Beast Within (Loup-Garou Series Book 3)

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  In result, it didn’t take long for her to slip into the world of dreams and visions, the place she had so often seen her parents and been plagued by nightmares of hunters and cages.

  Katey opened her eyes and could smell the earthy scent of her father pervading the room. When she pushed herself up from the mattress, her body lighter than mist, she saw her him standing at the foot of the bed.

  One hand rested on the post of her canopy, the other gripped the footboard panel, his tall frame slightly bent to lean over the foot of the bed. The amber glow of approaching dawn lit the room, casting deep shadows and illuminating her powerful and majestic father.

  What struck her most, though, was his expression. “Not you too?” she whined, grimacing at the way his brows pinch together in a look of displeasure. It was the same look Dustin and Ben had given her earlier.

  Katey threw herself back under the covers, wishing to blot out this dream somehow. She couldn’t take the disapproval of another person, especially her own father. It was too much for her heart to bear and she didn’t want to be reminded of how the bitter isolation strangled her chest.

  “Katey, look at me,” he asked firmly, his voice like a balm to her raw and tender spirit.

  More out of shock than obedience, Katey sat back up and met her father’s gaze. Never had he spoken to her in such a direct way. Her other dreams played like broken records, repeating the same words and images. This time was different.

  “You did the wrong thing tonight,” he said. “Darren is your alpha and should be obeyed. You know your wolf does not want to quarrel with him. Why did you not listen?”

  Katey had to take a moment to mentally shake off the awe that came with her father’s reprimand. “I… I wanted to learn how to change, to be like you and all the other loups-garous. I wanted to find out what I was missing. Darren wasn’t going to let me train until – “

  “Darren is a wise man and knows what he’s doing,” her father said. “He’s a man of his word, and if he said he would train you later, you should have trusted him. If he tells you to wait, there is a reason for it.”

  Katey swallowed hard. “You know Darren? Personally?”

  Her father gave her the faintest, nostalgic smile. “We met a very long time ago. Even then, he was a wise leader. He is your alpha and deserves to be respected as such.”

  “You’re saying the same stuff he and Dustin were saying. How can I respect him when he won’t respect me or what I need?”

  Her father straightened and slowly walked around the corner of the bed. “You are not the judge of what you need. He is. He sees what you are capable of and trains accordingly. If you excel in one area, he will move on. If you need more attention, he will give it.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, so close that Katey could reach out and touch him. She lifted her hand with the intention to do just that, but thought better and recoiled to let it rest in her lap again. It might have broken the illusion. The sun’s rays of the coming dawn sparkled in his green eyes, and for a moment, she thought she saw a touch of wolf gold that was permanently fixed in his irises.

  “Then what am I supposed to do? What else am I doing wrong?” she implored, taking advantage of the short time she had with her father.

  This time, he reached out to her and ran the back of his fingers against her cheek. His touch was warm and electric. For just a second, she was brought back to the last time they touched when she had died and embraced him and her mother. Then, her chest went tight for another reason completely.

  “You are doing fine, Katey. Despite the difficulties, you changed beautifully, and I couldn’t be prouder.”

  Moisture filmed over her eyes, blurring her vision until she blinked and let the tear roll down onto his fingertips. At least someone had acknowledged the fact that she had successfully changed. Not once did Darren or the others congratulate her

  “You are in such harmony with your wolf. I cannot think of anyone who has ever come this far so quickly.”

  Katey smiled. “I guess I’ve got some good genes,” she said, her voice cracking under the strain of more suppressed tears.

  Her father grinned, his eyes smiling with his lips. It was a beautiful thing to see, and Katey refused to blink again. Even if her eyes burned from fatigue and tears, she wanted to memorize this face forever.

  He turned away briefly, looking out the window at the light filtering through the trees on the horizon. “I haven’t much time, Katey.”

  “Don’t go,” she pleaded and grabbed at his hand, but it was nothing but an illusion and her hands passed through his arm.

  He shook his head. “I’m always with you, Katey. Respect Darren as your alpha. Respect Darren as if he were me, and know that you are loup-garou. You and your wolf are one, and she will aid you in times of trouble. Never forget that we love you.”

  Katey watched her father fade into the light, dissolving into the dust particles floating through the air. When she awoke from her sleep, chest aching and heart pounding as it usually did after her vivid visions, Katey looked around her room and saw it was slightly darker than it had been in her dream.

  The room was not suffused in an amber glow, but the gray light of the morning before the sun had fully emerged. It had only been a few hours since she had crawled into bed. The day had not begun yet, but it would soon, and this was the day she would leave Crestucky.

  Katey hugged her pillow and begged sleep to take her again, but it was no use. Her senses were too alert and heart racing too fast for her body to rest again. Not only that, but her mind replayed her father’s words, dissecting each phrase, each word, to make sense of it all.

  Her father wanted Katey to treat Darren as if he were her own father too. How was she supposed to do that when she never knew her own father while growing up? Living in foster families all her life did not set her up for a functional family unit by any means. Katey was rebellious and strong-willed, and she knew it. She would have to undo years of delinquency in a matter of days, but how?

