by Eden Beck
“We just got our graduation robes in the mail,” Marlowe says, in way of explanation. “And Lydia started getting all sentimental and stuff, and she dragged out all these trip pictures from a few months ago.”
I can imagine that without a photograph. The boys’ mother is nothing if not sentimental.
Lydia is so close and emotionally vested with all the boys, even though Kaleb and Marlowe aren’t biologically hers. She seems like such a good mom. My mom, on the other hand, is lacking in quite a few parental areas. I love her, and I always will; but sometimes I wish I had a mom like Lydia. Actually, a lot of the time I wished that.
Especially ever since my own mother’s last betrayal early this spring.
As if sensing my shifting thoughts, Marlowe hops hurriedly to his feet and grabs a graduation robe from a nearby box on the floor and tosses one to Kaleb too.
Both boys get up to model their new attire while Rory sits on the hay with me and rolls his eyes at them. Kaleb starts to chant the graduation procession song while Marlowe pulls his pants off from under his robe and flings them across the barn. I laugh as he swings the tassel that came with the robe around in his hand as if he’s doing some sort of strip-tease.
“I believe that’s supposed to go on your cap,” I laugh. Rory bursts out into laughter beside me as we both egg the boys on with their pitiful attempt at entertainment. As Kaleb’s vocal processional gets louder, Marlowe starts to open his robe, one sultry flap at a time, in an overly exaggerated attempt to be provocative. Each motion just serves to make me laugh harder until I think I’m going to bruise one of my own ribs.
“What the hell is going on here?” Romulus’ voice bellows through the barn, instantly shattering the golden bubble we’ve disappeared into.
Kaleb’s song ends in a strangled note alongside us as we all turn to stare at their father.
“We were just having some fun,” Rory says from his spot next to me, his hackles instantly raised. I can practically see the wolf itching to burst forth.
Romulus doesn’t look at all amused.
He just glares around the room, his eyes seeming to narrow further as his gaze comes to rest on each one of us in turn.
“Do you have any idea what could happen if you—if any of you—” He seems unable to finish his sentence as he glares at the boys. He shakes his head as if to clear it.
“We weren’t doing anything, honestly. We were just joking around,” Marlowe says, tightly wrapping his robe around him to make sure it stays closed. But Romulus isn’t ready to ease up.
As if he ever is.
“If any of you were to mate with her—”
“We know,” Kaleb interrupts Romulus, and I’m almost shocked that he does. It seems a bit unlike him to take such a strong stance against his father, especially when Romulus is so obviously furious.
Romulus ignores the newest member of his pack and turns his glare toward Rory. “Keep a handle on your brothers,” he warns. Then he shoots a look back at Marlowe. “And put those robes back in the house before your mother finds out. She’d throw a fit if she knew what you were doing with them out here.”
I get the feeling that isn’t the case at all. I can’t imagine Lydia caring that much about the boys’ graduation robes. I’m sure it was just a more polite way of warning Marlowe to put his pants back on and stop the faux strip-tease.
Faux strip-tease. No. There was nothing fake about it. I have no doubt in my mind that Marlowe would have stripped bare if Romulus hadn’t interrupted us. Just the thought of it makes color rise in my cheeks.
Marlowe tugs his pants back on under his robe and then takes it off as Romulus walks back out of the barn, grumbling something under his breath about the boys being no better than “irresponsible pups”. Kaleb neatly folds both of their robes and sticks them back into the box, shooting only one last glance towards the door before coming to sit down with us.
“What was that all about?” I ask. “I mean, he knows we were just fooling around.”
Marlowe shrugs as he plops down onto the hay.
More importantly …
“What did he mean about mating with me?”
Kaleb laughs, but he avoids looking into my eyes. “Surely you know what mating means, Sabrina. Biology is a course at school.”
It’s my turn to roll my eyes at him. I smack him on the shoulder as well for good measure.
“Yes, I know what mating is. Give me a break. What I meant was why the giant warning from your dad?”
All three boys grow quiet in that way I’ve grown all too familiar with. I probably should just let it go, but the curiosity is killing me.
“Is it because none of you have had sex with a human before?” I ask.
The quietness turns to a silence that makes every breath in the barn sound deafeningly loud. Finally, after the stalled moment goes on a bit too long, Marlowe finally breaks it.
“Sabrina, none of us have ever had sex with anyone before.”
I don’t know what to say to that, I don’t even know what to think about that. I had just assumed since they’re … well … them, that they would have already been with plenty of girls. Wolf-shifters or not.
I’d just assumed they were holding back from being with me physically to protect me. Now I’ve started to wonder if it’s something else. The boys have hinted at it before, but like so much else, never actually gotten around to explaining it to me.
I look over at Rory and raise a skeptical eyebrow.
“Not even you?”
It’s his turn to redden. He shakes his head.
“No. No one.”
“Oh,” is all that I can think of to say, my eyes dropping down to the hands folded in my lap. I clear my throat. “Well, in case you were wondering … I haven’t either.”
