by Eden Beck
“There’s a very important ritual that happens when a shifter joins with a new pack. The one joining the pack must swear his or her fealty to the alliance and agree to abide by their rules. In exchange, the new shifter gains the protection of the pack and doesn’t have to be worried about being hunted down by rival packs.”
“It sounds a lot like gangs,” I say.
Kaleb laughs, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes this time. “I guess I could see the resemblance. But it’s not really like we choose to be shifters. I was born this way, whether I wanted to be or not.”
“And do you?” I ask. For some reason I feel myself getting breathless.
“Do I what?” he asks.
“Want to be a shifter.”
“Do you want to be a human?” he asks, then suddenly looks away and keeps going before I have the chance to answer. I don’t mind … because I don’t know what I’d have answered.
Do I want to be a human?
It’s not exactly a question I ever thought I’d have to ask myself.
“Being a shifter …” Kaleb says, his voice taking on an enraptured quality, “I can’t imagine being anything else. I’m stronger, faster, and have keener senses than most things walking this planet.”
With each word, his voice grows more impassioned. His eyes are alight, his feet growing restless and causing him to pace in front of the books along the walls.
“I can feel the wet earth beneath my paws as I run through the forest, or breeze blowing through each strand of fur on my back. I can tear something apart with my bare teeth if I want to or hear the whispers of nature than humans don’t even know exist.”
Kaleb steps close to me, and for the first time I realize just how fast my heart has started to beat. “I can also live life as a man, and enjoy every pleasure that humans do, without the effects of aging quickly or being fragile against illness.”
Just when I think he’s going to reach out to me, he snaps the book closed in his hand and reaches his arm up to place it on the shelf above me. The movement causes his body to lean up against mine, pressing me into the bookcase.
He leaves his hand on the high shelf and places his other hand on the shelf next to me, creating a cage of his body around mine as he stands against me and looks down at my face.
“Being a shifter is being both man and beast. I can live as man and beast, and more importantly …” his voice trails off, thick and heavy with heat, “I can make love as both a man and a beast.”
And with that, I can’t control myself any longer. I tilt my chin up to kiss him and put both of my hands on his torso to pull him into me. He kisses me back as I urge my body against his, and all I can think about is what it would be like to be with him.
“I want you,” he whispers between our ragged breaths, “so badly, you have no idea.”
It’s my turn for my breath to hitch.
“Oh … I think I do.”
“Kaleb!” Romulus’ voice breaks through the delirium that I’m falling into.
Kaleb turns around and snarls at his father, his eyes turning a burning shade of orange. It’s like he reacted without thinking. I’ve never seen any of the boys lash out at Romulus or Lydia before, and the sudden and unexpectedness of it makes me stumble back and out of Kaleb’s grasp.
Kaleb, meanwhile, stands stock still. Romulus stares him down for a moment until Marlowe shows up in the doorway behind him and places a steady hand on his father’s shoulder. It isn’t until Marlowe meet’s Kaleb’s stare that the youngest finally seems to snap out of his trance. He shakes his head as if he is shaking off his emotions like a coat of fallen snow.
He glances over at me, and unless I’m seeing things, I think his face has turned red from embarrassment.
“May I speak with you a moment, Kaleb?”
Romulus’ voice is measured, but there’s no hiding the fury hiding beneath.
Kaleb nods once and follows his father out, but not before catching the tips of my fingers in his and giving them a gentle parting squeeze.
“You okay?” Marlowe asks as soon as they’ve left, seeing my obvious flustered state.
“Yeah,” I answer, but I have to take a deep breath. The tension there for a moment was so palpable that I thought Kaleb was going to attack Romulus.
“Come on,” Marlowe says as he offers up his hand for me to take. “I want to show you something.”
“Is it one of the other four libraries?” I ask, teasingly. I feel my hands still and the anxiousness begin to pass. Marlowe has a way of doing that. Of easing things.
“No,” he laughs. “I want to show you the garden.”
As soon as we step out into the back, I’m blown away by the sight that spreads out in front of us. It’s like a sea of color, wildflowers, mosses, and plants that I’ve never laid eyes on before.
“How can all of this grow in this cold weather?”
“Lydia’s pretty adept at gardening,” Marlowe says with a smile that tells me there’s something more to it. “I thought you might like it.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say in a hushed tone. There’s a sanctity to the space that demands it.
We sit down on a lush patch of thick grass where flowers sprout up all around us. I feel like I’m in Wonderland.
“Do you like it here?” Marlowe asks. “I mean, not here in the garden, but here, on the property. I know the cabin is a little small.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It took some getting used to the outhouse, but it’s quiet down there. I like that.”
Marlowe laughs. “Well if you ever get tired of the quiet, or that outhouse, I hope you know you’re welcome to come up here to the house anytime you’d like.”
“Thanks,” I say, smiling. I highly doubt I’ll start making a trek up to the big house every time I’ve got to take a shit, but I appreciate the sentiment. Also, with all their warnings of rival packs and reckless shifters … I doubt I’ll be trekking around the woods on my own any time soon.
