Wolf Bargain: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Wolfish Book 3)
Page 9
After that, I am too weak to even stand up. Rory lifts me up and my head falls against his chest as he carries me back inside the house.
No. This can’t be happening.
I didn’t even last long enough for Romulus to join us.
“What happened?” I hear him calling from the doorway across the lawn, on the other side of the trees. It swings shut behind him with a bang, followed by the soft sound of his footsteps as he sprints towards us across the moonlit grass. “What’s going on?”
“She’s too ill,” Rory says as Romulus breaks through the line of trees beside us. His face is pale, his eyes wide and muscles tensed.
They all look at me as my vision once again begins to blur.
“She’ll not shift tonight.”
Rory’s next words are the last thing I hear before the blackness and sickening silence takes me again.
When I wake up the next day, to say everyone is concerned is an understatement. At least this time I haven’t been asleep for days at a time. That’s the one small comfort I have.
And it’s not much.
The boys stay in the room with me, but they talk in whispers amongst themselves as I drift in and out of sleep.
Lydia tries to reassure me that this could just be a reaction to the transformation and the way that my weakened body is trying to handle it … but even though I think she means to tell the truth; I’m not really buying it.
I don’t think anyone else is either.
Everyone looks super worried about me, and for good reason. This is the second moon cycle that I haven’t been able to shift and from the way that I am starting to look and feel, I don’t think my body is very happy about it.
Once again, an understatement.
It’s as if my whole body is revolting against itself. My muscles ache. My head swims. My stomach churns uncontrollably, rejecting anything I put inside it.
If I could just shift, then maybe this would all stop and I could get better. But my next chance is another month away … a span of time that feels like forever.
As the days pass on and I feel little relief, I start to feel a desperation settle in. And it’s not just me. I can tell that the boys are starting to wear thin too. After my second failed shift they’ve seemed different. I guess we all seem different when I just wish things would go back to how they were.
For one brief moment, everything was perfect.
But it was too brief, thanks to Remus and his hate.
As ill as I feel, it only takes me a week to feel well enough to get out of bed this time. It’s an improvement, sure, but not enough to lift the dour mood that hovers visibly over me when I make my first appearance downstairs.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Lydia asks as soon as she spots me in the kitchen doorway. There’s no talk of me looking better this time.
She’s making coffee and Romulus is standing and staring out of the kitchen window. He looks like he’s thinking about something and the tightened posture of his shoulders hints at what it is.
There’s only one thing on everyone’s minds these days.
The boys follow me in, and only then does he glance back. They’ve tried to stay with me ever since the last moon, barely leaving my side and making sure that at least one of them is with me at all times whenever possible … but I can tell they’re feeling as cooped up as I am.
I don’t think they’re confident that that is the end of it, either. Not with the moon still waning, who knows how it will hit me next week? Who knows what will happen at the next full moon?
I might never recover. I know that’s what they’ve started to worry about, and I’ve started to worry that they might be right.
“I feel fine,” is all I manage to muster in response to Lydia. And it’s true, I do feel fine at the moment. It’s the strangest thing really, some days I feel completely fine and others I feel like absolute death. Well … fine in comparison to how I have been feeling.
Today happens to be one of the better days, at least.
She offers me coffee, and even though my stomach immediately rumbles in protest, I accept.
I haven’t really had any appetite lately, and frankly the thought of putting anything in my mouth repulses me … but I have to start somewhere. Today, the scent of the freshly roasted grounds smells just a little less revolting than usual.
Almost as revolting as I look, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the glass.
Even in the clothes I’ve borrowed from Lydia in recent weeks, I look like a swollen potato. My eyes are sunken even as my cheeks have filled out to almost comical proportions, my hair is greasy and stringy, and my abdomen strains against the elastic of the same loose linen pants I’ve been wearing for going on a week now.
Because it’s not bad enough that my insides are at war with me. It’s as if my whole entire body has just decided to revolt.
I really do look worse for wear.
This is not at all how I imagined my honeymoon with Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb. I imagined it to be a forest dream filled with magic and wonder and adventure, and lots and lots of love-making. Instead it is a total nightmare and I’m the scariest looking one here.
And I haven’t even made my first transition yet.
I’ve seen how the shifters look in the moment between man and wolf. At this rate, I’ll look like that monstrosity full time.
Marlowe catches the look on my face when I turn away from the glass, and suddenly stammers out a hasty compliment … one that falls so flat, even Rory and Kaleb stop what they’re doing to screw up their faces.
“What?” Marlowe says, after a moment of glancing between the many disapproving looks thrown his way. “I mean, at least she’s looking …” He trails off there, and I know the next thing he says is a lie too. “Stronger. She’s looking stronger, right?”
Even if it wasn’t obvious to my human eyes, I would have sensed that he was lying anyway.
