Wolf Bonded

by Eden Beck

  I know what they’re doing, but I need to know. I have to know.

  I repeat my question, this time, forcing myself in front of Lydia so she has to look at me.

  “What’s a shame? Tell me.”

  Her face turns to me, but it still has that far-off look when she finally finishes what she started out to say.

  “That you and my sons—Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb—you can never be together.”

  26

  Sabrina

  “Tell me, Rory! I deserve to know what she meant back there when she said we couldn’t be together.”

  I could cut the air with a knife, and this time, it wouldn’t even need to be magical.

  Not one of them will look at me.

  They finally managed to drag me out of the living room, out past the winding tree staircase in the foyer and out into the cold night air. It feels shockingly cold now, far colder than it was when I arrived not too long ago.

  Now, here with these three avoiding answering me, it’s positively frigid.

  “Marlowe? Kaleb?”

  I’ve let a lot of things go, waited patiently for answers in the past. This is not one of those times.

  When the three of them still don’t leap to answer me, I throw my hands up in the air in a show of dramatics.

  “Fine then, if you aren’t going to tell me …”

  I start towards the front door again, catching a glimpse of Romulus and Lydia in some kind of heated discussion themselves through a sliver of the doorway on the other side of the glass. I don’t get close enough to make out what they’re saying, however, before three pairs of arms reach out instinctively towards me.

  I shrink back, just out of reach, and cross my arms in front of my chest.

  “Well then?”

  I glare at each of them in turn, watching as they squirm under my gaze. I finally settle back on Rory.

  “Is it because I’m a human and you’re not?”

  Even though the other two, Marlowe and Kaleb, still look like they’d rather take off into the surrounding forest and wait this whole thing over, Rory finally nods at me and lets out a sigh.

  “Yes.”

  “But, I mean, we’re not really all that different, are we?”

  I feel a lump rising in the back of my throat, and I try as hard as I can to force it back down. Now isn’t the time for tears. If I break out bawling, I know I’ll never get a straight answer.

  Rory takes in a breath and lets it out with carefully controlled measure.

  His gaze flickers back up to the windows, and I briefly look after him. Lydia and Romulus have stopped fighting.

  “We should head back inside,” Marlowe says, his features softening as he finally glances over at me. “I mean, she already knows, so it can’t get any worse.”

  As if sensing my rising panic at his words, Kaleb is suddenly at my side. He’s no longer looking away, avoiding my eyes. The intensity with which he looks at me makes a cold shiver run down my spine.

  “Wait here a minute, then, I promise Sabrina, we’ll explain everything.”

  Rory shares a quick, knowing look with his brothers before he heads inside and can be seen talking heatedly to his parents for a moment.

  I shift, uncomfortable in my own skin.

  I should have known this would happen. I don’t know what I was expecting.

  I’m the foreign creature here, the outsider, the misfit. I don’t know how I could have expected anything else.

  Kaleb’s hand squeezes mine, prompting me to look back up from where I’ve fixated on a weed growing through a crack in the front driveway.

  When they’re able to coax me back inside, it’s with no small amount of trepidation.

  There’s no longer any air of this being some sort of regular birthday party. The decorations, already sparse, now look positively bare. The only one who seems happy with the change in atmosphere is Romulus.

  Then again, I’m pretty sure anything that makes me unhappy is going to have the adverse effect on him. As I now shift more uncomfortably than ever on the floor in front of them, Romulus finally looks fully settled in.

  And why shouldn’t he? This is his domain, after all.

  I’m the intruder here.

  Lydia keeps almost reaching out to me and then retreating a bit, unsure of what she’s supposed to do with me now. Whereas the rest of them are at least trying to look normal, she can’t hide the near-overwhelming guilt and … unless I’m mistaken … shame on her face.

  “Sabrina …”

  The apology in her voice makes my temper flare.

  “Stop,” I say, hastily, squirming where I sit. “Please … just … I want to know.” My voice cracks a bit, forcing me to stop myself while I look for the right words. When they finally come out, they’re strained—strained enough to make a pained look flicker across all three Gray boy’s faces.

  “I just want to know what’s so wrong with me that I couldn’t possibly be with your sons.”

  “It’s less about who you are, and more about what you are.” It’s Romulus who beats the rest of them to an answer. He leans forward in his seat, one hand reaching up to stroke the bottom half of his face. “How much do you know about shifters?”

  A silence has fallen over the rest of them.

  “Only that—”

  He cuts me off. “Did you know, for instance, that we far outlive humans?” Now he glances up at me, wanting, I’m sure, to measure my reaction. “Often by up to three, four … even five hundred years.”

  My mouth drops open, unable to find the words as my mind reels over what he just said.

  Romulus motions around him to the half-hearted decorations. “Is it any wonder that after a hundred and four years, the whole birthday charade just gets a little stale?”

  “I guess not,” I say, my voice sounding small and insignificant in the wake of what I’ve just been told. I can still feel the look of shock on my face. I turn to Kaleb and look at him, wondering how old he really is, how old they all are.

