Wolf Bonded (Wolfish 1)

“Then perhaps you should stop acting as recklessly as one,” Romulus says. I guess time has only served to make him more serious, more worried, more protective.

Lydia rolls her eyes at the father-son bickering, her own voice finally returning to her. “Werewolves come to be in one of two ways,” she says. “They can breed, as humans do, or they can be made by being bitten. I, myself, was made. And I was fortunate enough to find and fall in love with Romulus and create this family, this pack, that you see here. But most turned wolves aren’t so lucky. Most of us are hated and treated as outcasts.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why would anyone hate you?”

“There’s a very powerful stigma attached with being a turned wolf. Werewolves that have been made are frequently more prone to unchecked violence.”

“It’s difficult to retain control when you are forced to shift into a wolf during the full moon,” Rory jumps in, his face set stoically forward. He’s gone back to staring straight ahead, not looking at me, but the way his hands worry at the edges of the pillow in front of him gives away his restless thoughts.

“For many of us, that makes us unpredictable and more dangerous than pure blood wolves,” Lydia continues. “Which is why most of them are taught to hate us from very early on. We’re seen as a lesser species.”

“Not to mention the fact that one wayward shifter could turn an innumerable number of humans in one lifetime,” Romulus adds. “Just think of that, the damage that just one reckless shifter could do over the course of a four or five-hundred-year lifetime.”

I nod along, though more out of lack of knowing what other way I’m supposed to respond.

I hadn’t re

ally considered what it meant for me to be a human among shifters. I knew there would be differences … but now …

I glance over at the boys, and I for the first time, I feel the widening gulf between us. I know this just scratches the surface of the disparities between us, but somehow, it doesn’t affect me as much as it should. On the outside, we look the same. On the inside, at least I think, we feel the same too.

“Which is also why it is absolutely forbidden to turn a human,” Romulus adds. The way he eyes me makes me realize that this is the answer to my unspoken question, the one I hadn’t fully realized myself.

And there it is.

The reason I can never be with the boys.

Even if the other differences can eventually be overcome, this one … this one will eventually become too much. I could never be with one of the boys, not because they’re wolf-shifters and I am not, but rather because they’ll live to be hundreds of years old, and I’ll soon grow old and feeble. By the time they’re even considered to be adults, I’ll have already begun to gray.

Soon after that, while they’re still in their prime, I’ll die.

My throat feels tight, my mouth dry.

As long as I’m human, there’s no future for us. I don’t have to look into Rory, Marlowe, or Kaleb’s faces to know they feel it too.

“What happens if someone breaks that rule?” I ask, trying to keep my voice from betraying the way I feel like the whole world is on the brink of shattering around me. “What happens if a shifter turns a human?”

“No one breaks that rule anymore,” Romulus answers stiffly. He takes a second to glare at each one of his sons in turn. “That rule is in place for a reason, and the packs govern each other accordingly. If a pack were to start turning humans again, it would be the equivalent of waging war.”

Now he looks at me. “And war with the full-blooded packs is not a war we’d win.”

“But you have a turned wolf in your own pack with Lydia, don’t you?”

I should probably temper the bluntness of my questions. I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to understand … at least begin to understand.

Instead of getting angry with me, Romulus surprisingly smiles at Lydia. When he speaks about her, his voice quiets.

“Yes,” he says gently as he stares lovingly at her. “And Lydia has taught me to be a better man than I ever thought possible. I had been taught to hate anyone like her, any wolf that had once been human and was turned unnaturally.”

He stops a second, before his voice can begin to shake.

“But she softened my heart. She taught me how to care for all of us, no matter how we came to be.” Romulus paused and then changes his glance to meet mine. “She also reminded me of the dangers. And I’m not willing to risk my pack. I wish to keep peace, regardless of how my sons, or even I, feel.”

“You think that I’m a risk?” I ask carefully. I can feel Kaleb lean closer in, as if he’s ready to throw himself between his father and I if things take a turn for the worse.

“I think that my boys are all so strongly attached to you now that you’ve put us all at risk, whether you meant to or not. But,” he adds as a caveat. “I have no intention of harming you anymore. Not now that they’ve told me about the bond.”

He shoots Lydia a look, and for the first time, I see a little bit of tension there between them.