Page 62 of Blood of a Huntsman

Underneath It All

Bash couldn't stop smiling as they headed back to the dorms. He didn't think he'd ever seen anyone get the better of Jack that way.

"What?" Catherine snapped.

He might have been staring for too long.

"I'm just amazed by the extent of your apathy. I didn't think it was possible for anyone to hear a sad story and react with so little compassion. Do you kick puppies, too?"

Catherine rolled her eyes. "Your friend didn't need compassion. He's feeling sorry enough for himself. He needed a reality check."

"Like me," Bash added.

She shrugged. "Think what you will. I can show compassion. To those whose misery isn’t of their own making."

Fast as they were, they reached the doors in no time. Bash found that he didn't want to say goodbye quite yet. Even though he had a paper to write, and apparently, a self-defense class to prepare for, he liked Catherine's company.

"Shall we play a game?"He immediately regretted the question.

She didn't look like the type of person who enjoyed wasting her time like that.

"What sort of a game?"

He shrugged. "A videogame. There are some in the common room. Not sure which. Or chess, if you prefer. You'd definitely have a better chance of winning at that, I'd wager."

Catherine shrugged. "Sure thing. Let's try a video game."

The woman was seriously annoying.Was there anything she didn't excel at?

"Again," he growled, pressing the button to start a new challenge.

He hadn’t played the racing track in a while, but after a single race, where he'd happily smashed her by a full minute, Catherine had memorized all commands. She pulled moves he'd never seen in his life, shoving her car at just the right angle to hit a code up in the air and then reappearing a mile up the road.

"What the hell was that?"

"No one likes a sore loser."

"No one likes a perfect Barbie robot, damn you!"

She snorted. "As far as insults go, I'm sure you could do better."

Losing again, although it had been his best time, he threw the remote control across the sofa. Time to admit defeat and lick his wounds.

Bash glared at Catherine.

"Admit it. You played that game before."

She grinned. "Only for fifteen years or so."

Bash laughed, half relieved, because maybe she was human after all, and half incredulous. She really didn't strike him as the sort of woman who could let her hair down and chill. But then again, he'd seen her room. And he knew she loved to pause and watch all sorts of creatures.

There were two Catherines, he realized. The cold, unfeeling front she showed to the world, and the other one. Softer. Not kinder, exactly, but certainly more real. He wondered how many people got to see her.He wondered how many people got to touch her.

But he couldn’t.

“You can be kind of fun, Stormhale. When you want to."

She snorted. "That's a far leap from hating me a week ago."

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