A cool breeze rustles the top of the grasses. Somewhere, behind us, I can make out the sound of muffled voices from back inside the house.
“Kaleb mentioned that you guys were all preparing for some big ceremony or something. Is it happening soon?”
“Nah,” he shakes his head. “Not for a few more months.”
“Wow, it must take a lot of preparation then.”
“It’s not just that, it’s the timing. The ritual can only take place on a solar eclipse. There’ll be lots of wolf packs coming, some traveling a great distance.”
I sit back and take him in for a moment.
It’s Marlowe’s turn to look uncomfortable. “What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”
I shake my head. “I guess I’m just not used to getting straight answers yet.” I let out a little laugh, which Marlowe matches with his own. “So, this ceremony,” I continue, “It’s for a new shifter joining the pack?”
When Marlowe gives me another strange look, I explain how Kaleb was telling me about some of their rituals while we were in the library.
“Sounds like he gave you a pretty solid mini-lesson,” Marlowe says. “He didn’t tell you who it was for though?”
I shake my head.
“Typical. It’s for him, the dummy.”
For Kaleb?
I’d just assumed he was already a part of the pack. The way he acts with the other two, with Romulus and Lydia, it’s as if he’s been with them forever.
It’s just like the rumors at school, that Kaleb had just appeared one day as if he’d been there all along, and most everyone just went along with it. It’s been so long now that I’d forgotten them.
Until now.
“I want to go,” I blurt out. My eyes drop to the blade of grass in my hands. I’ve started tearing it to shreds, pulling the long stringy fibers apart one by one. “If you think he wouldn’t mind.”
“Mind? I don’t think Kaleb would mind …” Marlowe says, but there’s something in his voice that forces me to loo
k back up at him.
“But?”
“But …” Marlowe stretches out the word as he reaches out to brush the bits of grass and dirt off my lap, “why would you want to go, anyway? It’s just a whole lot of nothing. It wouldn’t mean anything to you.”
His words sting like a slap.
It wouldn’t mean anything to you.
I leap up to my feet. Beneath me, Marlowe gapes up at me in utter confusion.
“What is it? What’d I say?”
Here, now, looking down at him … it’s impossible to stay angry. The momentary seed of anger vanishes, breathed out in one long, shaking, sigh.
“You said I wouldn’t understand,” I say, carefully trying not to betray the quaver in my voice. “But how am I supposed to understand if you won’t let me?”
Marlowe’s hands reach out to me, pulling me back down into the grass beside him. He presses a kiss to the top of my forehead and then pulls back.
“That’s why I like you so much, you know,” he says, quietly. “You’re determined.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Marlowe must have noticed my pout, because he plucks one of the wildflowers next to us and gently threads it into my hair. It is a delicious smelling lavender-colored flower with petals the shape of teardrops.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says as he looks in my eyes.
I have to force a laugh. “Stop avoiding the question.”
“What question?” Marlowe asks, his smile widening into a familiar, mischievous grin. “I can’t think of anything else here, looking at you, except how utterly gorgeous you are.”
“Stop it!” I say, unable to stop a small laugh from escaping my lips—genuine, this time. I know what he’s doing, but that doesn’t mean I have the power to resist it.
I sit up straight and force a stoic look on my face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Marlowe gets a pained look on his face. “That’s absolutely untrue. Why else do you think we can’t keep away from you?”
His hands reach out to me hungrily, but I bat them away.
“I figured it had something to do with that whole being bonded thing that Lydia talked about. How exactly does that work anyway? I mean, she made it sound like you couldn’t control it at all, but you all seem to be in pretty good control of yourselves all the time.”
“It’s difficult to explain,” he said, his hands still reaching for me. His pained expression grows every time I push them away.
“Is it? Or is it that you just don’t want to tell me?”
This time, there’s no jest in my voice.
Marlowe doesn’t say anything, but he stills at my tone. He’s less impulsive than Kaleb, more restrained like Rory. Somewhere in the middle, I’m hoping he’s the sweet spot. He’s the one who convinced me to give this a shot. He should be the one to give me more answers.
“Kaleb doesn’t seem to be as concerned with restraint as you are,” I say.
“That’s because he’s the youngest. And he’s Kaleb.”
Even though I stopped Marlowe earlier, I don’t like the suddenly widening gap between us. Of course I want answers, but not if it comes at the expense of the heat I’m quickly growing accustomed to.
“Does that mean that you aren’t as temped by me as he is?” I ask, the sound of honey and wine foreign on my tongue. This role, the seductress, it’s not one that I have much practice in. But there’s something about Marlowe and the way that his eyes follow me with a longing that makes my stomach flutter …
Even that first night that he watched me to make sure I got into the cabin safe, it’s as if I can always feel his eyes on me, like a subtle protector watching me from afar, even when I don’t realize he’s there.
I place my hand gently against his chest and feel his muscles flex at my touch.
“What are you doing?”
“Testing your restraint,” I say. I can feel his heart start to pound against my palm. I let my hand run slowly down his chest, toward his waist, and when I reach the top of his jeans, I linger for a moment. He’s breathing so heavily now that I can see his breaths in the air as they escape his open mouth. His eyes turn a shade of gold, but he must be able to feel when they do, because he immediately turns his head away from me.