I reach for the cup of coffee and wrinkle my nose up at it. Normally, I’d be the first one to quip something back to Marlowe. I think that we all just play along with it, myself included, simply because the alternative is dealing with the fact that I look like total shit.
“Let’s go for a walk, boys,” Romulus says after another prolonged moment of silence. He’s looking at me strangely, in that way that tells me whatever it is he has to say to them—it’s about me.
Just like everything is these days.
Just like it always has been.
I know what they’re doing; they’re planning. They’re talking about what they’re going to do to Remus in repayment for what he did to me; to all of us. They’re not going to turn a blind eye to his treachery, and I don’t blame them. Remus should face punishment for what he did.
For the things I’m not even ready to face.
But I’m worried that they’re going to retaliate out of emotion and get themselves hurt, or worse. I’ve already seen for myself what Remus is willing to do—the lengths he’s willing to go to make sure I suffer.
I take my coffee over to the window where Romulus had been looking out and watch them talk from inside. I still haven’t been able to force myself to take a single sip, but the motion of holding it in my hands brings me a small sense of normalcy. It’s comforting.
“I wish that they would include me in their conversations,” I say to Lydia, my eyes still glued to the men on the other side of the glass. “I feel like an outsider again.”
She moves to stand beside me, one hand reaching to rest on my shoulder.
“You’re not an outsider, Sabrina. You never have to worry about feeling that way again.”
I tear my eyes away from the glass to look at her. “Then why do I feel that way now?”
She sighs.
“They’re just trying to keep you safe,” she says. “You know that. They don’t want you to be upset or stressed. Not before, and certainly not now.”
Not now that you’re basically on death’s door at any give
n moment.
I look back out at them on the lawn. I can make out some of what they say from the shapes their lips form.
Remus. Sabrina. Pack.
But that’s about it. I’ve never been a very accomplished lip-reader. I wonder, for a minute, if I would be able to hear them if my transformation had been completed. My senses, sharpened for a brief moment before my poisoning, have seemed to dull these past weeks. I can barely smell, taste, and hear as a human.
“They don’t want me to try to stop them,” I say, after another moment looking out at them. Rory, Marlowe, Kaleb. They swore to protect me. I can only imagine how they feel, knowing Remus got to me—got to them—right here, under their noses. My brow is furrowed when I glance back at Lydia. “I wouldn’t stop them, you know?”
She nods. “I know … but I also know them.”
“Of course,” I say, baring my teeth for a moment. “What does Romulus say when he talks to you about what happened?”
She seems slightly taken aback by the question. I’ve always been careful to give her and Romulus space, to not ask too many questions about their private conversations behind closed doors.
It takes her a second to answer, and I know she spends the time carefully choosing her words.
“Only that he is going to do everything he can to make it right, and everything in his power to make his brother pay for what he has done.”
Words too carefully chosen.
16
Sabrina
“You have to promise me that you won’t go doing something that could get you all killed,” I say as the boys and I are all siting on the bed together a couple days later.
My body is starting to feel like a swollen sausage and if I don’t transform soon, I’m afraid I’m going to burst. No one, not even Lydia seems to understand why my body is taking this so hard. On days that I am feeling okay, it’s easier to cover it up. But on days that I feel like crap, it’s impossible not to notice how much my body has been betraying me.
The more the boys seem to notice my worsening condition, the more I worry that they’re getting closer and closer to acting out of rage and grief and doing something foolish like trying to attack Remus head-on. Like I once did.
Just the memory of the day I crossed over into Remus’ territory unbidden to try to convince him to turn a blind eye to my turning … it makes my cheeks flush with color. I was such an idiot. I was lucky to escape that day with my life.
And even then … it cost me everything.
It nearly cost me them. Rory. Marlowe. Kaleb.
As if sensing my thoughts, Marlowe reaches for my hand to take it. I can’t help but notice that even my fingers look swollen in his where they lay across the top of the blankets.
I look between the three of them for a second before repeating my earlier request.
“Rory?” I say, “Can you promise me that at least?”
I know that he can be the most level-headed, but at times he’s also the most reckless. If I can get him to promise me that, at least, then I can feel fairly confident that he’ll keep the other two in line.
But Rory reaches for my hand and takes it from Marlowe, turning over my fingers in the palm of his hand, examining them. I know he sees what I see.
“I’m sorry, Sabrina,” he says, after a few moments. “But we can’t make that promise to you.”
“What? Why not?” I snap, my voice louder than it should be in this close space.
My emotions are strung-out from everything that I’m going through and I find that my temperament lately is unsteady and reactionary at best.
At any given moment I feel the urge to suddenly both burst into tears and scream with frustration. I just want things to go back to being normal, or at least some version of normal-ish. The last thing that I can deal with right now is the thought of the boys putting themselves at risk over me.
They’re literally the only thing that I have left to hold on to.
