“What do you want to know?”
“Anything, tell me about yourself. How old are you? Where’d you go to school? All I know is you’re a shifter and we’re supposed to make wolf babies.”
“You laugh at that, yet I’ve been told that for as long as I can remember; our childhoods were obviously very different. Well, where to start? I’m eighteen, like you, my birthday is June third, and I was homeschooled like most of the pack kids. I’m one of the best fighters in the pack—”
“Why are most kid’s homeschooled?”
“It’s just easier to keep our secret that way. When kids shift when they’re young, sometimes they find the change hard to control.”
“Isn’t it isolating being cut off from the real world?”
Cage laughed softly. “We’re not cut off, Kat, but we aren’t human. We’re shifters. Pack is family; we look after each other. You’ve been brought up differently, but that doesn’t mean the way I was is wrong.”
“I didn’t mean it was. I just…I’m trying to imagine myself here, and I don’t fit.”
“Where do you fit, Kat?”
Where do I fit? She didn’t know. She’d loved her life, her family but she’d always felt as if she didn’t belong. She still hadn’t decided what to do when she left school. She’d always put it down to being adopted and not knowing where she’d come from.
“I don’t know,” Katalina whispered.
“Hey Kat, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Katalina sighed, “I’m fine. It’s just…I feel like I’m adrift, nothing seems real. I keep waiting to wake up. My parents died, Cage. Two days ago, I was sitting in the back of the car laughing with them, and now, they’re gone and no one seems to acknowledge that. I feel as if Jackson just expects me to move on and be grateful I have the pack, but I can’t do that. I want to go home. I want to say goodbye to my parents with the rest of my family. I don’t belong here. I belong with the people who’ll understand exactly how I feel.”
He rubbed his fingers across her face. “Get better, Katalina, and then I’ll talk to Jackson, okay?”
She wasn’t sure Jackson would listen, but it made her happy that Cage was willing to talk to him. Yet she wished he’d just take her back home. The thought made her mind wander to Bass; he’d said he’d take her home. Why is Bass willing to break the rules and Cage not? Urgh, I need to stop thinking.
“Tell me a story, Cage.”
“What?”
“Please, distract me. Tell me anything, something nice, so I can fall to sleep.”
“Okay, here goes… Once upon a time, there was a little boy who was told he’d been chosen for a very special task; when he grew up, he was to marry a special girl with silver-blonde hair and eyes of crystal. The little boy grew up waiting for the day he’d meet her, hoping he’d be worthy of her, and when that day finally came, she was more beautiful than he could have ever imagined. They spent the rest of their lives running through the forest as wolves; darting through the trees, happy, free…”
Katalina drifted off, dreaming about a little boy she’d wished she’d known, but her dreams twisted and changed, and soon she was back in the car, burning metal all around her and the shadows of her parents hanging limply in the upside down vehicle. Someone was shouting her name over and over, grabbing her…
“Kat, wake up!” Her eyes shot open. She tried to focus on Cage’s face, to leave the past behind but it pulled her back. She felt as if she were burning, as if she were still surrounded by melting metal.
“Kat, you’re okay. It’s just a dream.” His hands brushed hair from her face, stroking her gently.
“I’m burning,” she croaked.
“No, Kat, you’re here. You’re safe.”
“No, Cage, I’m burning. I’m so hot, my head…it hurts.”
“Okay, okay, I’m going to get Karen.”
He whistled low, like Toby had done when he’d found her that first night. Karen rushed into the room seconds later. “Cage, what’s wrong?”
“She’s burning and she says her head hurts.”
Kat tried to concentrate on their voices but her head felt too thick; it was as if there was an invisible wall between them, blocking out their voices and blurring their faces.
“…infected…”, “…drip…”, “…water…” Words floated around her but nothing made sense. She drifted in and out of consciousness. There was a sudden contact of cold against her forehead and it eased the throbbing slightly, while Cage’s face came in and out of focus above her.