15. Bastian
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BASTIAN
I t was purely physical , Isolde had said. It won’t happen again .
The words echoed in Bastian’s head as he hiked through the forest the following day. He couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out why he kept hearing them.
Over and over again, they tumbled through his head, coupled with the way Isolde’s face had fallen when he told her he wouldn’t be there for patrol. He’d been pretending not to look at her, but he saw it anyway.
He couldn’t decide if the image of that was better or worse than the memory of Everett with a hawthorn stake in hand, poised to drive it through Isolde’s heart. Bastian had moved on instinct, diving for his brother the second Everett had laid hands on her, but if he’d been even a second slower…
It would have been an all-out war between the Vampires and the Wolves if Everett had killed her.
That was why he’d had to fight past the violent urge to tear Everett’s head clean off his shoulders—why it had taken everything Bastian had to kick his brother out without doing anything worse to him for daring to lay a hand on her. That’s what he told himself, anyway.
But it didn’t explain the way his heart had clenched at that vacant, terrified look in Isolde’s eyes after the fact, when she was so clearly in the grip of some unpleasant memory, or at the way she’d cowered when he picked the stake up off the floor.
Stupid. Totally stupid, ridiculous, and downright foolish of him to be thinking about any of that. He didn’t fucking care if she felt nothing but lust for him, or if Everett had touched her, or what that hollow-eyed fear he kept catching glimpses of was about. He didn’t .
Bastian tried his best to force all thoughts of Isolde out of his head as he traveled south.
He wouldn’t go far enough to set even one foot in Wolf territory, but he wanted to be good and clear of the village.
Hopefully once he made the change, his Wolf form would have enough sense to head back north, instead of going south, and by the time the moon sank and he turned human again, he’d be near Bloodhaven.
He knew of a little hollow to the southwest, thick with roots and surrounded by pines, where he could settle in and wait for the moon to rise.
Only one other person knew of it, but after yesterday, he couldn’t imagine Everett would come anywhere near their old hideout.
He’d be making the change at home with Anselm and the rest of the pack.
It took Bastian the full day to to reach the hollow, and it was nearing dusk when he finally settled in a sheltered nook between tree roots to wait. He’d brought bread and cheese and apples, but he didn’t feel much like eating.
Isolde’s voice was still echoing in his head when the moon came into view through a gap in the trees. It was purely physical, he heard her say, as the first bone snapped. Her face flashed in his mind with the second one, her blue eyes wide and terrified.
Bastian screamed as the agony overtook him, and even that wasn’t enough to drown her out.