Marlowe puts his hand on Kaleb’s shoulder to try to get him to stop talking, but Kaleb pushes his hand off.
“Remus has hurt the woman that I love, stolen my future children from me, weakened the man who has been my father … and in doing so, nearly destroyed my pack. Who knows, maybe it’s destroyed already. Maybe there’s no going back from this,” he says, his voice coming out as an angry hiss. “I will gladly give up my life in order to tear Remus from limb to limb with my bare teeth.”
“Kaleb, no!” I say as I lunge forward on the bed toward him and throw my arms around his neck. I start to cry and bury my face against his chest. After a minute, he starts to cry too.
There is the strangest thing that happens when you reach a point of despair that is too inconceivable for your mind and heart to deal with. When I hear Kaleb start to sob and feel the jerking motion of his chest against my face; I stop crying. It isn’t that I’m no longer sad or that I no longer have tears to match his, it’s because his sorrow has pulled me into a darkness that is so encompassing and desperate that there’s only one thing I can do.
I have to be strong. For him. For both of us.
There’s a point at which pain becomes so great that it has nowhere else to go, and that is when it transforms into strength. But first, in order to get to that point, there is a moment of deep and shattering pain that threatens to end you. That is where we are at now.
And I can’t promise myself that it won’t break me entirely this time.
As I hold on to Kaleb and his arms wrapped back around me to hold me in a desperate tightness as if he were clinging onto me in order to make the pain stop; Rory and Marlowe come and wrap their arms around us as well. And when they do, suddenly Kaleb isn’t the only one shaking with tears.
I don’t know if it’s the bond, if that’s what’s broken us by binding us together in the first place.
All I know is that I’m sitting encircled by three of the most powerful, most wildly fierce and strong men that I had ever known, as they sob against me until their sobs turn into howls.
I sit inside that sadness and that anger in silence, and I know that not only can they not make the promise to stay safe and away from Remus, but that they are going to do the exact opposite. They are going to try and attack him head-on.
And there’s nothing I can do to stop them.
Just like I can’t stop their pain, no matter how strong I try to be.
And they don’t wait long.
The next day when I go to find the boys in the late afternoon, I start to get a creeping feeling that they’ve already acted without telling me.
That moment, last night, it was the tipping point.
I knew it in my heart the moment Kaleb’s lip began to tremble.
It was time. It was too late to go back.
This morning, Marlowe said that the three of them were going with Romulus to chop some more wood for the fire, a task that should have taken a couple of hours at most. It’s now been nearly half a day and my anxiety begins to slowly amplify with each passing moment that they remain gone.
r /> I knew it was a lie when he told me what they were doing. I just wasn’t ready to face it.
I’d just hoped I was wrong.
I’d just hoped I’d get a little more time.
At dinner when there is still no sign or word from them, I start to feel like I’m crawling up the walls. Lydia has been off making tinctures and gathering some herbs from the gardens behind the house—her own way of keeping her mind occupied.
It’s not just my husbands who are missing.
It’s her husband too.
Her sons.
Eventually, pacing back and forth across the living room alone gets to be too much. At least Lydia has her garden to keep her occupied.
Me? I have nothing.
For weeks, months, I’ve been preoccupied with preparations for my turning. Ever since that ceremony, however, all I’ve been able to do is sleep … and little else.
The thought jogs a memory, and I get the idea to check on the deer that I was tagging what feels like ages ago already. I need to feel as though I am doing something besides just sitting here waiting.