We stayed together, and now we were reunited with our children.
This is the happy ending that I only dared dream of.
At last, one dream come true.
And yet still, the itch beneath my skin turns into an aching in my bones.
“It’s time,” I say, looking up. “We should get back to the house.”
When we get back and the pups are tucked safely in their snug sleeping spots, Lydia and Romulus sit down for a drink by the fire. The boys and I get ready to sit with them, but Romulus puts up his hand to stop us before we sit down.
“Sabrina,” he says. “No need to pretend. I know you feel the urge more strongly than any of us do yet.”
Lydia giggles and I know it’s because she has picked up on my thoughts. Romulus looks at Rory and the boys and nods his head toward the door.
I bounce anxiously on the balls of my feet as Kaleb steps to the window, one hand drawing the curtain back a sliver.
“It’s still a full moon outside,” he says. “We’ll all be transforming soon.”
“Not me,” Lydia says, glancing over towards my sleeping pups.
Romulus gets to his feet. “I’ll make the tea. I’ll stay here, with Lydia and the babies.” He glances over at the four of us remaining—me, Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb. “This is your night. You should do this alone. Soon, you’ll be running the pack on your own. It might as well start with this.”
His gaze lingers a moment longer on Rory, and he nods.
Now that the threat of death is well and truly over, the restless feeling has started to overtake me. The fact that I haven’t completed my first shift yet seems to tug at every inside part of my body. I still, after all this time of wanting and waiting, don’t know what it feels like to be fully a wolf.
But I’m about to find out.
Lydia smiles at me and practically waves us out the door.
“I’ll watch over the pups,” she says. “Stay out as long as you like. We will all be here safe and sound when you get back.”
Romulus gets up and gives me a giant bear hug, the kind that fathers give their daughters. The kind I’ve always longed for.
“Do you have any advice?” I ask him before we leave.
Romulus grins at me with a look of sheer enjoyment on his face.
“Run like hell.”
So I do.
The boys jump down off the patio deck and I follow them as Marlowe catches me before my feet touch the ground.
“Ready?” Rory says as the boys all start to take off their shirts and toss them aside on the grass.
The other shifters around us are unruly. We’re instantly lost in the midst of their celebrations as more and more humans turn to wolves all around us.
“Should I take off my clothes too?” I ask, raising my voice to be heard above the commotion.
“Only if you like them,” Kaleb calls back with a chuckle.
I follow what they are doing and in a couple of minutes the four of us are standing nakedly under the moonlight. My skin tingles with excitement, the hairs on my body standing on end as an energy overtakes me.
But it still doesn’t happen right away.
I am bathed in moonlight.