Wolf Bargain (Wolfish 3)

When the doctor leaves, the boys and Lydia all walk him out after making sure that I’ll be okay for a few minutes by myself. I think they’re still not convinced that he isn’t a threat … and I don’t blame them.

I thought they were protective before. Now, I feel like they’re going to be three times that.

One month.

That may give me time to give birth before Remus’ attack, but what does that even mean? Does it mean anything?

I don’t know anymore.

For a while, I sit alone in the bed holding the picture of the ultrasound in my hands, when suddenly I am gripped by panic. I can’t do this.

I can’t do this. I can’t give birth to three babies in the woods amidst the middle of an oncoming attack. I haven’t even turned yet. I don’t even know if I can turn. All of my rational thought suddenly seems to flush out of my mind as a fight-or-flight response kicks in and I panic.

I’m already responsible for so much of what has happened to the boys and their family, to Romulus and his pack. What is going to happen to them if I fail now? What’s going to happen to the boys if I can’t have these babies, or if we all end up dying before they are even born?

Or worse, what happens if they are killed by Remus and his pack shortly after they enter into the world?

What if it falls on me to protect them, and I fail?

I grow scared to the point of hysterics, my breath growing short and my vision blurry. I need to get out from between these four walls that suddenly feel as if they are closing in on me.

I get up and hurry out the door of the bedroom—though hurry is such a strange word when my walk has turned into more of a waddle—and head down the hall away from where I hear the boys talking to Romulus.

I don’t stop until I’m out the back door.

I don’t even stop to listen to what they’re saying because I feel like I’m suffocating with hysteria. I walk as fast as I can towards the edge of the forest and then into it, trying to find a patch of seclusion and calm. I just want to feel the nighttime air and the trees and the stars.

I sit down on the ground when I am too fatigued to walk any further and stare up at the moon.

I want to turn.

I want my body to transform. I don’t want to be bloated and heavy and tired and in pain. I want to transform and be a wolf so that I can run through the nighttime forest at a furious speed and feel the wind in my fur.

I don’t think about anything else right now; not the three little pups inside of me, not the boys or the doctor or my mother. I don’t think about anything at all except for the feeling of wanting to be free and not scared anymore.

But once again, I am unable to transform.

I may be feeling panicked and reckless, but thankfully my body is not. My body is protecting the babies.

I sit there on the forest floor, beneath the moon that taunts my wolf form out to play. The moonlight teases my body to shift, but my body refuses. It may not be the full moon, but it’s close.

Close enough to ignite an ache in my bones.

I almost wish that I would pass out again, right here on the forest floor, so that I could lay unconscious instead of feeling the terrible fear and pain that I have to endure instead. When I am finally able to get up again, I start to slowly walk back toward the house, knowing that the boys and Lydia and even Romulus are probably fretting over where I’ve gone by now.

But it turns out that they aren’t the ones doing most of the fretting.

On my way up to the house, I walk by the cabin—and discover that it isn’t as abandoned as I remember. As I left it.

There, standing in the middle of the driveway, is my mother.

22

Sabrina

My mother.

/> The person I’ve longed for, ached for almost as much as my transformations.