Wolf Bonded (Wolfish 1)

The spectacle that prompted Jess to call and work me up into a flustered rush to get here—it’s not what I expected.

Three boys splash shirtless in the water by the bank on the other side of the river. Even from this far away, I recognize them immediately.

Rory. Marlowe. Kaleb.

“Please, please don’t tell me this was the emergency you had me rush down here for.”

Sure, the sight of the three hottest boys in school splashing around in the water with sunlight glistening off their wet, muscular chests isn’t the worst surprise to happen upon. But it’s also not worthy of the terrible, overwhelmingly foreboding feeling that’s been growing all morning.

Aimee finally is able to tear her eyes away for long enough to give me a little wave. Her face is flushed with color while beside her, Tom’s is turned down in a scowl.

“What a sight, huh?” she says, trying to beckon me over to sit beside her.

I stay where I’m planted.

Tom huffs and rolls his eyes, not even attempting to hide his jealousy.

I, meanwhile, can’t decide whether to be overwhelmingly embarrassed, or overwhelmingly angry.

After all that, they still somehow managed to get you down to the river.

Seeing the look on my face, Jess throws an arm around my shoulder and pull

s me in for a hug. “Don’t be such a buzzkill, Sabrina. It’s just a little harmless fun.” She glances once more across the river and lets out a long, overly dramatic sigh. “Besides, I knew we weren’t going to get you down to the river any other way.”

“I can’t believe that you called and freaked me out over this,” I say, half-teasingly but the other half serious. “I thought it was an emergency.”

“It is an emergency,” Tom grumbles. “Or will be, soon. These girls are going to get an aneurism from staring too hard.”

“What a perfect way to die,” Aimee says, matching Jess’ sigh from earlier.

I snort out a laugh. “You are all the worst, you know that?”

I don’t wait for another invitation, I just scoot closer to sit beside them at the edge of the rock. I try not to stare at the boys across the water. It feels wrong, somehow … but they’re also pretty impossible to miss. Even out of the corner of my eyes, they’re a sight to behold.

The river is high today. Too high for swimming, but that doesn’t seem to bother them. Even for an usually warm day, I still feel the occasional tingle of freezing water spray up onto my face when a wayward current hits the edge of the rock just right.

“How can they stand that?” I ask aloud, almost speaking to myself, when Kaleb dives into the water and disappears for a minute. When he resurfaces, his face shows no sign of the stinging cold.

I suddenly remember Rory standing under the school awning in only a T-shirt while I was freezing my ass off, layers and all. Apparently, his brothers share his resistance to the cold.

“It’s not that cold,” Tom says, beside me.

“Well, I don’t see you in there,” Aimee retorts.

Tom scans the surface of the water with a watchful eye. “I just don’t feel like swimming.”

I glance between him, Jess, and Aimee again. “So … this is it?”

“Oh, right.” Aimee reaches behind her and grabs a hard seltzer from a cooler beside her. She tosses it to me. “We have crackers too. Call it dinner and a show.”

I grimace. “Do … do they know you’re watching?”

I sneak another glance in their direction.

“I don’t know about before,” Aimee says, her voice suddenly dropping a note. “But they certainly do now.”

“Sabrina!”