Wolf Bargain (Wolfish 3)

So, naturally, I stand in the corner of the hallway to listen.

“It can’t be ignored,” Rory says, from inside. “After what he did, something has to be done with him for his betrayal.”

“I agree with Rory,” Kaleb says. “It was a declaration of war and nothing less.”

They suddenly quiet, their voices trailing off into silence as I remember that even though a part of our bond was damaged, the rest of it is still very much intact. The boys must still be able to sense that I am near, just as I could. Just as the bond led me here.

Fortunately, they don’t manage to stop talking before I’ve realized what they were discussing. They’ve been discussing what to do about Remus, of course.

I didn’t need to overhear it to know it.

It’s all there is on any one of our thoughts. He’s all there is in any of my dreams. His face. His evils.

“Hey,” Marlowe says as he walks out the door of the library and sees me in the hallway. “What are you doing out of bed?”

His forehead creases with concern.

“I’m tired of being in bed,” I say as I walk slowly toward him. My legs feel a bit like gelatin, if gelatin were weak and painful.

Marlowe helps me sit down in a chair inside the library as Rory and Kaleb come to sit around me too.

“Part of the reason you’re still so weak now,” Romulus says, watching me from across the table, “is because you are at the lowest point in the moon cycle now and your body is probably reacting to the fact that you never shifted the first time.”

“Can’t I just do it now then?” I ask. “Maybe if I just shifted it would start to make things better. At least a little.”

I know nothing I do will make everything better. There’s still a part of me that is lost forever. Stolen.

“No, the first shift is already so hard on the body. You’d better wait until the next full moon. You’re just not strong enough to endure it yet,” he says. He shakes his head, his eyes sliding away from me as if just looking at me is too unpleasant to bear.

Rory sees the frustration on my face. “I promise that after your first shift you’ll start to feel more like your old self,” he says, quickly. “Actually, you’ll start to feel like your new self. Just wait for a little longer.”

His hand reaches out to rest on my shoulder. Though it’s meant to be reassuring, it just feels pitying.

“I’m tired of waiting,” I say with a huff.

I know that they’re right though. I can barely walk from one room to the other without feeling like I need to sit down and rest again. I can barely keep my head held straight on my neck without leaning it back against the chair. There’s no way my body could handle a shift right now.

The boys help me back to the bedroom and I lay down again, even though I don’t want to. Even though they say they’re doing it out of concern for me, part of me knows they want to go back to their discussions.

They’re up to something, but they won’t share it with me while I’m like this.

So, even though it pains me, all I can do is focus on getting better until I can demand my place at their table again. As it is, I can barely demand a glass of water.

Every day I try to get up and walk to a different room in the house and every day I end up needing to sit down in a chair or on the floor of wherever I have made it to and wait for the boys to help me back to the bed. The frustration alone is the most exhausting part. But each day I get a little further and after several days I do actually begin to feel a marked improvement.

A tiny mark, but a mark still.

I haven’t run into anymore discussions about the other packs again, but I can sense the tension in the boys, and I know that they’re still talking about it. I want to know what they’re planning. But I’m too tired, and too focused on getting better, to do anything about that right now.

The stronger I get and the better that I start to feel, the more optimistic I become that I will be able to shift during the upcoming moon and that maybe things will start to make sense. That single thought grows until it consumes me.

I think of nothing else. I can’t think of anything else … because everything else makes me feel as if I’m crumbling, as if I’m falling apart.

“You’re looking better today,” Lydia says when I walk into the living room one afternoon to find her sitting and reading her book with a cup of tea.

“Thanks,” I say, with a small smile that feels like the first I’ve been able to muster in weeks. “I think that’s the first time anyone has said that since this all happened.”

“That’s probably because it’s the first time that you’ve actually looked better,” she teases. “Would you like some tea?”