by Eden Beck
Vivian looks around at the boys, who have all been sitting silently listening as she talks with me.
“You’re scared of that too,” she says. “All of you are. You want her.”
Who really is she?
This time, I don’t think it out of anger.
“It doesn’t matter how much we want her, she can’t—” Rory starts to say, but Vivian isn’t afraid to cut him off too.
“Oh, shut up,” she says half-playfully and half-serious. “You know you can’t bullshit me. The three of you want her to become a shifter, too. You can’t bear the thought of not being with her in every way. It’ll happen.”
I glance over my shoulder towards the door, sure Romulus is going to reappear in the doorway any second and put a stop to this.
“No,” Rory says adamantly. “It won’t.
“Don’t listen to him,” Vivian says to me, rolling her eyes at Rory. “If you know what you want, you can’t give up on it. No matter what they try to tell you.”
Vivian is the first one to ever really talk to me about this. I thought it would make me more uncomfortable, make me squirm in my seat the way the boys do now.
But it doesn’t.
Instead, it fills me with a strange new sensation.
It’s one I’m not very familiar with.
Hope.
The boys always shy away from talking about this. The very mention of it seems to pain them so much to even think about that I never really push the conversation with them.
And then there’s Romulus.
He won’t even entertain two words about it. Lydia always seems very approachable, but I don’t trust myself to bring it up with her. Not when she was the one to tell me the truth of the situation in the first place.
Not when she can read my every reaction, and certainly not when everything I say to her I’m sure will get back to Romulus before I’m ready to face him.
But Vivian didn’t give me a choice in the matter. She doesn’t seem to care what makes others uncomfortable. In fact, she seems to enjoy digging into places that others avoid.
She just dove right in and peeled away everything but the truth.
“It’s not good to get her hopes up,” Marlowe says, suddenly. I feel my heart sink as I look over at him. He’s speaking quietly, painfully. “Rory’s right, no matter how much any of us want to be fully together, turning Sabrina just isn’t an option.”
Vivian gives both boys a glare but I feel my heart sink further. As much as Vivian pushes, I know how this will end. I know, deep down, that this is a losing battle.
“She’s a part of us no matter what,” Kaleb says as he pulls me back up against him and wraps his arms around the front of my chest. “Shifter or not, we aren’t going anywhere, and Sabrina is with us. She’s a part of our pack now.”
“If you say so,” Vivian says. She doesn’t try to hide her own doubt from her voice.
The boys try to shift the conversation back to normal, talking about their upcoming graduation and the eclipse ritual. Vivian seems to have moved on from the topic of turning me as well.
But I haven’t.
Something has changed since she got here. At first, I thought it was just jealousy over a pretty new girl that seemed to be garnering the boys’ attention, but now I realize that it is much, much more than that.
I don’t realize what it is until later when I find myself under the cold sheets of my loft back at the cabin. Here, alone under the skylight looking up at the stars surrounded by their painted counterparts, I feel the conversation earlier reverberating in my very bones.
Vivian has made me realize what it feels like to truly NOT be a part of the pack.
As much as the boys can say that I am and try to make me feel welcome into their family, it’s an empty gesture.
I’m more like a pet than a pack member.
Without being turned, I will never be completely with them. They won’t be able to help but to exclude me. Even now, they can’t take me through the territories now that the other packs have started moving through. I can’t be by their side through the things that really matter. It won’t end with the eclipse.
Over and over, for as long as I’m with them, I’ll be excluded, whether intentionally or not.
And more importantly, I realize just how not okay with that I am.
More important than my earlier realization, I realize for the first time how utterly unhappy I’m becoming. Not because my crazy, abusive father is still out there somewhere waiting to try and kidnap me again. Not because my mother has, for whatever reason, completely given up at being a mother. And not because I’m jealous of some beautiful girl getting attention from the boys.
I’m unhappy because I want to be her. I want to be Vivian and have her life.
I want to be able to stay with the boys through everything, through every aspect of their lives, so I know for sure that I’m not going to wake up one day to find out that they’ve disappeared for good.
I can’t feel like some sort of hindrance, that they’re always trying to keep me from getting killed and making them go up against their own kind. I don’t care what it will feel like to be turned. I don’t care what Vivian says.
That isn’t what scares me. Compared to the fears I’ve felt over the last year and a half, that’s nothing.
None of that matters to me. What matters to me is that I can’t fathom the thought of living without them now.
I can’t be without them
More than that, I want to be with them. Fully. Completely. Utterly.
They already have my heart—I want them to have the rest of me.
I want to know what it feels like for Rory, or Kaleb, or Marlowe, not to stop … not to reign themselves in out of fear of losing control when their eyes glow yellow and they’re about to make love to me.
7
Sabrina
I must not be the only one made restless by Vivian’s conversation because for the next few days, the boys stay pretty close to me despite Romulus’ constant muttered warnings.
