She’s quiet for a moment and then asks everyone kindly to leave. It’s in this moment that I know the dread inside me isn’t made up. It isn’t fueled by my own fears. Whatever it is … it’s real.
The boys hesitate, especially Rory, but in the end, they seem to know that she needs to talk to me alone as so they do as she asks.
I don’t want to let go of Rory’s hand, but he assures me that they aren’t going far. His eyes plead with me, begging me for something I don’t understand. And then he’s gone.
I feel the void left in his wake.
Lydia comes to sit down on the edge of the bed beside me. Even when she is very obviously about to deliver bad news, the kindness and warmth on her face remains.
“Sabrina, the poison that Remus gave you was a powerful one,” she says.
Poison.
I’d known it for a moment, before the blackness took me. Now, nearly a week later, I’d almost forgotten. But at the mention of it again I feel my head spin again as it did the moment the poison first hit me.
“So you know? Oh, thank god, I was trying to stay awake to let you know but then I passed out.”
I find myself rocking back and forth a bit where I lay, as if I’m wrestling with everything happening right now, unable to settle on how to act or how to feel.
“Yes, we know. We realized what happened right away.”
Here, she glances once over her shoulder—and for a sickening moment I’m reminded of when Remus did the same. They were each looking for the same person, but each for different reasons.
“Romulus …” she begins, her voice catching. “I can’t tell you the depths of the shame he feels for trusting his brother, even for a second.”
She takes a second to compose herself before continuing.
“Remus is proud of what he has done to you and to our pack. He wasted no time in taunting Romulus with the knowledge of it. The boys, of course, rushed in to help you and carried you up here to bed where we have all been watching over you. Like Romulus said, you’re lucky to be alive.”
“Then his plan failed,” I say, hoping that things aren’t as dreadful as I can feel they are.
“No,” Lydia says as she sadly shakes her head. “His plan succeeded.”
The way she looks at me …
“I don’t understand,” I say, stubbornly. “I’m alive. Wasn’t that Remus’ intention? To … to kill me and prevent me from shifting?”
“Remus’ intention was to inflict as much damage to Romulus and his pack as he possibly could. Simply killing you wouldn’t have been enough. So, he did something else.”
Lydia’s already forced smile fades from her face.
“Sabrina, the reason that your bond feels different is because of the poison. The change in your bond … it’s what a wolf feels about her mates once her breeding age has passed. The desire that you had to mate, to breed and produce offspring … that part of your bond is gone.”
I blink up at her, not understanding.
“Sabrina, that feeling has passed because you can no longer carry pups. I’m so sorry, Sabrina, but you can no longer have children. The poison …”
And then it finally dawns on me.
I finish her sentiment in a hollow, empty voice. “It’s made me infertile.”
I feel a heavy emptiness that pushes me down against the bed. My bond with Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb is forever changed. That wonderful moment that we had in the forest enclave is erased and changed into a pained memory because it will never happen again.
Not like that.
Never in the same, feral way.
We will never have that part of our connection and I will never be able to carry their children.