by Eden Beck
There it is again. Her silent plea.
Please let us stop running.
For the first time, I want to agree with her. I want to believe that we can.
So also for the first time, I give her hope.
I kick my feet against the bottom of the seat and coyishly avoid her gaze for a second. “It’s starting to look like a real possibility.”
25
Sabrina
The Gray family mansion looks decidedly warmer when they’re actually home.
And when I’m actually supposed to be here.
Yellow light spills out across the lawn at the top of the hill as I approach, lighting Rory’s familiar silhouette as he comes out to greet me. A heat spreads in me at his touch, spreading out from somewhere deep in the middle of my chest.
All that warmth and heat is extinguished as soon as we get into the house.
“Where’s Deliah?” Romulus asks me the moment I step into the foyer of the already somewhat familiar mansion. Thank god I have Rory here beside me, his hand brushing mine to keep it from curling up into an anxious fist behind my back. Without him, I might have just turned tail and run.
“She couldn’t come,” I say, hoping he doesn’t pry too much into her reasons. She claimed she had to work, but I’ve seen her schedule and know that isn’t the case. Since Romulus contracts out of the care center too, I have a feeling he’d know if I repeated the lie.
I don’t know what she’s really doing tonight, but I have a feeling she just wanted to get me out of the house. I wasn’t exactly going to argue. Not if it means I might get the answers I’m looking for now.
Romulus isn’t fazed. “For the best, I suppose.”
I can hear what he really means in his voice. One less human to worry about.
I don’t know how much the boys have told their parents about me. I’m assuming they know that I’m aware of their … um … wolfishness, but that doesn’t seem to make Romulus let down his guard. If anything, he’s pricklier than ever tonight.
I keep reminding myself that I can handle anything, anything, for one night.
Especially now that I’ve had a couple days to mull over what I’ve already been told.
It’s kind of crazy how quickly I’ve grown used to the idea of shifters existing in the first place. It’s explained so much about the way the boys were acting before.
And I thought I had a secret. I thought I had a good reason to push people away, to keep them from getting too close.
Over the last few days, I’ve felt my inhibitions with them starting to melt away. The walls I’ve built up won’t crumble overnight, I know, but I’ve started to see the cracks.
I just hope I get enough time alone with Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb to learn something more about their strange new world tonight. I’d be lying if I said I’d been able to think about anything else over the last couple days.
One doesn’t simply learn that werewolves exist without getting a little excited.
Together, the three of us head into the giant living room, easily the size of two of our little cabins. The air here is dry and warm, courtesy of the crackling logs in the fireplace, despite the chill Romulus is casting around the room with his furrowed gaze. He doesn’t linger beside us, but goes straight over to one of the wing-backed armchairs by the fire where Marlowe and Kaleb are already sprawled out on the floor.
I can tell it takes every ounce of self-control to stop the two of them from leaping up at the sight of me. Even still, their eyes drink me in in a way that makes me blush.
There’s a woman here too, and I suspect that it is their mother, Romulus’ wife. She has a round, youthful face that makes her look both young and wise at the same time. Her pin-straight black hair frames a surprisingly kind smile. I say kind because compared to the scowl Romulus wears, she’s positively beaming.
“Welcome, Sabrina,” she says as she stands up and takes my hand between both of hers. “I’m Lydia. We’re all really glad that you could come to celebrate with us tonight.”
Romulus makes a huffing noise that makes me think he isn’t glad that I’m here at all. He can’t seem to keep still. He crosses one leg over the other, then back, then finally heaves himself back up to pour a glass of red wine out of a large glass carafe.
On the other side of the room by the fire, Kaleb makes a soft whistling noise to get my attention. He pats a cushion on the floor next to him and Marlowe and motions for me to come sit down beside them.
Thank god.
I take an inordinate amount of time settling down in the cushions, mostly just to keep from having to make conversation. It’s warm and cozy by the fire, the flames reflecting in the boys’ eyes in a way that makes their pupils look like they’re flickering. It’s mesmerizing.
Romulus balances several long-stemmed wine glasses in his hands when he finally steps back to the fire.
He holds one out to me, and when he sees me ready to refuse, adds, “Go on now. I heard you’ve already sampled some of our wines. No sense in being shy now.”
“Romulus …” Marlowe starts, tensing slightly behind me.
“What?” Romulus barks, then immediately reigns in his voice to add, “All I’m saying is that this one’ll be much better. I promise.”
Though I wish I was being offered a magical knife to cut the tension in the room, this will have to do. I have a feeling that this night is going to need some alcohol in order for me to get through it in one piece.
Once we all have wine in hand, Rory raises his glass in a toast.
“Cheers to your birthday Romulus,” he says. It sounds strange to hear him call his dad by his first name. Maybe it’s a werewolf thing.
“To Romulus,” Marlowe says with a nod that Kaleb mirrors.
Everyone raises their glass, including me. I put the wine to my lips and am delighted by the taste of it. It’s so sweet and smooth and rich, I’ve never tasted anything like it.
No wonder Jess, Aimee, and Tom got so drunk the night we broke in. I’d have a hard time stopping too if faced with a whole cellar of the stuff.
