Wolf Bonded (Wolfish 1)

Even so, I wave her away and return to diving elbow-deep in damp leaves.

But that isn’t the end of it. My determination to stay away from the river would be a lot easier if Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb were the only locals determined to get me down th

ere today.

I’ve just dug myself elbows deep into a particularly deep patch of leaves when my mother makes another appearance in the window. I know from one glance at her face that this time when the phone rang, something was different.

“Sabrina,” she says, her voice a little hesitant.

I straighten up. “What is it?”

She shakes her head a little, glancing back inside the window towards where the landline is plugged into the wall. I knew it was a bad idea to give Jess my number.

Not that I’d actually given it to her. She’d apparently found it taped to the bottom of the old handset and copied it down the night I let her, Aimee, and Tom crash at the cabin after our escapades up to the top of the hill.

“What’s going on?” I ask again, when she still doesn’t answer.

“It’s you friend Jess again,” she says. “She … she sounds off.”

I feel a lump rise in my throat. “Off?”

“Just … can you just come talk to her for a second?”

She pops back into the window and pulls it shut. The peeling paint on the windowpane makes a crunching sound as more little flakes chip off, flickering down to the cleared earth in tiny white fingernail-sized pieces.

Jess sounds off.

I better at least hear what this is all about.

I hurriedly toss the shovel up against the wall and hop up the steps to the front door. My mom flinches as I track in dirt on my shoes, and despite shooting her an apologetic look, I wipe more off on the edge of the couch before grabbing the headset and putting it to my ear.

As soon as I hear her voice, I feel my stomach sink. A great, overwhelming feeling of dread settles over me.

“You have to get down here, Sabrina!”

“Hold up, Jess,” I say, trying to make myself heard above her hysterically high voice. “Slow down a second and tell me what’s going on.”

Behind her, somewhere, I think I hear muddled shouts.

“Oh my god, Sabrina. Sabrina?”

My heart rises in the back of my throat. “What is it?”

“You … you …”

Her voice cuts out on the other end. My own, already battling a rising panic, laces with frustration.

“Jess. Tell me what’s going on.”

I can hear her voice, but it sounds distant, muted. There are other voices too, but they don’t sound familiar. Somewhere far off I hear a rumbling sound—but I can’t tell if it’s the threat of thunder, or the growl of a much closer threat.

After a moment of silence, her breaths draw closer to the phone on the other end.

“Jess—”

“Just get down here, Sabrina. And hurry!” With that, she hangs up the phone before I have a chance to say anything else.

I stand unmoving for a moment, just staring down at the receiver in my hand. What was that?