Of course, Vivian is also staying pretty close too, and though I’ve grown to dislike her a little less, that I’m not as keen on.
It’s not that I dislike her entirely, it’s just that I still haven’t figured out what to make of her. I feel like an outsider with her, like she has some sort of special connection with them that I don’t. That I’ll never have.
It doesn’t help that she always seems to know more about what’s going on than I do.
“You know,” she says to Rory as we are all sitting around up in one of the mansion’s libraries. Marlowe had wanted to show me a book that had a beautifully illustrated history of the eclipse, so we all decided to hang out in the library for a bit while he looked for it. Not that I would have taken much convincing. “You should talk to your father about making peace with Remus.”
Rory makes a snorting sound. “That’s not likely going to happen.”
“Why shouldn’t it?” Vivian asks. “It’s been a long time now and Remus wants peace. Certainly, Romulus can’t hold ill-will against him forever.
“You don’t know my father that well then,” Rory says. “He’ll take his grievance to the grave with him if he thinks it’s justified, even if it’s against his own brother.”
I perk up instantly.
Brother?
This is the first I’ve heard of him.
“Your father has a brother?” I ask. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to imagine.
“Yes,” Rory admits, hesitating only for a moment. “Remus is the leader of the biggest North American pack. My father used to rule at his side until they had a falling-out years ago. Ever since then, he tries not to talk about Remus at all. I think he prefers to pretend that his brother no longer exists.”
“Ha,” Vivian laughs without any humor. “As if anyone could ignore the existence of Remus. I think your father should revisit the idea of making peace with him.”
Kaleb and Marlowe start to chime
in with their own thoughts, but all of their voices seem to drown out in my head. There’s still so much about them that I don’t know, so much that Vivian understands about them that I don’t, and I wonder if I’ll ever know as much about them as she does.
Things are pretty status quo for the next few days.
Mom has barely been home, but then again … neither have I. She says she’s been pulling lots of overtime at work, but she’s a pretty bad liar so I can tell she’s not being one hundred percent honest with me.
School has been going along at its usual slow crawl, with everyone looking forward to the end of the year and graduation. Even though I’ve managed to convince the boys to come back to school with me, I can tell that their focus is elsewhere. The eclipse is fast approaching, and they are much more focused on that then on their school requirements.
I don’t blame them; I’m much more focused on that too.
I’m getting increasingly restless with Vivian here and the eclipse approaching, and I’m finding it hard to concentrate on anything else.
I don’t realize how much time has passed until we find ourselves walking home from school one afternoon. Rory’s Jeep needed a new part and Romulus was going to fix it for him while we were in school, so he left the car with his dad.
Not that I minded.
It’s rare I get this much time alone with Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb. Sometimes, I think that’s the whole point of Vivian being here in the first place. Their other guest didn’t stay long, but so long as she’s here, we barely have a moment to ourselves.
Just like Romulus likes.
The walk home is brisk with the cold. The boys, ever fueled by their own inner heat, seem to enjoy it more than anyone else. While I bundle up, my hands shoved into my pockets and my face buried up into a thick knitted scarf, they can’t seem to keep their feet squarely on the path.
Their breath looks like puffs of little clouds against the cold air and they look invigorated, full of unspent energy.
The woods are beautiful. The first snowfall was just this morning and it has coated all of the trees with a light dusting of snowflakes that stick to the branches and the ends of my eyelashes.
Our moment alone doesn’t last long enough.
As soon as we near the mansion, Vivian runs out toward us and bends down quickly to scoop up a handful of snow. She chucks it straight at Kaleb, but he darts out of the way just in time for it to miss his head and hit Marlowe squarely in the chest behind him.
I know the look on their faces.
The game is on.
The three boys each grab handfuls of snow that they pack in their hands into tightly formed, irregular balls that look like they will hurt on impact. Kaleb has a mischievous grin as he whispers something to his brothers, and then all three boys smile as if they’re up to something devilish. Just as the three of them start running toward Vivian in front of the mansion, they all slightly veer off at an angle in order to surround her.
One way or another, she’s going to get hit with a snowball.
At first, I feel a slight wicked satisfaction at the thought. That thought passes, however, when I realize just how far ahead they’ve all gotten.
They’re fast, really fast; all of them. They race and dart through the snow as if they’re on four legs instead of two, the deepening snow no match for their unnatural instincts.
Just like me.
Any thought of trying to catch up disappears as they do around the corner of the house. I’m left alone at the edge of the forest—the snowy lawn stretching empty and white ahead of me.
I don’t even think they even notice.
I walk to the entrance of the mansion without them and let myself inside. There’s no fire in the hearth today, no distant clang of pans or the rustle of books.
Lydia and Romulus must be out.
I’m not used to having the house to myself. Not, at least, since that night I broke in with my old friends.
Friends. Ha.
