Wolf Bargain (Wolfish 3)

Even in the clothes I’ve borrowed from Lydia in recent weeks, I look like a swollen potato. My eyes are sunken even as my cheeks have filled out to almost comical proportions, my hair is greasy and stringy, and my abdomen strains against the elastic of the same loose linen pants I’ve been wearing for going on a week now.

Because it’s not bad enough that my insides are at war with me. It’s as if my whole entire body has just decided to revolt.

I really do look worse for wear.

This is not at all how I imagined my honeymoon with Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb. I imagined it to be a forest dream filled with magic and wonder and adventure, and lots and lots of love-making. Instead it is a total nightmare and I’m the scariest looking one here.

And I haven’t even made my first transition yet.

I’ve seen how the shifters look in the moment between man and wolf. At this rate, I’ll look like that monstrosity full time.

Marlowe catches the look on my face when I turn away from the glass, and suddenly stammers out a hasty compliment … one that falls so flat, even Rory and Kaleb stop what they’re doing to screw up their faces.

“What?” Marlowe says, after a moment of glancing between the many disapproving looks thrown his way. “I mean, at least she’s looking …” He trails off there, and I know the next thing he says is a lie too. “Stronger. She’s looking stronger, right?”

Even if it wasn’t obvious to my human eyes, I would have sensed that he was lying anyway.

I reach for the cup of coffee and wrinkle my nose up at it. Normally, I’d be the first one to quip something back to Marlowe. I think that we all just play along with it, myself included, simply because the alternative is dealing with the fact that I look like total shit.

“Let’s go for a walk, boys,” Romulus says after another prolonged moment of silence. He’s looking at me strangely, in that way that tells me whatever it is he has to say to them—it’s about me.

Just like everything is these days.

Just like it always has been.

I know what they’re doing; they’re planning. They’re talking about what they’re going to do to Remus in repayment for what he did to me; to all of us. They’re not going to turn a blind eye to his treachery, and I don’t blame them. Remus should face punishment for what he did.

For the things I’m not even ready to face.

But I’m worried that they’re going to retaliate out of emotion and get themselves hurt, or worse. I’ve already seen for myself what Remus is willing to do—the lengths he’s willing to go to make sure I suffer.

I take my coffee over to the window where Romulus had been looking out and watch them talk from inside. I still haven’t been able to force myself to take a single sip, but the motion of holding it in my hands brings me a small sense of normalcy. It’s comforting.

“I wish that they would include me in their conversations,” I say to Lydia, my eyes still glued to the men on the other side of the glass. “I feel like an outsider again.”

She moves to stand beside me, one hand reaching to rest on my shoulder.

“You’re not an outsider, Sabrina. You never have to worry about feeling that way again.”

I tear my eyes away from the glass to look at her. “Then why do I feel that way now?”

She sighs.

“They’re just trying to keep you safe,” she says. “You know that. They don’t want you to be upset or stressed. Not before, and certainly not now.”

Not now that you’re basically on death’s door at any give

n moment.

I look back out at them on the lawn. I can make out some of what they say from the shapes their lips form.

Remus. Sabrina. Pack.

But that’s about it. I’ve never been a very accomplished lip-reader. I wonder, for a minute, if I would be able to hear them if my transformation had been completed. My senses, sharpened for a brief moment before my poisoning, have seemed to dull these past weeks. I can barely smell, taste, and hear as a human.

“They don’t want me to try to stop them,” I say, after another moment looking out at them. Rory, Marlowe, Kaleb. They swore to protect me. I can only imagine how they feel, knowing Remus got to me—got to them—right here, under their noses. My brow is furrowed when I glance back at Lydia. “I wouldn’t stop them, you know?”

She nods. “I know … but I also know them.”