I look around the room as I linger with a few long sips, and I notice that there aren’t any birthday decorations, or cake, or presents, or anything. I think back to when everyone at school was telling me about the rumors of the boys belonging to some strange religion, and I wonder what kind of religion werewolves practice. Maybe birthday cakes aren’t part of their tradition.
Or maybe it’s just because Romulus won’t have it. He seems annoyed enough to be celebrating at all. But that could just because I’m here. I’m the annoyance.
Knowing that makes it impossible to relax, even with another sip of wine.
“So,” Romulus says, looking right at me as he sits back down in his chair. “The boys said you took it pretty well.”
“Excuse me?” I say as I feel my nerves start to ramp up. “Took what well?”
Romulus looks at me as if I’m stupid. Then, he looks at the boys with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, she knows,” Kaleb says, reaching over to squeeze my hand in reassurance.
I swig the remaining content of my glass into my throat in order to gain the courage to say what I know is expected.
“You mean how you’re all werewolves?” I ask. There, I said it. I can’t believe I said it. Having said that in any other circumstance would have had people thinking I’m crazy.
“Technically shifters, but close enough,” Romulus says smugly. He has a skill at speaking to me so condescendingly that I feel like a three-year-old.
I ignore my discomfort and forge ahead with a question. Might as well, it all seems out in the open now. Marlowe takes the glass from my hand and stands up to refill it for me. I give him a grateful smile that he returns when no one else is looking.
“What’s the difference between a werewolf and a shifter?” I ask. I’ve never even heard of a shifter before, so I have a feeling this evening is about to get a whole lot more interesting, if that’s at all possible.
“We’re all wolf-shifters,” Rory says. “Except for Lydia, she’s a werewolf.”
I look at Lydia, and at how beautiful she is, and I’m still completely confused.
“There’s really not that much of a difference,” she explains, her voice slow and patient. “Wolf-shifters are born as pure blood wolves, whereas werewolves are made by being bitten and changed into a turned wolf.”
“A … turned wolf?”
I feel my pulse spike. This is new. The boys never mentioned this before.
It’s all it takes to send my mind racing.
“It’s all technicalities and semantics, you know, the differences between the two. We’re all of one kind.” She shoots a smile at me again in spite of the noises Romulus is making under his breath.
I get the feeling he doesn’t think it’s all “merely semantics” at all, but Lydia leans forward and kisses him on the cheek and he seems to instantly melt at her presence.
“What would I do without you,” he says as he strokes the side of her face, seeming to forget for a moment that they aren’t alone.
It’s a shockingly tender, if brief, moment.
Regardless of his gruff demeanor, one thing’s for sure, Romulus definitely loves his family. His pack. And everyone really seems to love him too.
He’s nothing like my own father. He may come across as harsh and even rude at times, but he seems to really love his family. I’m pretty sure my dad doesn’t even know what love is.
For as long as I can remember, he only knew hate and cruelty.
Marlowe brings my refilled wine glass back, one hand slipping to rest between my shoulder blades. Looking up at him, I’m finally able to push the bad memories behind enough to attempt a weak smile.
The scene around me is surreal.
Here I am, cozied up by the fire with all three boys surrounding me when just a few days ago, maybe closer to a week now, I thought. Somehow, our floor cushions all managed to creep closer together until they’re all basically at the point of making one big cushion we’re all sitting around on; very closely sitting on.
Kaleb and Marlowe are right on either side of me, with Rory sitting slightly in front of us. His body is turned diagonally toward me, one knee pressed up against mine. I’m keenly aware of how each one of their bodies is physically touching a part of me in some way or another.
At first glance, it would look so comfortable, romantic even, with the amber light of the fire highlighting everyone’s faces as it casts a dull glow throughout the room.
But then Romulus starts explaining how he was planning on killing me a couple days ago, and the mood quickly changes.
“Wait, what?”
Romulus pauses, mouth agape, and looks over at me annoyed for interrupting him. But how was I supposed not to?
I blame my newfound confidence on the two glasses of wine I’ve already finished.
I sit forward suddenly, shaking my head to clear it a bit. Surely I didn’t hear what I think I just did.
“You were going to kill me? That night you came by after the river … that weird thing you said to my mom …”
I trail off, shaking my head again.
Sometimes recovery is the more dangerous of the two options.
No amount of head shaking is going to make the realization any less daunting. Maybe, though, if I keep shaking it I’ll get enough brain damage to forget what I just heard.
“You have to understand me, Sabrina. It wasn’t personal. This sort of secret,” he motions around the room, towards the moon and wolf artefacts scattered around the corners, “keeping it comes with consequences.”
“Uh huh,” I say, slowly sitting back but keeping my eye on him. “Consequences. Killing me. Got it.”
I don’t mean to be petulant, or maybe I do, but I somehow manage to reign in my sudden temper enough to let Romulus continue.
And only with the reassuring, if a little embarrassed, looks from Rory and Marlowe. Kaleb just seems happy I haven’t pulled my hand away from his.