Maybe I should’ve walked home with Jess, Aimee, and Tom. Then, at least, I might be able to ignore the gnawing ache in my chest.
When I hear their howls of laughter start to come closer from around the sides of the mansion, I duck into one of the nooks carved into the giant tree at the entrance to the house. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of pretending to include me as an afterthought. There’s been all too much of that lately. Too much forgetting until it’s too late that I’m not able to keep up.
I don’t need them to pretend I’m one of them; I know that I’m not. They’ve made that all too clear.
The space inside the tree is cool and dark. It’s large enough for me to walk deeper into, yet still snug enough for me to sit crouched in a corner with my arms wrapped around my chest. I just want to hide and be left alone. It’s funny though, because even though I tell myself that’s what I want—I know it truly isn’t.
I hear the boy’s laughter turn into a more reserved hush as it dawns on them that I’ve disappeared. None of them even say that they’re going to look for me, or act like they’re worried that something could have happened to me. Instead, Vivian says something about making hot cocoa and I hear their footsteps walk away to follow her toward the kitchen. I sit inside the alcove in the tree and pout as if I am a three-year-old again.
But not for long.
“Hey,” Kaleb says softly as his body climbs into the nook alongside mine.
I start.
“How did you know I was in here?”
I’m well aware that my voice is full of indignant bitterness, and I’m too mad and embarrassed to do anything about it.
“We all knew you were in here,” he smiles. He taps against the bridge of his nose. “Part wolf, remember?”
Right. So now I’m reminded that I smell, too.
“I couldn’t stay away from your scent if I tried.” Kaleb wraps both of his arms around me, and as much as I want to stay as icy as the roads have grown outside, I immediately start to feel a little better. “Want to tell me why you’re hiding in here?”
“Not really,” I say. I actually do really want to tell him about everything, all of my feelings and worries and desires. But sometimes it’s the hardest to talk about the things that you want the most.
Kaleb sits all the way down inside the corner of the tree and pulls me over onto his lap. I still hold my arms tightly around my torso as if I am protecting my heart inside my ribcage, both literally and figuratively. He gently unwraps my arms and holds both of my hands up against his chest. When he leans his head forward to kiss me, I can’t help but let down my defenses and pull him closer.
“You know you can tell me anything,” he whispers as he wraps his arms around my back, and I let my hands fall into his lap. He kisses me again and I feel like I want to stay in this tree forever; forever sitting in his lap and letting him kiss me softly until I don’t remember anything else.
When he slowly pulls his mouth away from mine, I look into his dark eyes and see all the things I want but can’t have. He waits patiently and quietly as his expression urges me to open up.
“It’s just that I feel so left out sometimes,” I say as I feel my eyes start to get wet. “I know that you guys say I’m a part of the pack, but let’s be real; we both know I’m really not.”
“That’s not—”
“Yes, it is,” I interrupt him. “I constantly have to watch the way you are with Vivian. She’s everything I’m not. She can do everything I can’t.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Like what?”
“Like … like …” I look up at the ceiling, searching for words. “Like, I can’t run with you during your transformations.”
“That’s what you’re worried about? Running with us during transformations?”
I let out a frustrated huff.
“Among other things. I don’t want to be left out; not with you guys, not from anything. I knew there were certain things I couldn’t do, and I was kind of okay with that … until Vivian
got here. Ever since she arrived, all I see over and over are all the things I can’t do with you.”
“But what about all the things you can do with us?” Kaleb says. I can tell that he’s just trying to make me feel better. But I want him to truly understand why I’m upset.
“Kaleb,” I say as I stare into his eyes. “Do you know what it feels like to want something that you can’t have so badly that it hurts?”
His eyes have taken on a mischievous sparkle. A low growl issues from the back of his throat.
“I think I might.”
I turn my body around in his lap so that my legs straddle either side of his waist. When I roll my hips forward and press gently against him, he groans and looks at me with cavernous eyes. I stay pushed up against him and interlock my fingers with his as I push our palms together and hold his arms against the side of the tree.
When I kiss him, he quivers. As I pull my lips from his, I talk quietly against his face and he listens with complete and deliberate attention.
“I want to be able to run with you,” I say. “I want to be able to stay with you and not have to leave just because the moon is full. I want to be able to race through the woods with you until our feet, our paws, our bodies collapse onto the forest floor. I want to be able to give in.”
My breath is hot on his skin, but not nearly as hot as his on mine. His lips are so close to my neck that I can feel them brushing against me.
“That’s what I want,” I say, softly. “And without being able to do those things with you, I’m afraid I’ll never truly have any of it.”
“Sabrina …”
Just as I feel his breath grow short and his body rigid, his hands reaching for me to pull me closer, I climb back off of his lap and stand up straight.
The look on his face … it’s heartbreaking.
Because it’s all too familiar.
There, now he understands what I mean.
8
Kaleb
Sabrina’s words echo in my mind for days.