Wolf Bonded (Wolfish 1)

“So, you’re werewolves,” I say. “All of three of you?” My glance starts with Rory and then shifts between Kaleb and Marlowe too.

“Yes,” Rory answers. “All of us.”

“Okay,” I say, sucking my breath in. “Werewolves are real.” I try to embrace this new fact as quickly as I can. “You guys are werewolves, and that girl by the river is a werewolf. How many of there are you?”

“A lot.”

I nod my head because I don’t really know what else to say.

“She’s taking this a lot better than I thought she would,” Kaleb says to Rory with a grin on his face.

I thought I would have so many questions. I should have so, so many questions. I should want to know if there are other kinds of animal shifters. I should want to know if there are other … creatures … too. Things like vampires, witches. The paranormal. Magic.

I should want to know how it works. Every detail.

But instead, right now, I just want to know one thing.

“What did you mean when you said I have an effect on you?” I as. The grin slips from Kaleb’s face and is replaced by a much more serious expression. He shifts uncomfortably on his tree trunk and looks at his brothers.

“Go ahead,” Rory says to him. “You might as well tell her now. The time for keeping this a secret is so far gone, I don’t even know why we’d bother at this point.”

“Yeah, how long did that last … a couple weeks?” Kaleb says.

He gets up and walks over to me again. He kneels down in front of where I’m sitting and leans forward to kiss me a second time. The warmth of his lips envelops me and again, I find myself unable to think of anything else. When he pulls away, he tilts his head in the direction of his brothers.

“Look,” he says.

“What—”

“Just … look,” Kaleb repeats.

When I turn back to Marlowe and Rory, I see what he means right away.

It’s their eyes. Here, in the dim light of the forest, it’s unmistakable.

I remember that reflective, saturated yellow from my dream of Rory. Well, at least I thought it was a dream, I thought it had to be a dream, when he pulled me from the river.

But now I can see it as clearly as anything. Both boys are looking at me with a pair of bestial yellow eyes that seem to glow as if backlit by fire. As the moments tick on from my kiss with Kaleb, that fire inside starts to dim.

I look back at Kaleb for an explanation, but it’s Rory who speaks.

“We can’t resist you, Sabrina, because we’re not made to resist you.”

24

Sabrina

“Kaleb isn’t the only one who wants you, Sabrina. We’re pack animals. We all do.”

I’ve found myself at a loss for words several times over the course of the past few weeks, but this one definitely takes the cake. Three guys, werewolves, all saying that they are attracted to me … me.

“I know this is a lot to take in,” Marlowe says, and I can’t keep myself from scoffing at the notion that “a lot” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Since I can’t think of anything else to say, I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

“What color is your fur?” I ask Marlowe, knowing it’s a stupid reaction to what these three just told me.

Marlowe laughs. “It’s the same color as my hair,” he says as he pulls a lock in front of his shoulder to examine it for