  “Don’t worry,” Marlowe laughs on my other side, reading my expression correctly. “The three of us are all only seventeen.”

  “Yes,” Romulus scolds. “Which is why they frequently don’t know any better.”

  “We’re not pups, Romulus,” Rory snaps back at him.

  “Then perhaps you should stop acting as recklessly as one,” Romulus says. I guess time has only served to make him more serious, more worried, more protective.

  Lydia rolls her eyes at the father-son bickering, her own voice finally returning to her. “Werewolves come to be in one of two ways,” she says. “They can breed, as humans do, or they can be made by being bitten. I, myself, was made. And I was fortunate enough to find and fall in love with Romulus and create this family, this pack, that you see here. But most turned wolves aren’t so lucky. Most of us are hated and treated as outcasts.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “Why would anyone hate you?”

  “There’s a very powerful stigma attached with being a turned wolf. Werewolves that have been made are frequently more prone to unchecked violence.”

  “It’s difficult to retain control when you are forced to shift into a wolf during the full moon,” Rory jumps in, his face set stoically forward. He’s gone back to staring straight ahead, not looking at me, but the way his hands worry at the edges of the pillow in front of him gives away his restless thoughts.

  “For many of us, that makes us unpredictable and more dangerous than pure blood wolves,” Lydia continues. “Which is why most of them are taught to hate us from very early on. We’re seen as a lesser species.”

  “Not to mention the fact that one wayward shifter could turn an innumerable number of humans in one lifetime,” Romulus adds. “Just think of that, the damage that just one reckless shifter could do over the course of a four or five-hundred-year lifetime.”

  I nod along, though more out of lack of knowing what other way I’m supposed to respond.

  I hadn’t re
ally considered what it meant for me to be a human among shifters. I knew there would be differences … but now …

  I glance over at the boys, and I for the first time, I feel the widening gulf between us. I know this just scratches the surface of the disparities between us, but somehow, it doesn’t affect me as much as it should. On the outside, we look the same. On the inside, at least I think, we feel the same too.

  “Which is also why it is absolutely forbidden to turn a human,” Romulus adds. The way he eyes me makes me realize that this is the answer to my unspoken question, the one I hadn’t fully realized myself.

  And there it is.

  The reason I can never be with the boys.

  Even if the other differences can eventually be overcome, this one … this one will eventually become too much. I could never be with one of the boys, not because they’re wolf-shifters and I am not, but rather because they’ll live to be hundreds of years old, and I’ll soon grow old and feeble. By the time they’re even considered to be adults, I’ll have already begun to gray.

  Soon after that, while they’re still in their prime, I’ll die.

  My throat feels tight, my mouth dry.

  As long as I’m human, there’s no future for us. I don’t have to look into Rory, Marlowe, or Kaleb’s faces to know they feel it too.

  “What happens if someone breaks that rule?” I ask, trying to keep my voice from betraying the way I feel like the whole world is on the brink of shattering around me. “What happens if a shifter turns a human?”

  “No one breaks that rule anymore,” Romulus answers stiffly. He takes a second to glare at each one of his sons in turn. “That rule is in place for a reason, and the packs govern each other accordingly. If a pack were to start turning humans again, it would be the equivalent of waging war.”

  Now he looks at me. “And war with the full-blooded packs is not a war we’d win.”

  “But you have a turned wolf in your own pack with Lydia, don’t you?”

  I should probably temper the bluntness of my questions. I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to understand … at least begin to understand.

  Instead of getting angry with me, Romulus surprisingly smiles at Lydia. When he speaks about her, his voice quiets.

  “Yes,” he says gently as he stares lovingly at her. “And Lydia has taught me to be a better man than I ever thought possible. I had been taught to hate anyone like her, any wolf that had once been human and was turned unnaturally.”

  He stops a second, before his voice can begin to shake.

  “But she softened my heart. She taught me how to care for all of us, no matter how we came to be.” Romulus paused and then changes his glance to meet mine. “She also reminded me of the dangers. And I’m not willing to risk my pack. I wish to keep peace, regardless of how my sons, or even I, feel.”

  “You think that I’m a risk?” I ask carefully. I can feel Kaleb lean closer in, as if he’s ready to throw himself between his father and I if things take a turn for the worse.

  “I think that my boys are all so strongly attached to you now that you’ve put us all at risk, whether you meant to or not. But,” he adds as a caveat. “I have no intention of harming you anymore. Not now that they’ve told me about the bond.”

  He shoots Lydia a look, and for the first time, I see a little bit of tension there between them.

  Well, that’s good to know at least. Now I don’t need to worry about being murdered by Romulus.

  Not that I knew to worry about that until tonight.

  My life is ridiculously out of control at this point. I guess this does explain why that girl in the woods was acting so concerned and aggressive. She’s probably from one of those “full-blooded” packs that Romulus is referring to. She probably suspected the boys of trying to turn me into a werewolf.

  I wonder what she would have done to me if they hadn’t been around to protect me.

  Probably exactly what Romulus was planning.

  “So,” I say, not knowing what else to ask or how to move on from here. “What happens now?”

  Romulus laughs, and I realize I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh before.

