Wolf Bonded (Wolfish 1)

“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.”