Wolf Bonded (Wolfish 1)

“Which hill?” Jess asks, but then her mouth drops open as she realizes exactly which hill I mean. “Oh my gosh, you mean the hill! You live in the little cabin beneath the mansion?”

“Still doesn’t explain what they were doing there,” Tom says, acting protective as if he’s now my self-appointed guardian.

I shrug my shoulders and scoff at him.

“It’s their property, I imagine they can do what they want.”

Just like they can go where they want … but knowing that doesn’t make that ache in my stomach go away.

11

Sabrina

The weekend arrives, and then another, and there’s still no sign of the boys. No word from them either.

I’d thought, at least, that Rory would say something … he is my partner after all. But nothing. Not a peep. Not a word.

As far as I’m concerned, they were the ghosts haunting this place. Or better yet, they never existed at all.

Jess tries to reassure me that they always seem to come back … eventually. But from the sound of her tone, and the way she doesn’t quite meet my eyes when she says it, I know not to hold out much hope.

But then, why should I care?

It’s not like we were close or anything. Besides, it’s better for me to stay unattached to anyone. As it is, I’ve already gotten too close to people here. The more people know about me and my mom, the more danger it puts us in of my dad being able to find us.

When I get home after school on Friday, the cabin is dark and quiet—aside from the rustling of one of the mice that always seems to find a way inside. I throw my backpack on the creaking sofa and take a second to splash my face with the rust-tinged water from the faucet.

It’s been a long week.

Only a week?

It feels longer than that.

A white slip of paper on the counter catches my eye. My mother has picked up another forty-eight-hour shift at the care center, so I’ll have the cabin to myself for a couple days. She left me a batch of chili that she made and a bag of popcorn, which calls my name for a TV binge-watching stint.

This is just what I needed.

No nagging voices. No expectations. No jumping at shadows.

Just me, a heaping pile of shredded cheese atop spicy tomato sauce, and some gorgeous TV hunks who aren’t going anywhere.

But try as I might to tune out the rasp of wind through the tree branches outside, the sound of it keeps dragging my thoughts back to the forest. Just outside the warm, dim light of the cabin is a great deep-green darkness. It’s restless tonight.

Just like me.

I need a good distraction to escape reality for a bit, something that won’t let my mind wander off into thoughts about the boys. Why do I keep thinking about them? And it’s not just random thoughts either, it’s more like they’re haunting my mind.

Thoughts about Kaleb’s entrancing gray, glittering eyes. Rory’s sharp unease with me in class. Even the way that Marlowe watched me until I went into my house, the way he plays careful peacekeeper between the other two. It’s almost like I can feel them watching me now.

I would shudder at the thought if a sudden pounding of fists on the door didn’t make me full-on panic instead.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

My mind only goes to one place.

He’s found us.

The panic sets in, but it’s a panic that I’ve been living with for so long now that it’s almost like a trusted, albeit unwelcome, friend. I know how to choke down fear sufficiently to think clearly and defensively, at least enough to grab the lamp from the side table to use as a weapon. I don’t even bother pulling the plug from the wall. Maybe if I hit him in the face with it enough to break the bulb, it’ll electrocute him a little too.