“What Remus did is inexcusable,” Rory says. “He took away something from you, from all of us, that crosses a very sacred line between our packs. There is no way that we can let this go unpunished.”
He has to stop for a second, and it sounds like his voice has gone dry.
“But—” I start to stammer. I know he’s right, but all that I care about is making sure the three of them stay alive and stay with me. “At least he didn’t kill me.”
Even just saying it sounds small.
“Sabrina, stop,” Kaleb interrupts me, suddenly. He looks as if he is about to burst into furious tears himself.
Kaleb, out of all of them, has always been the most easy-going and brazen. Seeing him so completely distraught since the last day of my turning ceremony has been tearing me apart. Just looking at his face makes me feel like my guts are being torn out.
“Look at yourself,” he says in pained torment. “Look at what Remus has done to you.”
Marlowe puts his hand on Kaleb’s shoulder to try to get him to stop talking, but Kaleb pushes his hand off.
“Remus has hurt the woman that I love, stolen my future children from me, weakened the man who has been my father … and in doing so, nearly destroyed my pack. Who knows, maybe it’s destroyed already. Maybe there’s no going back from this,” he says, his voice coming out as an angry hiss. “I will gladly give up my life in order to tear Remus from limb to limb with my bare teeth.”
“Kaleb, no!” I say as I lunge forward on the bed toward him and throw my arms around his neck. I start to cry and bury my face against his chest. After a minute, he starts to cry too.
There is the strangest thing that happens when you reach a point of despair that is too inconceivable for your mind and heart to deal with. When I hear Kaleb start to sob and feel the jerking motion of his chest against my face; I stop crying. It isn’t that I’m no longer sad or that I no longer have tears to match his, it’s because his sorrow has pulled me into a darkness that is so encompassing and desperate that there’s only one thing I can do.
I have to be strong. For him. For both of us.
There’s a point at which pain becomes so great that it has nowhere else to go, and that is when it transforms into strength. But first, in order to get to that point, there is a moment of deep and shattering pain that threatens to end you. That is where we are at now.
And I can’t promise myself that it won’t break me entirely this time.
As I hold on to Kaleb and his arms wrapped back around me to hold me in a desperate tightness as if he were clinging onto me in order to make the pain stop; Rory and Marlowe come and wrap their arms around us as well. And when they do, suddenly Kaleb isn’t the only one shaking with tears.
I don’t know if it’s the bond, if that’s what’s broken us by binding us together in the first place.
All I know is that I’m sitting encircled by three of the most powerful, most wildly fierce and strong men that I had ever known, as they sob against me until their sobs turn into howls.
I sit inside that sadness and that anger in silence, and I know that not only can they not make the promise to stay safe and away from Remus, but that they are going to do the exact opposite. They are going to try and attack him head-on.
And there’s nothing I can do to stop them.
Just like I can’t stop their pain, no matter how strong I try to be.
And they don’t wait long.
The next day when I go to find the boys in the late afternoon, I start to get a creeping feeling that they’ve already acted without telling me.
That moment, last night, it was the tipping point.
I knew it in my heart the moment Kaleb’s lip began to tremble.
It was time. It was too late to go back.
This morning, Marlowe said that the three of them were going with Romulus to chop some more wood for the fire, a task that should have taken a couple of hours at most. It’s now been nearly half a day and my anxiety begins to slowly amplify with each passing moment that they remain gone.
I’d just hoped I was wrong.
I’d just hoped I’d get a little more time.
At dinner when there is still no sign or word from them, I start to feel like I’m crawling up the walls. Lydia has been off making tinctures and gathering some herbs from the gardens behind the house—her own way of keeping her mind occupied.
It’s not just my husbands who are missing.
It’s her husband too.
Her sons.
Eventually, pacing back and forth across the living room alone gets to be too much. At least Lydia has her garden to keep her occupied.
Me? I have nothing.
For weeks, months, I’ve been preoccupied with preparations for my turning. Ever since that ceremony, however, all I’ve been able to do is sleep … and little else.
The thought jogs a memory, and I get the idea to check on the deer that I was tagging what feels like ages ago already. I need to feel as though I am doing something besides just sitting here waiting.
It feels like a lifetime ago when we were worried about the deer movement patterns changing. Back before we were worried about whether I was going to die, or whether my boys would die trying to defend my honor.
Honor.
I scoff out loud, the sound of it dying on my lips as Lydia’s computer program finally hums to life in front of me.
It only takes a moment of looking over the little lines showing the deer movements before I see it. It was faint before—the shift in movement. But now, some weeks later, it’s become more clear.
The crisscross of lines and begun to form a pattern. A real, definable pattern.
And I think I know what it means.
The deer have all been moving in a distinct way that shows they’re moving away from something. They’re avoiding something.
Ever since that day that Romulus discovered the slaughtered herd down by the barn, they’ve started moving deeper into the forest in droves.