Wolf Bonded (Wolfish 1)

Rory takes in a breath and lets it out with carefully controlled measure.

His gaze flickers back up to the windows, and I briefly look after him. Lydia and Romulus have stopped fighting.

“We should head back inside,” Marlowe says, his features softening as he finally glances over at me. “I mean, she already knows, so it can’t get any worse.”

As if sensing my rising panic at his words, Kaleb is suddenly at my side. He’s no longer looking away, avoiding my eyes. The intensity with which he looks at me makes a cold shiver run down my spine.

“Wait here a minute, then, I promise Sabrina, we’ll explain everything.”

Rory shares a quick, knowing look with his brothers before he heads inside and can be seen talking heatedly to his parents for a moment.

I shift, uncomfortable in my own skin.

I should have known this would happen. I don’t know what I was expecting.

I’m the foreign creature here, the outsider, the misfit. I don’t know how I could have expected anything else.

Kaleb’s hand squeezes mine, prompting me to look back up from where I’ve fixated on a weed growing through a crack in the front driveway.

When they’re able to coax me back inside, it’s with no small amount of trepidation.

There’s no longer any air of this being some sort of regular birthday party. The decorations, already sparse, now look positively bare. The only one who seems happy with the change in atmosphere is Romulus.

Then again, I’m pretty sure anything that makes me unhappy is going to have the adverse effect on him. As I now shift more uncomfortably than ever on the floor in front of them, Romulus finally looks fully settled in.

And why shouldn’t he? This is his domain, after all.

I’m the intruder here.

Lydia keeps almost reaching out to me and then retreating a bit, unsure of what she’s supposed to do with me now. Whereas the rest of them are at least trying to look normal, she can’t hide the near-overwhelming guilt and … unless I’m mistaken … shame on her face.

“Sabrina …”

The apology in her voice makes my temper flare.

“Stop,” I say, hastily, squirming where I sit. “Please … just … I want to know.” My voice cracks a bit, forcing me to stop myself while I look for the right words. When they finally come out, they’re strained—strained enough to make a pained look flicker across all three Gray boy’s faces.

“I just want to know what’s so wrong with me that I couldn’t possibly be with your sons.”

“It’s less about who you are, and more about what you are.” It’s Romulus who beats the rest of them to an answer. He leans forward in his seat, one hand reaching up to stroke the bottom half of his face. “How much do you know about shifters?”

A silence has fallen over the rest of them.

“Only that—”

He cuts me off. “Did you know, for instance, that we far outlive humans?” Now he glances up at me, wanting, I’m sure, to measure my reaction. “Often by up to three, four … even five hundred years.”

My mouth drops open, unable to find the words as my mind reels over what he just said.

Romulus motions around him to the half-hearted decorations. “Is it any wonder that after a hundred and four years, the whole birthday charade just gets a little stale?”

“I guess not,” I say, my voice sounding small and insignificant in the wake of what I’ve just been told. I can still feel the look of shock on my face. I turn to Kaleb and look at him, wondering how old he really is, how old they all are.

“Don’t worry,” Marlowe laughs on my other side, reading my expression correctly. “The three of us are all only seventeen.”

“Yes,” Romulus scolds. “Which is why they frequently don’t know any better.”

“We’re not pups, Romulus,” Rory snaps back at him.