I wish I was imagining it, but I think Romulus has actually started to enjoy himself now. Halfway through Romulus’ thoroughly detailed description of how he was planning to sneak back up to the cabin in the middle of the night, Lydia must catch sight of the stricken look on my face and tries to temper her husband’s blunt reasoning.
“It really wasn’t anything against you in particular,” she says, hastily. She’s stopped smiling now, but she still speaks as pleasantly as she can. “He just had this outdated and stubborn idea that he had to kill you since you’d seen the shift.”
She’s talking about that wolf-girl in the woods.
“He was only trying to protect his family, and at that point, he didn’t know about the boys,” she says.
“What about the boys?”
Lydia exchanges glances with all four men in the room before she continues talking. “If the boys hadn’t intervened, Romulus likely would have gone through with killing you. Just for safety’s sake.”
A chill goes up my spine and I visibly shudder, even against the warmth of the fireplace.
“What do you mean intervene?” I ask quietly, feeling small in this large room surrounded by wolf-shifters. They could tear me to shreds in an instant if they wanted to. I look ahead of me at Rory. “What did you guys do that changed your father’s mind about killing me?”
Surely, finding out his sons had a crush on a human wouldn’t be enough to make him change his mind about murder. I hate to think he’s able to make decisions like that so flippantly.
Rory looks as though he doesn’t want to answer, or maybe he can’t. I can’t tell which. Kaleb and Marlowe aren’t forthcoming with an answer either. So again, it falls on Lydia to speak for everyone.
Even she looks as though the conversation has treaded into unwelcome territory.
“There is a … phenomenon … that happens sometimes among werewolves and shifters,” she says. She’s speaking quietly now, as if she’s sharing a precious secret with me. “Certain females give off a very specific type of pheromone that attracts their mate. Normally, this happens with one female and one male, but rarely it can involve more than one potential mate at a time.”
“Okay …” I say, nodding along as if any of this makes sense to me. I’m still struggling to wrap my head around the fact that I was nearly murdered just last week.
All eyes are on me now. I shift in my seat.
“So … so what does that even mean?” I remember, briefly, several moments when I knew I’d caught the boys sniffing around me. Literally sniffing around me. “Is it just a hormonal thing? Some kind of attraction?”
The idea of a dog going into heat comes to mind, but I’m not a big fan of the image that conjures.
“It’s more than that.” It’s Romulus who speaks, his eyes turned to stare blankly at the wall over my head. “Unfortunately.”
Something about the look on his face gives me pause.
I glance back over to Lydia. “So then … what is it?”
Even she struggles for a moment to explain.
“Well, when it happens to shifters like us, the male becomes bonded to the female, whether he … or they … like it or not. And when it happens, they are as protective of the female as if their life depended on it, which—”
“That’s enough Lydia,” Romulus interrupts. “I think that’s enough for one night.”
But Lydia isn’t finished. Her hand reaches out to give Romulus’ a little squeeze, their eyes meeting as they come to some shared, unspoken agreement before Lydia continues.
“Up until recently, we thought it only happened to shifters like us. But apparently …” and here she trails off, suddenly uncertain, “apparently it can happen with humans, too.”
There’s a silence that follows.
I feel my forehead wrinkle a bit as I think about what Lydia said. Then it suddenly dawns on me. I look at the boys sitting around me, my eyes widening.
“You didn’t let Romulus kill me,” I sa
y in awe. “Because all three of you are bonded to me.”
My words hang in the air, as if suspended by my own disbelief.
“That’s what you meant when you said …” I trail off.
Lydia looks sadly over at the boys. She has the strangest look on her face, like she’s happy that they found someone to be the subject of their affections … but not happy that it’s me.
At least she and Romulus can agree on that.
Now it’s her turn to take on that same far off look. She starts playing with Romulus’ hair absentmindedly, twirling the strands between her fingers like a schoolgirl.
“I always wondered if these three would bond together,” she says, her voice taking on a dream-like quality for a moment. “I was starting to wonder if any of them would find a mate at all, and then they met you … and they couldn’t hide the way they felt. Not for an instant, not from me, anyway.”
“You know, they tried to keep it from me at first.” A slight smile pulls at her mouth. “It’s just a shame, really.”
Her words make the ground beneath me suddenly feel unsteady. A weight like lead settles in my stomach.
“A shame?”
“Mom …” Rory’s voice starts like a growl. He gets up on his haunches, already looking wolf-like in his human form.
Romulus rolls his eyes and reaches for his wine glass, making another annoyed huff when he realizes it’s empty. “And here we go. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen tonight.”
Kaleb’s hand in mine has stiffened. Suddenly, Marlowe isn’t just casually leaning up against me anymore. He’s reaching for me, trying to tug me to my feet.
“C’mon, let’s go get some fresh air.”
“No,” I say. “Wait, I want to hear this.”
I pull my hand from his, but Kaleb is already trying to do the same on my other side. When I try to tug my hand from his too, he just bends down and tries to scoop me up off the ground.
Whatever it is Lydia’s trying to tell me, they really don’t want me to know.
I scramble away, lunging towards Lydia before it’s too late. Rory reaches for me, trying to stop me, but he’s even deeper in the wine than I am, and his reflexes have slowed.