  “You go to high school, be a teenager. Spend time with my sons, or don’t. That’s up to you. They’ll keep you safe. And Sabrina,” he says, becoming more serious now. “I know I couldn’t stop that from happening, even if I wanted to, but believe me when I say that the safety of my pack comes before all else. I won’t let anyone jeopardize that, not even you. Not even the bond.”

  There’s a moment where I think he’s going to say something more. It’s right there, in his eyes, something he isn’t telling me. But then it passes. That light in his eyes dies, replaced by an unfeeling coolness that seeps into his voice.

  “You can’t tell anyone what we’ve told you here tonight. No one. Do you understand?”

  I nod my head. Not that anyone would believe me if I did.

  27

  Marlowe

  When the night finally draws to a close, I’m honestly surprised Sabrina is still here with us.

  Rory might have convinced her to come inside earlier, after Lydia so helpfully broke the unfortunate news of our entanglement, but I don’t quite think he’s convinced her to stay. She’s grown increasingly quiet as the night wears on until she stops talking entirely.

  It must be well after midnight now.

  I’ve moved so close to Kaleb throughout the night that our shoulders now touch, pressing together to form the perfect place for Sabrina to rest. I catch a whiff of her shampoo, of lilacs and raspberries, from where her head lays nestled up between us.

  Her body feels almost cold compared to mine. Her skin, delicate and fragile, lets off the tiniest hint of heat with every flutter of her closing eyelids. To everyone else, she might just look tired, just grateful to have a shoulder to lean up against, but I know otherwise.

  I know, when she finally gets to her feet and stretches her slender arms up above her head with a muttered excuse about not staying out too late—for her mother’s sake—that something’s still wrong.

  “I really should be going,” she says again, another pantomimed yawn turning into a real one. I have to fight the urge myself. It’s the middle of the month, close to the new moon.

  None of us has much energy tonight.

  But still, I expect to feel Rory or Kaleb stiffen at her words. Surely, they sense thing same thing I do.

  Or maybe not.

  Kaleb is currently so excited, his body buzzing with the lingering remnant of her touch, and Rory …

  Rory is locked in this never-ending battle of self. He’s taking this all worse than anyone.

  The only exception, of course, being Sabrina.

  Something’s still on her mind.

  And if I leave it to fester, this might be the last night I get to hold her close.

  The kind thing to do would be to let her leave. Let her mind wander and her fears, her uncertainties, take hold. They’re justified, after all.

  But as much as the sweet smell of her shampoo might fill my lungs with each breath, it isn’t enough to mask the scent of the bond. For whatever reason, the rest of my family, my pack, has skirted around this issue all night. It’s some sort of clever dance they’re doing. They tell her one piece of information, one vague half-truth, and then withdraw … leaving her floundering.

  I know they’re doing it to try to spare her some kind of pain, or out of some respect for our own secretive traditions, but it’s not doing her any favors.

  This girl … as much as everyone’s trying to avoid admitting it … is my mate. She might be shared with my brothers, this bond might tie me to them nearly as much as it does to her, but that doesn’t negate the fact that as inconvenient as this pairing is, this is it.

  It won’t happen again.

  Not for me. Not for us.

  Not in this lifetime.

  Rory gets to his feet beside Sabrina, his muscles pulling tired and slow. “I’ll drive you hom
e.”

  “Actually,” I say, forcing my own body to spring to life as I get up beside them. “We should walk. You, me, Kaleb, and Sabrina. Sabrina, you don’t mind, do you?”

  She looks a little surprised to be asked.

  I blame Rory. He’s not very accustomed to the concept of choice.

  Pack hierarchy, and all that.

  He’s grown all too comfortable with ordering us all—including Sabrina—around.

  The night air seems to wake us all up as soon as we step outside. Overhead, the sky is a blanket of tiny stars. No moon shines over us tonight.

  Not that I mind. It means no itching in my own skin to shift into a wolf.

  I grab a coat from the back of Rory’s Jeep and help Sabrina shrug it over her shaking shoulders. For late spring, the air is still cold enough to make a human girl shiver.

  She doesn’t look at me when she takes it, a gesture that makes the growing pit in my stomach grow even heavier.

  “We could still drive you,” Rory says, one hand already reaching towards the door of his car.

  But Sabrina shakes her head, and I take it as a good sign.

  “No, Marlowe was right. We should walk.”

  It’s as if, for the first time, my brothers sense the unease in her.

  We’ve barely walked ten paces before she breaks the silence again.

  “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  We all stop suddenly.

  Sabrina stands in the middle of the clearing, still a few paces from the edge of the dark forest. She’s shaking again, but it’s no longer from the cold.

  When she finally looks up from the damp ground, her eyes are glittering with unshed tears. “I don’t understand what it is you want from me.”

  Kaleb takes a half step toward her, but she flinches away. “Stop,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. “It isn’t fair. You hold all the cards … and you keep telling me just enough to barely hold on. I won’t be strung along on some fairytale that’s guaranteed to have a bad ending.”

  Her breath rises above her in a cloud, and I understand.