One instant she was running toward Bass, screaming, the next she was a wolf. A savage cry left her before she sank her teeth into the wolf. They tumbled away, Katalina tearing at the wolf. The anger she’d been bottling up poured out of her. It was only when the wolf beneath her changed back to human that she stopped.
“Please, Kat, stop,” the man before her gurgled as he choked on his blood.
Katalina changed back to human, her naked body covered in the blood of Jackson’s enforcer.
“Tell Jackson, if he ever sends someone after me again, I’ll tell the police he kidnapped me, and if you ever attack me or Bass again, I will kill you!” She spoke each word slowly, her teeth gritted, her body trembling with anger.
Only when the enforcer nodded, did she go to Bass. He’d changed back into his human form; blood covered half his body.
“Bass?” Katalina gasped, her anger washed away with bone chilling fear. “Oh, God, please be okay.”
She hooked her arms under his armpits, lifting him up, dragging him toward her house. She might have been stronger now, but Bass was so much larger than her. She could only drag him. It seemed to take an eternity to get him inside the house. She dragged him into her bedroom, lifting him as gently as possible onto the bed.
When she switched on the light, she saw the full extent of his injuries. His left side had been ripped to shreds, chunks of flesh missing. His shoulder was nothing but blood, his skin deathly pale. Katalina stumbled back, her hands covering her mouth as a strangled cry left her lips.
“Oh, God…oh, God…ambulance…” Her fingers shaking, she scrambled for the phone. The trembling in her hands traveled down her body until she could barely stand.
She picked up the phone and was about to dial the numbers when Bass’s fingers brushed lightly against her leg. “No…no ambulance.” His hand fell limp, fingers stained with a mixture of blood and dirt. She stared at his unmoving hand, her breaths rapid and broken. The phone fell from her grip, clattering to the floor. “Bass?” she whispered.
But he didn’t answer her. The only sign he was still alive were the shallow rises of his chest. Her knees gave out and her body trembled as she struggled to breathe. Lifting her head, she looked at the pale face of the boy she loved, and dragged air into her lungs, forcing herself to calm down.
“Get yourself together, Kat. He needs you,” she said to herself.
Heaving a lungful of oxygen inside her, she found the strength to stand. Giving Bass one last glance, she raced out of the room. Katalina found the medical kit and filled the largest bowl she could find with warm water.
Returning to her room, Bass hadn’t moved. On her cream bed spread, his body was outlined in vivid crimson. Spreading the contents of the medical kit over the floor, Katalina growled in frustration. There was nothing for severe wounds. Swearing, she ran back out of the room and to the laundry cupboard, grabbing the nearest sheet she saw. She returned and began to cut and tear the sheet into strips.
As carefully as she could, Katalina used a dampened strip of sheet and cleaned his wounds as best as she could, soon turning the bowl of water scarlet. Once she’d finished, she stood back and observed him, her shadow wolf pale and broken.
She felt numb. The scene before her couldn't be real. How could her strong, wild wolf be injured? He was an untamed force; always there ready to protect her.
This is all my fault. She looked at the various strips of sheet tied tightly around his middle, his shoulder a patchwork of gauze dressings.
I've broken him, all to hold onto an impossible dream, a life that can never be mine again. Please, be okay, Bass. Please hold on for me.
Katalina slipped on Bass’s abandoned shirt, and picking up a blanket, she climbed in the bed beside him. She left the clutter and chaos for the morning. At that moment, she was emotionally and physically drained. Curled up next to him, as close as she could without touching, she watched the shallow rise and fall of his chest, each breath a sign he was with her, that he was still holding onto life.
*****
“Kat?”
A brush against her side as light as a feather…
“K-Kat?”
Katalina gasped awake, shooting into a sitting position. Her eyes wide with fear, her heart desperate to leap from her chest.
“Bass?” she whispered.
His eyes flickered open, the smallest of smiles appearing on his lips.
“Oh, thank God! I…I thought I was going to…lose you, too,” she sobbed.
His fingers brushed lightly against hers. “Shifter, silly,” he whispered.
“How do you feel? Can I get you anything?” she said in rapid fire, already out of bed and halfway to the door.