Emboldened by this sudden reversal of power, I pick my hand up from his waist and use it to turn his chin back toward me.
“Your eyes are so beautiful,” I say as I stare into his liquid gold irises.
Whatever restraint he had been holding onto this whole time, is lost.
Marlowe lunges forward and throws one hand behind my back as he pushes against me and lays me down against the grass. He hovers over me as if trying one last time to hold back, but then lays down against me and puts his mouth over mine.
As his tongue pushes into my mouth, coaxing out my own, I’m swept up in unchecked emotion.
How is it that each of them feels and tastes so different and yet each one pulls at my heart in the same way?
I twist my fingers in his hair as it falls against my face and feel the heat of his body infuse into mine. His body fits against mine with perfection, prompting me to wrap my legs around his torso without even realizing I’m doing it. Marlowe shudders and his body trembles against mine.
There’s a moment, a single second, when I wonder if this is it. If this is the moment that Marlowe loses control.
But then he pulls his mouth away and reaches a hand down against my thigh to still us both. He’s being the restraint for the both of us, and it looks as if it’s killing him to do it. I stare up at his face above me and I can see a hint of his green eyes flickering behind the gold hue of the wolf inside him.
And try as I might to talk myself out of how crazy this all is; I’m falling for him, too.
30
Sabrina
The days grow hazy again, my time spent with Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb making them pass into a blur that makes it difficult to keep track. It feels like my old life is slowly slipping away—and along with it, my old fears.
It’s not perfect.
In fact, it’s far from it.
There’s a silent, unspoken subject between us. Their wolfishness, their secret nature, is there—but always slightly hidden. Learning about them is always one step forward, two steps back. It’s like the more I know, the wider that invisible gulf grows between us.
But somehow, still, each time it grows I find another way to wade across it.
“It’s not easy,” Lydia says sympathetically one afternoon over at their house, when we find ourselves alone three nights later, just hours before the next full moon. This is the closest the boys have cut it yet. Usually, at least the last couple times since I showed up, they’ve distanced themselves from me for at least two days by now. I’m just grateful they haven’t disappeared for over a week at a time like they did when I first arrived.
Lydia is leaning on the edge of the counter, her dark hair illuminated around her face in perfectly straight strands. She must be fifty or sixty from what Romulus has let slip over the past weeks, but she barely looks any older than I do. She shows no sign of the impending shift guaranteed to happen in just a couple hours.
I chalk that up to the fact that she’s had at least two decades, maybe three, on any one of the boys when it comes to learning how to control a shift.
She shakes her head as she continues, her eyes taking on that far-off look that I’ve grown all too accustomed to around her.
“They all know how hard the draw toward you is on them, but they have no idea how it feels to be you.”
I squirm a little at the counter. The coffee maker hisses, ignored, in the corner. The scent of the fresh brew is almost strong enough to cover the scent of anxiety that’s settled over the kitchen—though whether that’s mine, or Lydia’s, is yet to be seen.
“I know a little of it,” she continues again, her eyes finally alighting on something outside one of the windows. “I was human before
too, you know. I know that having your heart lead you in multiple directions at once can sometimes get to be too much. It can feel like you’re trapped, rather than free, from the indecision of it all.”
I shift awkwardly on my feet as I wait for the boys to come downstairs to meet me. Rory had texted to say that they were finishing up something with their dad and that they’d meet me in the foyer when I got here. I have a feeling that was code for “Romulus is chewing us out for not sending you home yet”, not like any of them would tell me.
It’s not that I don’t want answers. I would love answers. I’ve just come to realize that Lydia, as much as she means well, doesn’t really ever give them. She’ll wax poetic for a moment, but when it comes down to it … she still won’t tell me the things I really need to know.
“It’s okay,” Lydia says, suddenly seemingly coming to her senses and patting me on the shoulder. “You have feelings for all three of them, I know that. And it’s okay that you do. It’s also okay to be confused. Surety and security aren’t things you find often once you get mixed up in the pack life.”
I’m not sure how to respond to her. I feel like saying something like “thank you,” but realize that would sound completely stupid. Everything I say around her ends up somehow sounding stupid—even more so around Romulus. To them, I’m just another irresponsible pup.
Worse, I’m just an ignorant human girl.
So instead, I just smile and am relieved when I see the boys rushing down the massive staircase toward us. Kaleb throws an arm around me and all three of them encircle my stool as if I am the sun and they’re my orbiting planets.
“Mind your thoughts now,” Lydia says as they start tugging me off the stool and out of the kitchen. She waggles a finger at them playfully, but fixes Rory with a serious stare for just a second. No one’s said as much, but I’ve come to understand that Lydia actually does have some understanding of their thoughts—all of ours. It’s not just a turn of phrase she uses.
As far as I can tell, it’s not a feature shared by the rest of them. And, like the rest of them, no one seems too anxious to tell me the details. They must hate how she can tell what they’re thinking most of the time. I know I do. Even though she can’t seem to tell the details of my thoughts as well as she can Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb, it still leaves me feeling unsettled.
