Wolf Bargain: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Wolfish Book 3) Read online

  “See?” he says, after eying me for a second. “That will do you some good, mark my words.”

  I glance around the room briefly, looking for any sign of Lydia or the boys. It’s been ages since Romulus and I were alone together. On the few occasions it’s happened, it rarely ended well.

  I eye him a little suspiciously.

  “I don’t mean to sound rude,” I say, feeling as though my tolerance for everyone and everything is down to practically nothing. “But why are you being so nice to me? I know I’ve caused you a lot of trouble. It’s no wonder you don’t particularly like me.”

  Romulus laughs, not in a mocking sort of way, but in a gently amused way.

  “Sabrina,” he says. “The reason that you’ve caused me so much trouble, and stress, and heartache is because I do care about you.”

  Huh? He definitely could have fooled me all of this time. Except for a few moments ago at the end of the driveway.

  That felt different than it had before.

  Romulus has to take a moment to clear his throat. “Down there, with your mother … I’m sorry about that.”

  I’m taken aback for a second. I realize he must have heard it all. He probably sensed her coming before I did. His wolf senses are far more fine-tuned than mine—given his over a century of experience and the fact that I still haven’t completed the turning process.

  Something that, at this point, I’m starting to wonder will ever happen.

  But Romulus clears his throat again and continues.

  “Sabrina, I want you to know that despite everything, even from the beginning, I have always thought of you as a daughter.”

  I again find myself in a state of shock, which seems to be turning into the new status quo.

  “But you wanted to kill me,” I say, unable to hide the disbelief in my voice.

  “No,” he says. “I just knew that killing you would have made things a lot easier on everyone if I had. But I couldn’t have ever killed you, not even if I had really wanted to.”

  He stops a second and shakes his head, covering the bottom half of his face with his hand as he does so, as if to hide the down-turned corners of his mouth.

  I’m so confused … and I know Romulus can tell.

  “The moment I saw you, I felt the bond too,” he says, after a moment. “Not in the way that my sons do, of course, but in the way a pack leader and even a father feels for his own long-lost daughter. I knew from the very first moment that, like it or not, you were going to be a part of my family.”

  There’s no time left to be coy. So, instead, I’m painfully blunt.

  “Certainly didn’t feel like it,” I say. “If that’s true, then why did you give me so much hell?”

  “Isn’t that what fathers do? Give their daughter’s hell when they’re being reckless and impulsive?” He moves his hand away from his face, and his grimace has started giving way to a slight, albeit a little sad, smile. “Haven’t you seen me treat my own sons the same way? Pack life isn’t easy. You have to be tough if you want to survive.”

  Isn’t that what fathers do?

  I wouldn’t know. My own father made my life an actual living hell. But not because he cared or because he was trying to prevent me from being reckless.

  He did it purely out of hate and a perverse sense of narcissistic control.

  “I’m no Lydia, but I do think I know something of what you’re thinking,” Romulus says, leaning forward slightly. “I know that your own parents have let you down. I know about your father and how abusive and horribly he treated you and I will never treat you in that way, as I’m sure you already know. I know that your relationship with your mother is a harder thing to fix. She should have been there for you, especially now, and that is a hurt that cuts deep.”

  He has to stop for a second, and from the look on his face, I wonder if there’s something more from his past that he hasn’t told me. Something about his own parents … who I realize only now have been noticeably absent from both his pack and Remus’.

  He doesn’t give me time to dwell on that thought for long.

  “But if you’ll let us, Lydia and I would like to be your parents now. We both love you, and not just as pack leaders, but as parents as well. Our sons love you and you are carrying our grandchildren right there in your belly,” he says as he points at my stomach. “And even if none of this would have worked out the way it has, for better or for worse, I would have still welcomed you into my pack and treated you as a daughter regardless.”

  It seems like my body never runs out of tears. I feel myself start to cry all over again, despite my own attempts to stop it.

  “We will always be here for you, Sabrina. We will protect you and love you and we won’t abandon you like your human parents did. If you’ll have us.”

  It reminds me of that golden day, not too long ago, when Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb proposed to me here, in this very house.

  It feels like a lifetime ago, and in a way … it was.

  I take another sip of my wine and taste the saltiness of my tears on the rim of the glass. I act like I am thinking over what he said as if it’s a proposition I have to consider. But it’s no use.

  It wouldn’t take Lydia to know what I’m thinking, to see how it overwhelms me … this time, with joy. I set my glass down on the table and rush over to him to give him a hug so big that I end up toppling over onto his lap.

  Romulus laughs and holds me and kisses my cheek. When I let go and look up, I see that he has tears in his eyes too. Of all the things that have happened today, that is somehow the most surprising.

  He is the one person that I thought I would never see cry.

  “Well it’s about time,” Lydia says, her smile lighting up the room as she, Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb return before I can make an even bigger fool of myself than I already have.

  But when I look up at her, I see her eyes are filled with tears too, the happy kind.

