Wolf Bargain (Wolfish 3)

I feel my stomach sink, as if I ever thought it could have sunk any lower.

“You shouldn’t have come then,” Romulus says. “It’s a death sentence.”

As soon as he says it, he looks over at me and it’s obvious he wishes that he had chosen different words.

“I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s the truth. We can’t be afraid of the truth.”

I sound a lot braver than I am, because in reality I’m terrified. But I want to continue to know what’s going on and I don’t want Romulus to think he has to water things down for me before he says them.

How am I supposed to help if all I’m given is the rose-colored version?

“Of course, I came,” Vivian says with a small snort. “You guys are family, and family doesn’t abandon family.”

She glances over at me.

“Even if one of them is a hugely pregnant, not-yet-shifted, pain in my ass that got us into a whole mess of trouble. No offense,” she says as she grins at me.

I laugh.

“None taken,” I say. “I’m just happy that you consider me part of the family now.”

“I mean, look at you,” Vivian says as she gestures at my stomach.

It is a much appreciated moment of levity amidst a dire situation.

At least one of them can be bluntly honest with me.

“Looks like it’s just us then,” Lydia says, after a second. She allows herself one heavy sigh before she gestures to the table before us. “We might as well eat.”

Lydia lays a beautiful spread of food onto the table and we all gather around. Romulus goes outside to get some of his pack members that have been guarding the entrance to the house to load them up with food to take back to the others.

Over the last couple weeks here, I’ve come to learn that Romulus’ pack consists of more than his immediate family. Like many of their other secrets, the Grays never told me the exact size of the pack here in North Port … but I’ve gotten some idea of its size.

It’s not a usual pack, all travelling and living together.

Unlike other packs like those under Remus, Romulus hasn’t seen the need to collect shifters like beasts of burden. Romulus’ pack enjoys a great deal of freedom—freedom to come and go as they please, but also to come to their leader in times of need. Now that Romulus is in need, however, I’ve begun to see the error in his way of doing things.

If Romulus had kept those shifters he’d helped over the years indebted to him, close to him, then we might not be in the situation that we are.

But it’s Romulus’ kindness that has become our inevitable undoing.

And I can’t fault him for that.

We are all doing everything we can in the face of this eminent danger. One of Lydia’s ways of coping and contributing is to make delicious food and feed the ranks. The days of pain and torment seem to be behind me, because I’m finally on the opposite side of wanting to hurl everything I eat.

Now, instead, I’m constantly starving—with no sign of my ever-increasing appetite abating.

This third “trimester” is definitely worse than the previous two, just as the doctor had said it would be … but in a different way. I’m not doubled over in pain from poison, but rather from the ache of my swelling belly and the three restless pups anxious to be free.

But I think that I’m taking it better these last few days, mostly because I’m involved now and never without being able to be around the boys. I eat and listen to Vivian as she tells about what the other packs are up to and how they are viewing this whole situation between Romulus and Remus. It almost sounds as if they are seeing it as a brotherly spat or a rivalry of some sort, when in fact there was much more at stake to it than that.

So much more than that.

25

Sabrina