Wolf Broken (Wolfish 2)
“I … I had to …”
Romulus steps forward to interrupt me, but even he doesn’t get the chance to speak. It’s Remus who steps in front of everyone to interrupt.
He stands in front of me, looking at me with such disgust that I feel like a piece of rotten and decaying flesh.
He’s smaller here, inside, than he was in the darkness.
But he’s no less menacing.
As shocked as I am to see him here, I guess I should have known that he would come here to tell Romulus of my unsanctioned visit; and of course he would be faster than me at getting to the mansion. Even if I hadn’t gotten lost, he still would have beat me.
I don’t know how I thought I could keep my little visit a secret, even for a second.
I should have known it would have ended here, eventually.
“You’re all mongrels,” he growls as he looks at everyone around me, including his brother. “And you, Romulus, are a traitor. Protecting these humans and half-breeds as if they were your own. You should be disgusted with what you have become. Consider this my one and only warning to all of you; if this girl, or any of your pack, steps a single foot or paw inside my territory again—I won’t be held responsible for the bloodlust of my pack.”
His territory?
That was Free Territory.
Unless …
Marlowe speaks, his voice calm and quiet. “Remus’ pack claimed that side of the river, Sabrina. It’s an old wolves’ code.”
“But how was I supposed to know that?” I say, before I think better of it.
“That’s the point,” Remus snaps. “You couldn’t. You aren’t one of us. You never will be.”
Romulus draws himself up as if he’s about to confront his brother, but Lydia puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him for exacerbating the growing conflict.
Remus notices her movement, and the effect that it has on Romulus and sneers.
“You and your ridiculous alliance,” he says to his brother. “I don’t give a shit about the alliance, and if it were up to me I would do away with it entirely, along with all the non-pure-blooded wolves.”
“As for you,” Remus says to me, walking closer in front of the open doorway. “Your visit to me tonight proved exactly why you, and every other human, should never be turned. You’re an impulsive, ignorant, and frail species who have no place breeding with our blood.”
He casts one look over his shoulder at the man he once called his own blood. The man who still is, though neither of them seem eager to admit it.
“Bonded to you?” he spits, his words as toxic as venom as he glances around at his nephews. “What a terrible mistake.”
Remus knocks his broad shoulder into me to push me out of the doorway as he leaves. All the boys immediately bristle, but they do nothing to stop him.
Nothing at all.
All eyes are on me.
Suddenly I feel an alarming sense of ruination. My stomach twists inside of itself as I start to feel my world begin to spin. Something REALLY bad is coming, and there’s no way for me to stop it.
The inevitable has arrived.
Romulus steps forward to finally look me in the eyes. I wish he looked angrier at me, even that would have been better than the way he’s looking at me right now. Instead of anger, he looks vacant; as if he is looking at nothing more than empty space in front of him.
“Because of what you just did,” he says with treacherously prolonged words, “embarrassing our entire pack, humiliating me in front of my brother and all who are allegiant to him, and endangering both yourself and others … we have no choice.”
My breath comes out so quiet, it sounds like it’s barely a whisper. “No choice but to …”
“To leave.”