  She knew her wolf would help, just like her father said. Her wolf would know how to be submissive and accept Darren’s authority just as it had last night when she was too tired and hopeless to argue. He could tell her to walk through a minefield and she should do it readily, trusting his judgment. She had to do the same that day as they left Crestucky.

  Perhaps that was what she lacked. Trust. It was a foreign concept. There was no reason she shouldn’t trust her pack. They have never misled her before and wouldn’t start now. Katey had been welcomed into this family, but it was evident that she still had a long way to go before she was fully integrated into it as a pack member. That disheartening thought caused even more confusion and doubt to cloud her mind.

  If she couldn’t learn to trust them, what place would she have in this pack? What use was she to the world that turned to her as the answer to war and hatred? Would her relationships with the others be forever crippled by her inability? Her father’s words of wisdom created more problems than they solved.

  One thing was for sure. Katey would get no further rest this morning.

  Logan lay in his bed, hands folded behind his head as he listened to the sounds of the house. The pack was sleeping peacefully after the scare Katey had given them, but Logan could not feel the same.

  Not only was their previous argument from the evening before still squeezing his heart in regret like barbwire around a tender fruit but now the bitter emotions of betrayal and envy toward Katey kept him from sleeping.

  Their argument had been pointless. It only served to make a bad situation worse by trying to instruct her on the way alphas should be treated. He was a poor teacher, and an even worse example and Katey was aware of that. Already raw from Dustin’s lecture, she was in no mood for company and rejected what little comfort he wanted to give. Katey had taken her meal from him and ordered Logan out of her room after they were done exchanging some heated words.

  It took a great deal of sketching to help numb his
spirit enough to sleep. He didn’t have that luxury now, with so few hours left of the night to get that much-needed rest.

  Changed, Logan thought to himself. How could she have changed and I couldn’t?

  It was cruel to believe, but Logan somehow wanted Katey to be just as unable to change as he was. His loup-garou blood was so diluted by his human parents that he wanted to believe it would be just as hard for Katey to change voluntarily, knowing her mother was a vampire. Instead, she had done it without help and in record time.

  She had been training for only a few weeks. It took Logan decades to get anywhere close to changing at will. After nearly a century of trying, he told the others he had given up the idea. Although he was far from passive about his handicap, Logan had tried to not let it affect his place in the loup-garou community. He tried to convince himself it was an unnecessary luxury and not a useful tool for living his life. Nothing could convince him he was no less of a man for his disability.

  Katey shattered that complacency. Each time she asked to train was like the sharp edge of a knife pressing into his spine. Knowing she had successfully changed only sliced open the old wounds. She hadn’t been a loup-garou for a full month, and she was already excelling faster than any other loup-garou he had ever met. No doubt his astonishment was shared by the others, but it would have been inappropriate to express it under the circumstances.

  When they brought Katey back, Logan knew he couldn’t face her. He didn’t want to say or do something he would come to regret again. Instead, he stayed in the kitchen and tried to not let Darren’s fiery rage rub off on him.

  His more primal instincts wanted Logan to hate Katey for her natural talent as a loup-garou. No matter what she did or what he couldn’t do, Logan knew he would always love her. He just needed time, and so did she, but how much?

  The change in her attitude had been plain the moment Darren began to rebuke her for running out on her own. Katey didn’t argue, she just let her alpha scold her in front of the others, her voice never raised to return his anger.

  Logan wondered if the willful change, the syncing of wolf and woman, had made her rethink her behavior toward Darren. Was there something about that first change that fully assimilated the instinctive nature of the wolf with their human counterpart? Did that make them more submissive to alphas? It was just another secret of the change that he would never know and that caused him great pain.

  There was a disturbance down the hall, and Logan sat up, listening carefully. He heard the rustle of fabric and soft padding of light feet against the wood planks of the floor. Katey’s door opened not too quietly, and he listened to her progress down the hall and toward the stairs. It was apparent she wasn’t trying to sneak around this time.

  Logan took a deep breath to soothe his battered ego. If tonight hadn’t happened, Logan knew he would have intercepted Katey in the middle of the hallway and whisked her away to his room. He hadn’t moved a muscle. It was this realization that told him they could not continue this way. It didn’t matter how he felt or how she had gotten herself into hot water with Darren. They were to be mates, and if they couldn’t get past this, it would not bode well for the rest of eternity.

  Casting aside his thin blanket, Logan jumped out of bed and pursued her as quickly as his tired legs would take him. He had no idea what he would say. What was there to say? Repeating Darren’s reprimand would do no good at all, and he couldn’t behave like nothing was wrong.

  There was little time to think of words when he arrived downstairs. He didn’t see her right away until he turned the corner into the kitchen. Katey sat on the floor, leaning against the cabinets, a few slices of roast beef pinched between her fingers. Her mouth worked at the bite she had taken already.

  Logan hadn’t laid eyes on Katey since their fight. It might have been the time they spent apart or some unconscious effect of her first willful change, but either way, she never looked more beautiful and radiant than she did now. For a moment, Logan couldn’t breathe. Katey hadn’t even acknowledged him yet, and he was already mesmerized.

