crumpled heap on the floor – and he was bent over at the waist, untying his boots. She stood in front of the bathroom door, clasping her hands behind her back as she patiently waited for him to look up and notice her.

  She didn’t have to wait long. When Bastian glanced up, his entire body stiffened. His pupils threatened to swallow his irises whole as he drunk in the sight of her.

  She tried not to fidget as his eyes wandered up and down her form. “What- I mean...that is to say... Wow.”

  Katherine blushed at the man’s incoherent attempt to form a sentence. “Does that mean you like it?” she asked, daring to take one step forward, and then another, until she was standing right in front of him.

  A grin pulled at the corner of his mouth. “What a silly question,” he said, reaching out and resting his hands on her waist. His thumbs gently caressed her exposed hipbones before he pulled her onto his lap. “You look beautiful; I mean, you’re always beautiful, but this... I mean... may I ask the occasion?”

  Katherine looped her arms around his neck. “I thought I’d give you an early birthday present.”

  “And what present would that be?” he teased, his grin widening into a full-blown smirk as he ran his hands up and down her sides, his feather-light touch tickling her rig cage.

  She huffed. “Me, of course.”

  Bastian laughed before pressing a kiss to her shoulder, and then her neck, his stubble brushing against the sensitive skin of her clavicle. “Does that mean I get to unwrap you?” he asked, dragging his lips against the delicate shell of her ear as he spoke.

  “That is the general idea,” Katherine pointed out, her voice just the slightest bit hoarse.

  He leaned back far enough so he could run his eyes over her again, and she tried not to blush at the obvious scrutiny. “I don’t know where to start,” he admitted.

  “I do.”

  Carefully cupping his c
heeks, Katherine pulled him towards her until his face was a mere hair’s breath away from hers, his lips even closer. And then she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his.

  What started as a sweet kiss quickly evolved into something more. Bastian’s lips moved sensually against hers, and his teeth nipped playfully at her bottom lip before his tongue prodded at it, demanding entrance into her mouth.

  Katherine obliged.

  She was rewarded for her hospitality, and heat pooled in her lower belly as Bastian’s tongue dominated hers, lapping at the inside of her mouth and leaving Katherine so breathless that she was forced to jerk away from him to take in some much needed air before her brain short-circuited from either lack of oxygen or – more likely – overwhelming desire.

  Bastian wasn’t deterred by her retreat in the least, his eager mouth only moving to latch on to the sensitive skin beneath her left ear, dragging his teeth over the indentations of the claiming mark there.

  A flash of a memory – of someone else’s teeth scraping against the mark – made Katherine freeze, her desire suddenly shriveling away into nothing. Despite the warmth radiating from Bastian, she felt suddenly very cold.

  Bastian’s hand yanked down one of the flimsy cups of her bra, and Katherine came careening back down to Earth.

  “What are you doing?” she asked shakily as she desperately tried to banish thoughts of Gerard from her mind.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” Bastian teased before playfully brushing his calloused thumb over her pebbled nipple.

  Katherine stiffened at the sensation. She felt trapped – stuck in a zealous tug of war between lust and fear, the present and past – and she clenched her legs around him when he brazenly pinched the pink bud, choking down a sort of sob.

  She had no chance at disguising her noisy intake of air, though, when Bastian abruptly lowered his head, his mouth capturing her other nipple through the thin fabric of her bra and sucking hard.

  Her hands latched onto the roots of his hair of their own accord, and even Katherine didn’t know what she intended to do: push him away or pull him to her tighter, when he released the tortured nipple with a wet pop, leaving a lude wet spot behind on her bra.