I’d never really considered it before. I’d always just assumed, when the time was right …
The transformation from human to wolf shifter is no longer the happy occasion that it was supposed to be. Now it’s a time marred with devastation and sorrow.
I don’t even want to be strong now. I don’t want to hold back the flood of tears that follows my dawning understanding. I’ve lost something primal, something that can never be returned to me. Something so basic that I didn’t even know it was a part of me until it was taken from me.
As it just has been.
Lydia holds me as I start to cry. She is the light in the dark and the comfort in my sorrow. She is everything that I had always wished my own mother to be. And unlike my blood mother, my bonded mother knows the right thing to say always.
Even in my pit, my blackness, her voice somehow finds its way through just as her hands cradle my bowed head.
“The boys still love you, Sabrina. They will always love you and be devoted only to you no matter what, even if you can’t carry their pups.”
Even still, it’s not nearly enough.
I am broken now.
The look of pain on Kaleb’s face and the sound of hurt in Marlowe’s voice … even the shaking hands that Rory wrapped around my own, show me that they are broken now too.
Everything wonderful that we had is broken.
Yes, we will all still be together. And yes, I will still shift as soon as I am well enough to do so … or so Lydia tells me as she continues trying to explain where we go from here. I’m hardly able to pay attention. What Rem
us has stolen from us is more painful than anything I imagined before.
That is why Romulus looked as devastated as he did too. I am mated to his sons and now I am barren. Romulus’ bloodline will die out, and that is exactly what Remus wanted. Remus has done what he has wanted to do since the beginning.
He has had his bloodshed.
He’s more than murdered his brother’s son. He’s killed out his entire lineage.
When Lydia lets me go, I don’t know how to feel anymore. My bond with the boys had been my compass, but now, with the change, I feel like I’m spinning out of control.
“I’ll send the boys back in,” she says as she gets up. “But you need to get rest. Regardless of the damage Remus has done, he did not manage to take you from us. The boys need you as much as you need them. You need to rest and get better.”
I nod my head at her as she leaves.
The boys return to the room moments after Lydia is gone. They climb onto the bed with me and curl up all around me. Kaleb presses his cheek against mine and all three of them hold on to me as I close my eyes to sleep some more, not because I want to get rest but because I want to wake up again and find out that this was all just a bad dream.
Another dream.
Oh, what I would give for it to just be that—a nightmare.
14
Sabrina
But it’s not just a nightmare.
No matter how often I drift off into fitful sleep, it’s always the same when I once again awake. After two weeks of this drifting, I’m finally starting to feel well enough to get out of bed.
It’s a small solace, especially when sometimes I wish I wouldn’t wake up at all … let alone resume any semblance of a normal life. Normal. As if my life was ever normal.
The boys have stayed with me most of the time, with Lydia there by their side. Even Romulus would come to visit me on occasion, although he didn’t really have much to say when he did.
When I finally get out of bed and start to walk around the house a bit, I hear talking coming from one of the libraries and go to see who’s there. It sounds like it’s all three boys there with Romulus, their voices hushed as if they don’t want to be overhead.
Remus is long gone, so there’s only one person they’d be trying to keep this from. And that person is me.