  He stood there like a dumbstruck fool until Katey heaved a heavy sigh and looked at him. The hopeless expression in her eyes threatened to tear him apart. He hadn’t thought about how their treatment toward her would have affected her sensitive spirit. She had already told him about how she could feel the emotional energies from the others as if they were her own. The aggression, the disappointment, and the tension must have been eating away at her.

  Tenderness was the only way to approach Katey now. Logan found it hard to swallow but managed to gesture toward the fridge. “Is there any more left in there?” he asked, trying to not make this trip downstairs about her at all. He was also careful to keep his tone as neutral as possible, despite his still bruised ego.

  Katey blinked, obviously caught off guard by his question and then nodded before she turned back to her own snack.

  Logan pushed aside his nerves and put one foot in front of the other, keeping his distance from Katey while he retrieved a couple of slices of meat. He sat down across from her, leaning against the cabinets beneath the sink. Suddenly, it was as if they were strangers again and all the jitters of first love rattled his body. His stomach churned and lungs begged for more air like her beauty had stolen the oxygen out of the room.

  Her eyes were cast down, and Logan would have given his world to see her look up at him with love and happiness again. What he wouldn’t give to know what she was thinking right then. How could he have been so selfish to hurt her like that again? He had screwed up their relationship before, but somehow this seemed far worse than any of those other times.

  Seconds ticked by and they said nothing to each other. He hadn’t even taken a bite of the roast beef in his hand yet. Even if he had tried to eat, he was sure nothing would make it down his swollen throat. If he wasn’t going to eat, then he had to speak. The silence could not continue like this.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice thick and low.

  Katey let out a tight breath and shook her head. “I don’t even know,” she replied softly.

  It felt as if they had been down this road before, back before he had bitten her. He remembered dancing with her in the wrestling gym at school and how she had confessed to feeling so depressed and alone before he came into her life. He remembered knowing right then and there that he would do everything in his power to make sure she never felt that way again. Yet, here he was, breaking his vow.

  “I’m sorry for the things I said last night,” he said. “Everyone has been giving you a hard time, and you didn’t need the same from me.”

  Katey finally looked up, and Logan felt his heart flutter in his chest. “You were just trying to help. Everyone’s been trying to help, and I haven’t been listening. I should be the one apologizing for being the problem child of the pack.”

  Logan wanted to laugh, but the tortured look in her eye stopped him. He used to be the problem child of the pack. Since she had come along, he’d had a reason to set aside his insubordinate attitude – if nothing but to set an example, as Dustin had advised him to do on the night after Logan changed Katey.

  “You’re not a problem child,” he consoled. “It takes time to get used to the way the pack system works.”

  Katey closed her eyes and sighed, her head listing to the side as if she were tired. “Everyone has been saying these things take time, but I don’t want them to. I’m tired of waiting for things to start magically working the way they should.”

  “It takes work, Katey. It won’t just happen overnight.” Logan had to keep his tone in check, to show her he wasn’t trying to start another argument.

  Katey drew up her knees and crossed her arms over them, the meat still clinched in her fingers. “I know, and that’s what frustrates me the most.” She opened her eyes, but her gaze did not lift from the tile floor. “I had another dream about my dad.”

  Logan straightened his shoulders against the wood cabinet door behind him. “Was it t
he same one as before?”

  She shook her head. “No. He told me to respect Darren as the alpha like I would respect him as my father. I don’t even know where to begin to do any of that.” Logan heard the building emotions in her words and her eyes watered. “He said he was proud of me for changing on my own. He’s the first one to actually congratulate me for what I did.”

  Logan could no longer keep his distance when he saw the tear roll down her cheek. He set his meat on the counter and crawled to her side. When he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, Katey’s defenses fell, and she began to silently weep into his chest. He couldn’t understand why she was crying, but he wasn’t about to pry into the corners of her heart that these tears were springing from.

  He wasn’t sure what to say. Her father had been dead for eighteen years. Logan knew nothing about the afterlife or what spiritual forces could allow anyone to communicate with the dead. When Katey had first told him about the dreams, he wondered if they were just manifestations of what she wanted to see, pulled from her death experience. Now, he wondered if this dream had been a true visitation from her father or if it was just what she needed to hear.

  The idea convicted him. He should have been the first to tell her that he was proud of what she had accomplished. Instead, he wouldn’t even look at her. Even if he didn’t mean it, he should have been supportive. At least he had a chance now to make up for his mistake.

  “When Darren told me you changed on your own, I was so surprised,” he said. “I was surprised, but scared that you were in danger, too.”

  Katey sniffled and curled against his side like a child seeking protection and comfort. “I shouldn’t have run away and tried on my own,” she whimpered.

  “But you’re safe now. That’s what matters.” Logan braced himself for a white lie. “I am proud of you for changing on your own.”

  Katey looked up, her eyelashes damp with tears and cheeks glistening in the dim light that came through the kitchen window. “No, you’re not,” she corrected. “I know you’re mad about it just like everyone else is.”