Oh, right.
I’m dragged back to reality with the stark reminder of what really lies at home. Home. No longer the derelict cabin at the bottom of the hill, my home is now in the same place as the boys, my head resting beneath the living beams of the great oak tree.
Marlowe scoops me up and sets me down on my feet as everyone begins to get up and get dressed. Once we all have our clothes back on, Rory takes my hand to go, but I’m not yet ready. I’m not ready to face Remus and his pack again.
Not when I know something about them is still so very, very wrong. Even here, miles away amidst the trees, I can’t shake that feeling.
“What’s wrong?” Marlowe asks, all three of them looking at me with concern.
Their eyes aren’t glowing now. They are a fulfilled, rich brown that glistens in the dusky changing light.
“Nothing is wrong,” I say, knowing it’s a lie, but also knowing I don’t want to be the one to bring darkness in on this perfect moment. “I just can’t believe how very much in love with the three of you I am.”
Kaleb grins, too blinded by his own emotions to read past my words. “Well, I should hope so. You married us already.”
I laugh and the three of them circle around me with interlocking arms in a hug that makes me feel more protected and loved than I have ever felt in my life. I nuzzle my face against their chests.
This.
This is the reason I can go back to that house, even with Remus’s hands digging into the soil around it as we speak. Rory, Marlowe, Kaleb—they will never let them hurt me. So long as they are here, beside me, I am safe.
“I love you,” I whisper inside the cocoon of their embrace. “All of you.”
“We love you too,” Rory says quietly.
The walk back to the house is peaceful and the sky paints itself into an array of muted colors that seem to echo the sultry day that we’ve enjoyed. When we get back to the house, Romulus and Lydia are sitting by the fireplace having drinks and talking. Lydia looks up as we come in and smiles.
Remus, for once, is nowhere to be seen. I know it’s too much to hope that they’ve gone. They must have just retreated into the woods for the night, doubtless working on whatever nefarious plans they have hidden.
But for now, I will relish the time without them.
“Did you have a nice afternoon together?” Lydia asks as we settle down.
“Yes,” I answer with a smile that I know covers my whole face. I want to tell her that it was the best afternoon that I’ve ever had and could ever imagine—but I’m pretty sure by the smile that she gives me in return, she already knows that.
If she didn’t already from the redness coloring my cheeks.
“Come,” Romulus says. “Join us for dinner.”
The four of us sit by the fire next to Lydia as Romulus goes to bring some platters of meats and cheeses into the room and fill our glasses for us. I hadn’t realized how ravenously hungry I was until the smell of the meats wafts into my nose.
It’s as if this afternoon has awakened my new senses. I am fully overcome by the strength, the richness of
the scent now.
Romulus chuckles. “You can tell that she’s turning,” he says to the boys, glancing their way. “She has the appetite of a wolf already.
Kaleb gives me a look that hints at what we were really doing all day that’s dredged up such an appetite in me, and I feel the secret smile well inside of me again.
After we eat and talk and drink delicious wine, we all head up to bed. I am so wonderfully exhausted that the very moment my body lays down and my head rests on the pillow, my eyes start to close. And as soon as I feel Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb curl around me, I fall asleep.
The dream I have that night is one that I already know is going to be important and mean something, even from the very beginning. I’ve always been a dreamer, at least … ever since I met the boys. It’s as if something was awakened in me then, something that burns brighter in my mind once I’ve closed my eyes.
Now, as the turning has awakened my other senses, it seems it’s awakened this one too.
In my dream, I am sitting in the forest glade where the boys and I were today, but instead of being human, we are all wolves.
There is howling, a bunch of howling, but it isn’t any of us making the noise. The howling is small and high-pitched but coming from more than one source. It is all encompassing and devastating. It is all I can do to see it out, to search for its source … but the harder I look, the further away it seems.