  The four of them must have been standing in the doorway, because from the looks of it, they heard everything.

  Rory has to clear his throat and look away for a second to try to keep the rest of us from seeing the sparkle settling at the corner of his eye. Meanwhile, Marlowe and Kaleb help ease me down onto some cushions and blankets on the floor while Romulus stokes a fire to life in the grate.

  “I’m sorry that I ran off,” I say, looking up at them as they settle around me. “I just got scared.”

  “It’s okay,” Rory says, finally coming over to join us as well. “We all get scared.”

  “But don’t do it again, okay?” Marlowe says. “We need to stick together now, all of us. If we’re going to make it through this and protect our babies, we need to stay together.”

  I nod my head. I never meant to run off. All the times it’s happened before, it’s been because of some desire to get away.

  But here, now, I know I shouldn’t need to do that anymore.

  There’s no more running.

  I am home.

  After everything that’s happened today, I should feel devastated, that all of this is a hopeless and desperate situation … but now I feel a surprising sense of peace and calm wash over me.

  I’ve been holding onto something my entire life, trying to parent my own mother and free us both from the cruel situation we were dealt. I’d been forcing a relationship for years that I wanted and needed, but that was never going to happen the way that I wanted it to. It was time for me to let go of it.

  But here, now I have a family.

  A family more real than my birth family could ever be to me.

  This family will not abandon me. This family will die to protect me. And I know now that I would die to protect the little family that I have growing inside of me now too.

  I’m not alone now.

  We’re in this together.

  24

  Sabrina

  Tonight, we take time to be together as our strange new family—Romulus and Lydia, and the boys, and me.

 
For the first time, I don’t get overwhelmed with sickness or exhaustion.

  We talk about things that we will do in the future as if we aren’t facing a foreboding trial ahead of us. Amidst it all, of course, we can’t forget the looming shadow of Remus and his pack.

  But even that doesn’t overshadow the glow of the night.

  I lift my shirt over my belly in front of the fireplace and the shadows that the flames case dance across my skin while everyone watches the rippling movement beneath. It doesn’t even seem to matter that we don’t know which one of the boys fathered the pups. They are ours and that is all that matters.

  As the night dwindles into morning and we all start to fall asleep by the fire, I notice that Romulus is still one of the only ones awake beside me.

  “I want to help with the protection efforts,” I say quietly so that I don’t wake the others.

  He starts a little, as if surprised I too am awake.

  “You aren’t strong enough,” he says. “Not in your current condition.”

  “I don’t care,” I say. “If our efforts fail, it won’t matter how strong I am. Remus will kill me, and he will kill your three grandchildren too. I want to help. Please.”

  Romulus thinks it over a little and then nods his head.

  “You can help,” he says. “I suppose it was stupid of me to think I could stop you.”

  That slight smile of his tugs on the corner of his mouth again. “I should have learned that lesson a long time ago.”

  Now it’s my turn to match his smile. “I’m still waiting for them to figure that out as well.”

  The boys stir around me, as if sensing my words. When I look down, I find myself looking into three sets of deep, dark, and contented eyes staring back up at me.

  Kaleb rolls over lazily on his side.

  “So it doesn’t have to be a secret anymore?” he asks, yawning. “Good. I was getting pretty tired of pretending you weren’t overhearing us every other day.”

  I grin down at him, brushing an unruly lock of hair out of his face.

  Finally, we’re all on the same team, all a family that is in this together. I curl up with them on the piles of blankets and floor cushions and we nap well into the early afternoon. The babies finally settle in my womb enough to let me get some rest.

  Perhaps even they know what’s coming and know that I need to be strong enough to protect them and keep them safe in there.

  When I close my eyes to dream, I see all of us together, the boys and me and the babies. Except we’re all wolves and the pups are all grown. We’re running and playing, and everything is carefree and happy.

  Romulus and Lydia are there too. There doesn’t seem to be anything to worry about anymore as we all just enjoy an evening of hunting and frolicking that ends with a cozy huddle of slumber together.

  I don’t want to open my eyes when I feel myself start to wake up. I want to hold on to that dream and stay inside of it until it just becomes true. But my eyes do open, and the boys are already starting to get up off of the cushions to follow their father out into another one of their endless meetings. Forgetting about what was agreed to last night, I stay sitting on the cushion, assuming that I will be left out of the discussions again.

  But then Rory reaches his hand to me to help me up.

  “Coming?”

  I smile and take his hand as I lurch unsteadily up to my feet. I’m happy and grateful that there’s no reason to question whether Romulus will keep his word or not. I have to remind myself that this family, my new family, is bound my more than blood.

  We’re all bound by trust.

  Romulus’ office has become a veritable battle station.

  The walls are papered in print outs of pack movements, dossiers on pack members and their strengths, and maps laying out the most likely attack points should Remus’ pack descend on the house at any given movement.

  Despite all that, when Romulus explains our position, it really doesn’t look too good. He’s written to all of the packs in the alliance that he’s helped in some capacity over the years and asked for their help in return now to protect his pack and family … but he says he doesn’t expect any of them to heed his call for help.