“We know,” Kaleb says. He flashes a grin at me when I glance back up.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“It’s a wolf thing, we can just tell,” he answers.
As unsettling as that is, I’m more focused on the bigger question. I remember all the times that things have gotten really hot and heavy with the boys, and it seems like each time that happens, they pull back. They act like they want to make love to me more than anything in the whole world, and then as soon as it seems like they get close to the point they won’t be able to stop themselves … they withdraw.
Out of all of them, Kaleb has come the closest to not being able to stop himself. But even he seems to muster the strength each time.
Much to my chagrin. Not that I’d ever admit that. Not to them.
“What is Romulus afraid is going to happen?” I ask, then think again. “Actually, what are you guys afraid of?”
None of them answer, and the all-too-familiar silence worries me. They aren’t the only ones troubled by conflicting feelings. Every time I think I’m safe with them, every time I feel like I can give myself to them freely; they do something to make me doubt their promise to me again.
Why can’t they just be upfront with me?
“Kaleb,” I start, scooting closer to the one most likely to be unable to resist me, and putting my hand on his thigh, “remember what you said to me before?”
I wasn’t going to say it out loud, it was private between him and I. He knows what I mean; he knows that I’m talking about him telling me he would make love to me soon. Rory and Marlowe look on with intent suspicion.
The look on his face tells me he knows exactly what I mean.
“Did you mean it?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he reaches over to put his hand over the top of mine.
“Yes,” he says, carefully. “I meant it.”
Rory glances between us. “Meant what?”
“Mind your own business,” Kaleb shoots back at him.
Rory rocks back a bit, surprised. Even Marlowe is taken aback.
“This is my business,” Rory growls. “You heard what Romulus said.”
The frolicking mood that had been in the bar
n minutes before gives way to a pervasive tension.
I ignore Rory and stay focused on Kaleb. “Then what is it you’re afraid of? What is it that Romulus is afraid is going to happen?” I touch his face and look into his eyes until he seems to break in my hands as he is unable to resist answering me.
“Sabrina, we can’t stop ourselves with you. If we let things get too far, then it could end up—”
“That’s enough!” Rory shouts, suddenly lunging forward. He grabs Kaleb by the collar of his shirt as if it’s the scruff of a dog. “Stop talking, now!”
I sit in stunned fear of Rory’s outburst as Marlowe looks at me from the corner of his eye.
There’s a reason the boys won’t let themselves go completely with me, and they still aren’t going to tell me what it is.
Tell me something new.
3
Marlowe
The walk back to Sabrina’s cabin is quiet. At least, as quiet as it can be when every step brings with it the crunch of fallen leaves underfoot.
It’s us who carry the silence thanks, I’m sure, to Rory’s little outburst back in the barn.
After that, things just weren’t the same. None of the earlier humor lingered in the air. A tension had grown to replace it, leaving all four of us at a loss for words. We didn’t stay long after that.
It was Sabrina who mumbled an excuse to leave, her eyes darting away from mine just as she avoided looking at Rory or Kaleb. She doesn’t like when Rory’s temper gets the better of him. No one does, of course, but it affects her the most. She shuts down, withdraws into herself.
It makes me want to reach for her, to wrap her in my arms and protect her from my own brother … but when she gets like this, she doesn’t want to be touched. She doesn’t want to be comforted. Not, at least, without answers.
The answers Rory won’t let us give her.
But they’re answers that’ll have to be given eventually.
I do reach for Sabrina’s hand in the dark dampness here under the trees, and though she doesn’t withdraw from me, she doesn’t melt into me either. It’s almost as bad. Worse, in a way.
I understand her feeling, the aching longing to not just exist beside one another—but to exist together, fully. No barriers between us. Least of all, the kind of barriers we have right now, the kind drawn by pack rules and ancient laws we can only dream of breaking.
It’s a bittersweet farewell at the door to the cabin. I have a feeling something has started to shift these last few days. Something has changed. Sabrina has changed. She’s started to think about all the reasons we won’t work again … and for good reason.
As soon as we’ve turned our back on Sabrina’s cabin, I give Rory a glare that he can’t ignore—no matter how much he wants to pretend to.
My feet are heavy in the dirt-packed earth, my breath growing laborious as I hike on up ahead.
Behind me, Rory drags his feet through the fallen leaves. Kaleb pants along beside him, his own questions sitting anxiously on the tip of his tongue.
Sabrina had every right to be upset, every right to withdraw. If I was in her place, I would have done exactly the same thing.
But where I can leave Sabrina be, let her have the space she needs to think through what this all means to her, I can’t say the same for Rory.
I wait just long enough for Kaleb to disappear into the kitchen to help Lydia with dinner—which from the frightening, furious clanging sounds coming from down the hall, is going to be a good one—before I follow Rory upstairs and corner him. I catch him right before he can escape into the solitude of his room.
“What was that about?” I growl, my hand twisting up into the front of his shirt—a gesture to repay the same action he tried on me earlier.
I feel his temper flare, but it’s no match for mine. He’s spent. I, on the other hand, have remained cool and calm for far too long.
