I take a half step back, my eyes flickering up to the ceiling. “She’s … withdrawn. Angry.”

I swallow. “And more than that, back at the cave …” I stop talking and shake my head to clear it. “Whatever you said to her on that little walk, it spooked her.”

Kaleb is watching me carefully now. He’s no longer trying to run away.

“Shit,” he mutters, his eyes finally dropping down the towel in his hands. He’s no longer as interested in it as he was before. It’s his turn to shake his head for a moment. “I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” he says, before looking back up at me guiltily. “It’s my fault. I started going on about shifters killing people …”

“You what?” I say, sharply. “Why would you do that? What on earth compelled you …”

And even as I say it, I know.

Romulus.

I stop in the middle of my own sentence and bare my teeth at the wall behind Kaleb.

My brother’s nervous energy has returned, even as the sound of voices carries down to us from the end of the hall. Our guests have arrived. It’s too late to do anything now. Today.

But something is going to have to be done.

“How are we going to fix this?” Kaleb asks, his voice surprisingly small.

His face is downturned when I look back at him, his expression that of a pup that’s gotten caught doing something naughty.

I shake my head again, my own thoughts racing.

“We’re going to have to show her what we are. What we really are,” I say, carefully. “And I think I know one way to do that.”

Kaleb’s eyes brighten. “Are you talking about …”

I nod.

“Romulus is going to take some convincing, but I think it’s time Sabrina got to watch a transformation. A real one.”

12

Sabrina

There are only two more full moons before the eclipse now, and I’m happily surprised when Romulus says it’s okay for me to come and watch one of the transformations.

It won’t be the first shift I’ve witnessed, but it will be the first time I’m allowed to watch on the night of a full moon—when they can’t help but change over into their wolf forms.

I know this is some sort of recompense for these last weeks—for Vivian, for the boy’s abandonment—but I’ll take what I can. These are the things I hold on to, the little bits of their lives that I’m allowed to grasp at like straws.

Since it’s only the boys, him, and Lydia, and since this moon is apparently not the strongest; Romulus agreed that it’ll be okay for me to come just this once. Vivian is gone for now, though I’m sure I’ve not seen the last of her. I’m sure she’ll be back when the full moon has passed, her presence temporarily banished in favor of mine—a fact that Romulus doesn’t seem at all pleased about.

I can tell that the boys probably pressured him to let me come until he caved. Like they do with everything.

Nothing ever comes easy where Romulus is involved.

Lydia brings out a tray of teacups as we are all sitting outside on the wide porch of the mansion, waiting for the moon to reach its fullest. I never thought I’d be anxious, but Vivian’s words run over and over in my mind, unbidden, and I feel a new fear nagging at the edges of my thoughts.

I reach for the cup closest to me, hoping something hot will still the shaking in my hands, but Lydia puts her hand over mine to stop me from taking it.

“Here,” she says as she hands me a different cup instead. “That one is for Romulus.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Lydia says with a smile that should be reassuring, but instead makes me feel even more on edge. Her kindness can be too much sometimes, like it keeps me feeling like a guest rather than family. “The root tea keeps him from transforming during the full moon. It would have tasted disgusting to you.”

Tags: Eden Beck Wolfish Paranormal
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