  “But I don’t understand,” I say. “Why wouldn’t you expect them to come to our aid? After all you’ve done, and you’re still a respected ally and pack leader. Why wouldn’t they come to help?”

  “Respected?” he says with a half-hearted laugh. “Maybe once, but not so much anymore.”

  He takes a second to clear his throat, and another to force the darkening look to shift on his face.

  “Either way, this is a lot to ask,” Romulus answers. “Not only is it asking them to choose a moral side, but it’s asking them to go up against my brother. Directly. As much as I have done to help them when I could over the years, many of the other packs have known Remus for as long as they have known me. Although they may not agree with his methodology, they likely also don’t want to fight him.”

  It makes sense, in theory. But it says nothing of loyalty.

  “We’ve spotted Remus’ pack making preparations,” Marlowe says. “It looks like he’s had more shifters come to his side and he definitely has his pack back under control now. Even from the outside, it looks like he’s almost ready to attack.”

  Others are joining him.

  The thought makes me shiver.

  Here we are, unable to get the many shifters Romulus has actively saved to come help us … but Remus can call on other packs and they answer. It’s twisted. It’s unfair.

  “He’s close to being ready, but not so ready that he’ll attack in the next few days. That should buy us some time since he won’t strike until the next full moon,” Romulus says, nodding at his middle child. “But he won’t wait long. Certainly not long enough for Sabrina to give birth … but lucky for us, he thinks that’s still months away.”

  Here, he eyes me a second from beneath his hooded lashes.

  “For once, it seems your little early transgression is going to work to our advantage.”

  Kaleb just winks at me. “If only we’d known what we were up against, we would have made sure to knock you up sooner.”

  Across from us at the table, Lydia nearly spews her tea across the table.

  Romulus continues as if he’s heard nothing.

  “Remus will be under the assumption that Sabrina will still be extremely weak and that we will exhaust ourselves and our resources to protect her and save the unborn pups. What he doesn’t know is that by that time, Sabrina should have already given birth.”

  “Then our only hope is to use that bit of secret knowledge to our advantage,” Rory says. “At the very least, we should be able to get the pups to safety.”

  My heart sinks as I listen to them talk.

  I know what he means. It’s plain on his face.

  Despite everything, all this careful planning, all this time … they aren’t preparing to win.

  They are preparing to die.

  Lydia sees my face and reaches across the table to grab hold of my hand.

  “It’s not over yet,” she says as she tries to reassure me. Her voice is low and calm as ever, but it does nothing to still my racing heart.

  “I can’t lose you,” I say to each and every one of them gathered around the table, my eyes resting a moment longer on Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb. “I won’t.”

  No one says anything else reassuring to me about it, because there really isn’t anything reassuring to say. This will be a losing battle. The boys, and even Romulus and Lydia, all know it. They are all preparing to sacrifice their lives to save the unborn babies. But I can’t live without any of them.

  During the next several days, everyone is busy preparing not only for the big battle, but also for the birth. Keeping busy seems to help all of us not become paralyzed by fear and worry. When I hear Romulus walking down the hall with someone, I pop my head out of the bedroom door to see who it is.

  “Vivian?”
r />   Her face lights up as soon as she sees me, then just as quickly, her face takes on a shocked expression as she takes in the rest of me. After a second, she’s able to compose her face and reach for me with a wan, if a little mischievous smile, in its place.

  “Hello Sabrina,” she says, her arms barely able to reach all the way around me now. When she draws back, a new look has taken over expression briefly—and though she tries to hide it from me, I catch the flicker of sadness there before she’s managed to conceal it.

  I follow them as they walk into the kitchen where Lydia and the boys are making food.

  “Vivian, good to see you,” Lydia says with a smile as she looks up from cutting vegetables against the wooden cutting board slab.

  The boys all give her a quick hug and then gather around me. I notice that as the time gets nearer to the birth of the pups, all three of them are growing increasingly protective, even amongst people that they consider to be friends. Even amongst themselves at times.

  “Are more coming?” Lydia asks as Vivian sits down and picks up one of the carrots from the table to snap between her jaw. Though she tries to keep her tone as light as ever, her eyes flicker up towards Vivian in a way that betrays the desperation we all feel.

  But even before Vivian speaks, the purse of her lips tells us what we already feared.

  “I know it’s too early to tell, really … but I don’t think so,” she says, carefully. “I think they might be, delayed.”

  Vivian doesn’t really say that the other packs aren’t coming to help at all, but she didn’t really need to. It’s implied in her voice.

  Just as we’ve suspected, there’s no one else coming to help.

  I feel my stomach sink, as if I ever thought it could have sunk any lower.

  “You shouldn’t have come then,” Romulus says. “It’s a death sentence.”

  As soon as he says it, he looks over at me and it’s obvious he wishes that he had chosen different words.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “It’s the truth. We can’t be afraid of the truth.”