Protect || Stiles Stilinski DISCONTINUED

Protect || Chapter Seven

          "You'll catch flies like that, Stilinski.  Come on, we're here to skate, right?" Kat laughed, pulling him along with her as she started gliding around the rink.  The pair laughed as Stiles struggled to keep up with Kat.  He grabbed onto her hands and arms to keep himself balanced, but thanks to his clumsiness, they had suddenly wound up flat on the ice, shaking with giggles and tangled in one another.
          Stiles, still laughing, sat up on his elbow and looked down at Kat, whose lips were spread into a grin so large as she looked up at him.  For one of the first times since she moved back to Beacon Hills, she felt like a normal teenager again.  Stiles stared at her, taking in each feature of her face.  She went to ask what he was doing, still grinning slightly as he started leaning his face down towards hers.

          Katarina found herself waking up at the crack of dawn, short of breath and hands shaking.  That was the third time she woke up that night, all from the same memory.  Her feelings were different each time, though.

          The first time, she was longing to feel his lips on hers, craving the feeling of finally kissing him.  She had found herself thinking that his lips would be incredibly soft.  The second time, she was angry that he hadn't plucked up the courage and kissed her before Lydia started freaking out.  And the third time, she was a weird mixture of sad and stressed and was debating getting up and marching over to the Stilinski house right then.  The only thing stopping her was Kota's head resting peacefully on her stomach and her paws fidgeting as she chased a squirrel in her dream.  She knew Kota was just as stressed as she was and couldn't bring herself to wake her.

          Later that morning, the stresses of the night before hadn't slowed down one bit.  And when Kat's phone was blown up with texts from Stiles telling her that Boyd was gone from school and his theory that he was the third new wolf, she knew that it was only the beginning.  As she exited her last class before lunch, she nearly ran face-first into Stiles.  She tripped, scared from unexpectedly finding him there and stumbled over her feet as she tried to regain her balance.  He spastically reached out and gripped her waist to keep her steady.

          The closeness of them made her thickly swallow as she looked up at him.  She somehow found her voice and disregarded her moment of clumsiness, "What's the plan?"

          "Still thinking of that," Stiles courtly said, letting one hand grab hers as he started leading her through the crowded halls.  Kat glanced at their hands, noticing that he had slipped his fingers through the spaces between hers, almost as if he had done it a thousand times before.  But, besides the warm feeling spreading through her body, she couldn't shake the tension that was still between them.  After Stiles dropped everyone off at the McCall house the night before, he immediately left for his own, and Kat didn't want to have to call him and discuss the almost kiss over the phone.

          Kat was starting to feel that Annie was right, that she should stop dragging this on and make time for her and Stiles.  She thought back to when Scott was first bitten, when all of this was brand new to all of them.  She had told Scott that he couldn't put his life on hold, and now she was doing the same.  It made her laugh how similar they really were.

          She shook herself from her thoughts, adjusting her bag on her shoulder as she and Stiles maneuvered through the cafeteria.  Scott and Annie were seated at their usual table.  Stiles clamped a hand down on Scott's shoulder, sternly saying his name and making sure he stayed in his seat.  He pointed to the table two down from theirs, "Do you see that?"

          "What?  It's an empty table," Scott sighed.  Even he was getting tired of the stress of it all, that much could be heard in his voice.

          "Yeah, but who's empty table?" Stiles pressed.

          Annie and Scott shared a look of realization and Scott let out a breath, "Boyd."