The smug look on Rory’s face fades as I press him even harder up against the wall, my teeth bared.
“I don’t get you sometimes,” I spit. “Sometimes, I think you’re trying to push her away.”
The last remnants of that haughty look on his face fades away. I finally let him go, his shirt left crumpled where my hand gripped it moments before.
“Would it really be so bad if we told her the truth?” I ask, my voice dropping quieter in case Romulus is close enough to overhear. “What’s the point of keeping all these secrets?”
Finally, Rory answers.
“Do you want to be the one to tell her, then?” he says. “Do you want to tell her that we can never mate with her?”
I jut my jaw forward. “You keep saying that, but I don’t see why not,” I say. “We’re bonded to her already. Isn’t that enough?”
He lets out a bark. It’s not a laugh. It’s an angry, frustrated, feral thing.
“You know how the bond pains us now, do you really want to make it worse? You know, even if we mated with her, that she’d have to leave eventually?” He eyes me down the bridge of his nose, as if examining me. “I don’t know about you, but I already feel it enough. I can’t imagine it getting worse. You should heed Romulus’ advice. If we mate with her and that inevitable time comes—either she leaves us, or dies—we’ll never recover from that pain.”
With that, he whirls around.
“But that isn’t it, is it,” I say, and he freezes, his back to me. The muscles in his shoulders tense. I can tell he’s considering leaving me, like Sabrina, without an answer … but then he changes his mind. He turns around to face me, slowly, his eyes glowing yellow in the dark.
It’s his turn to keep his voice so low, I can barely hear him.
Even still, it takes him a moment to answer. As I watch, all the anger and frustration slips out of him … seeping like tension from every bone, every ligament in his body. It isn’t until he looks like a broken, tired shell of himself that he answers.
“What do you know about the turning ceremony?”
I blink in surprise.
This is not the direction I expected this to go.
Rory glances over his shoulder once, conspiratorially, and I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I mirror his posture, looking down the hallway myself, before replying.
“Not much,” I say, carefully. “Even Lydia, you know her, she doesn’t like to talk about it.”
Even though Rory still looks tired, that gleam in his eye sparks back, just for a second. He steps closer to me, his eyes glued to mine.
“You and Kaleb, you love accusing me of not wanting her enough. But has it ever occurred to you that the reason I do the things I do, the reason I act this way … it’s for her own benefit?”
“More for your own,” I mutter. “What are you so afraid of, Rory? Looking weak?”
He bares his teeth at me again, menacing this time. “The only thing I’m afraid of,” he says, “is losing her. And that’s what’ll happen if we mate with her.”
He steps back a second, letting the air cool between us for a moment.
“Because if any one of us touches her, if she loses her virginity … then she can never be turned.”
I feel a cold pit start to form in my stomach as I think of all the times we’ve gotten close—of all the times I almost couldn’t reign myself in.
“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” I hiss.
Rory shakes his head. “It just seems so impossible … I didn’t see the point.”
“And yet it wasn’t so impossible that you wouldn’t stop us from doing it?” It’s my turn to step forward, closer to him. I cock my head and look at him more carefully. “Are you telling me you think there’s a chance we can turn her?”
“No,” Rory answers, but it’s too quick. He presses his lips together, his mind wandering for a moment … and I know while it’s not quite a lie, it’s not quite the truth, either.
While Rory doesn’t think there’s a chance we can turn her, he still hopes for it.
Just like I do.
�
�The least we can do is tell Kaleb,” I say, unable to still that little quickening of hope inside my chest, no matter how hard I try. “God knows he’s the one most likely to lose control. And he’d never be able to live with himself if he did. Not now. Not once he figured out what he’d done.”
4
Sabrina
I decide to humor the fact that I am still supposed to be a student and attend the next few days of school. The boys are there too because they need to meet their graduation requirement in order to don the fancy robes they modeled in the barn.
I try to avoid the barely hidden glances that I get from Jess, Aimee, and Tom when we sit together at lunch. I guess I have kind of abandoned them since I’ve been spending so much time with the boys.
Actually, it’s really ever since that one day down by the river. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to forgive Tom for what he did … or the roles Jess and Aimee played in it.
At first, I was going to make up some excuse for the change … but it just seemed like too much of an effort to keep up with more lies, so I opted just to avoid them and pretend like nothing’s changed. Since we’re all seniors now, I’m hoping everyone just takes the high road and goes about their own business.
Aside from trying to explain the fact that I’m dating all three of them—Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb—I can’t exactly explain the fact that they’re wolf shifters too. There’s just too many questions I don’t have a good answer to.
And I’m not the only one.
With the eclipse coming up soon, the boys are having an increasingly hard time not discussing it in front of me. On my way back from the water fountain, I overhear Rory tell Kaleb and Marlowe that another pack was spotted passing through on their way to celebrate the eclipse—but they change the conversation as soon as they realize I’m back within earshot.
What they can’t hide, however, is how all three of them seem a bit nervous about that piece of information.
Luckily for me, Romulus doesn’t seem as shy about discussing it in front of me later.
