Wolf Broken (Wolfish 2)

“But that isn’t it, is it,” I say, and he freezes, his back to me. The muscles in his shoulders tense. I can tell he’s considering leaving me, like Sabrina, without an answer … but then he changes his mind. He turns around to face me, slowly, his eyes glowing yellow in the dark.

It’s his turn to keep his voice so low, I can barely hear him.

Even still, it takes him a moment to answer. As I watch, all the anger and frustration slips out of him … seeping like tension from every bone, every ligament in his body. It isn’t until he looks like a broken, tired shell of himself that he answers.

“What do you know about the turning ceremony?”

I blink in surprise.

This is not the direction I expected this to go.

Rory glances over his shoulder once, conspiratorially, and I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I mirror his posture, looking down the hallway myself, before replying.

“Not much,” I say, carefully. “Even Lydia, you know her, she doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Even though Rory still looks tired, that gleam in his eye sparks back, just for a second. He steps closer to me, his eyes glued to mine.

“You and Kaleb, you love accusing me of not wanting her enough. But has it ever occurred to you that the reason I do the things I do, the reason I act this way … it’s for her own benefit?”

“More for your own,” I mutter. “What are you so afraid of, Rory? Looking weak?”

He bares his teeth at me again, menacing this time. “The only thing I’m afraid of,” he says, “is losing her. And that’s what’ll happen if we mate with her.”

He steps back a second, letting the air cool between us for a moment.

“Because if any one of us touches her, if she loses her virginity … then she can never be turned.”

I feel a cold pit start to form in my stomach as I think of all the times we’ve gotten close—of all the times I almost couldn’t reign myself in.

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” I hiss.

Rory shakes his head. “It just seems so impossible … I didn’t see the point.”

“And yet it wasn’t so impossible that you wouldn’t stop us from doing it?” It’s my turn to step forward, closer to him. I cock my head and look at him more carefully. “Are you telling me you think there’s a chance we can turn her?”

“No,” Rory answers, but it’s too quick. He presses his lips together, his mind wandering for a moment … and I know while it’s not quite a lie, it’s not quite the truth, either.

While Rory doesn’t think there’s a chance we can turn her, he still hopes for it.

Just like I do.

?

?The least we can do is tell Kaleb,” I say, unable to still that little quickening of hope inside my chest, no matter how hard I try. “God knows he’s the one most likely to lose control. And he’d never be able to live with himself if he did. Not now. Not once he figured out what he’d done.”

4

Sabrina

I decide to humor the fact that I am still supposed to be a student and attend the next few days of school. The boys are there too because they need to meet their graduation requirement in order to don the fancy robes they modeled in the barn.

I try to avoid the barely hidden glances that I get from Jess, Aimee, and Tom when we sit together at lunch. I guess I have kind of abandoned them since I’ve been spending so much time with the boys.

Actually, it’s really ever since that one day down by the river. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to forgive Tom for what he did … or the roles Jess and Aimee played in it.

At first, I was going to make up some excuse for the change … but it just seemed like too much of an effort to keep up with more lies, so I opted just to avoid them and pretend like nothing’s changed. Since we’re all seniors now, I’m hoping everyone just takes the high road and goes about their own business.

Aside from trying to explain the fact that I’m dating all three of them—Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb—I can’t exactly explain the fact that they’re wolf shifters too. There’s just too many questions I don’t have a good answer to.