Wolf Bargain: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Wolfish Book 3) Page 2

  The actual turning ceremony is quite simple. Romulus has sat me down on several occasions to explain it, but that hasn’t stopped me from disappearing into the stories surrounding the truth. In all truth, however, it’s become increasingly difficult to discern between what is real and what is myth when so much I once thought to be make believe is now very much alive.

  As I have many nights before this, I once again stay tucked inside the library late into the evening hours—well after everyone else in the house has gone to sleep.

  It’s hours later when Romulus stumbles in on me, sitting here in the half-dark room lit by waning candlelight and chilled by the night air that creeps in through the cracks in the windowsill. The sight of me sends him reeling for a moment, but then he seems almost impressed.

  “Bit of late reading, Sabrina?” he asks as he eyes the tall piles of books that I have stacked up around my little reading spot in the corner.

  “Yeah,” I say, a blush rising in my cheeks as I glance around myself at the accumulated mess. “I just want to know all about everything.”

  I pick up the book closest to me and hold it out, my eyes glowing as I look over the worn leather cover. “Everything,” I repeat.

  Romulus chuckles.

  “All about everything?” he says. “That’s a pretty tall order of knowledge. No one knows all about everything.”

  That’s true.

  “Well, then I want to know about as much as I possibly can,” I say, amending my answer.

  Romulus nods his head as if he’s influenced by what I’ve said. He takes a quick look around the room and walks over to the hearth to start a small fire inside it.

  “What does your mother think about all of this?” Romulus asks as he stokes the beginnings of the flame.

  Ugh, my mother.

  I set the book down with a little too much gusto. I’ve spent the last few months here trying not to think about her.

  “She’s too busy thinking about herself at the moment to care what I’m doing.”

  Romulus glances over at me with a sideways stare.

  “I doubt that’s true,” he says. “Haven’t you told her anything about your involvement with us?”

  Maybe I would have if she wasn’t so concerned with her own involvement elsewhere.

  “Define anything.”

  “Sabrina, does she know that we’re wolf shifters?”

  I don’t answer. The look on my face tells him everything he needs to know.

  While he seems pleased at the fact that I haven’t betrayed their trust, he also seems a little wary. He nods his head in thought.

  “Just be careful,” he says, “that you don’t lose touch of your old life so completely that there’s nothing left to hold on to after the transformation.”

  He leaves me with that before I have the chance to answer.

  And maybe that’s a good thing, because I’d hate to have to tell him it’s already too late.

  2

  Sabrina

  I used to have dreams about my mother when I was little.

  I would dream that she looked like an angel, complete with wings and everything. On especially difficult nights when my father was at his cruelest, I would dream that my mother flew into my room and lifted me straight up through the ceiling and far away. It was never to any one particular place.

  It was just … away.

  It felt so real as a child that I can still remember the feeling that I had of her soft wing-feathers against my cheek and the chill air that rushed past me as we soared above the Earth. I would sometimes wake up with such a lingering memory of that dream that I would actually expect it to happen.

  But unfortunately, reality always reared its ugly head and the weight of my actual life and my screwed-up childhood came crashing back down onto me. It took me a long time to realize that my mother would never be that angel to me.

  There was a half lie in what I told Romulus last night.

  It’s true that I haven’t been speaking much to my mother … but I didn’t tell him why. I didn’t tell him that there was nothing left for me to hold on to because she’s already gone.

  The last thing that I heard from her was an unfeeling and abrupt text that she sent saying that she was moving back to Florida with my father—the same abusive man who’d driven us out here to Washington in the first place.

  I didn’t argue. Didn’t even reply.

  She’d warned me, already, that she was finished with running.

  She’d told me she’d been talking to him again.

  So, when she left … disappeared on me as the boys had not too long before, it wasn’t so much of a surprise as it was a final disappointment. I only allowed myself to feel sorry for my mother for less than half a second. She had a choice; she always had a choice, and she was either too scared or too ignorant to make the right one.

  By the time she left too, a part of me had actually started to think that she actually enjoyed the perverse game that she and my father played back and forth with each other. Kind of like that game of cat and mouse, where she was the mouse and she knew the cat was going to eventually eat her—but she stayed inside the maze anyway.

  How anyone in their right mind would walk willingly back to something like that is beyond me.

  Then again … I’ve had my own issues with my already unconventional relationship.

  Just comparing the two, even for a second, makes me feel sick.

  The boys left me. They didn’t hurt me, not physically anyway. And they’ve made up for it … more than made up for it. It’s me who’s holding back now, me who’s forced this gap between us.

  But that’s for my own safety, at least until they do as they’ve promised. I can’t trust them, not fully, until they’ve proven to me that they aren’t going anywhere this time. I won’t be left behind again. Not by them, anyway.

  I’d hoped that my mom was finally becoming stronger and that we were finally becoming closer, enough that she wouldn’t make such a foolish decision again, but I was wrong.

  It doesn’t matter to me anymore. She’s an adult, and this is her problem to deal with now, not mine. I’d barely seen my mom in weeks and had no idea when she was actually planning to leave until she was already one foot out the door.

  I was angry at first. But now … now …

  Now, I honestly don’t care.

  Just the thought of it makes me feel guilty, but now that she’s gone, I’m finally feel like I am free from living under the fear of my father’s capture.

  He wouldn’t dare come back here now, not after the last time. Not without my mother to pave the road back to me. Maybe he’ll be content enough in his narcissistic mind that he’s gotten my mother as a consolation prize. Maybe, at long last, not only will he leave me the hell alone, but maybe his memory will too.

  If he ever did return, one day, the guys and I would rip him to shreds … and I would enjoy it.

  The time for my turning has been marked, but it’s still a long way off.

  After months and months of preparations, it barely feels like it’s waned any closer. The gap almost feels as if it’s gotten wider. As if each month waiting takes me further and further away from the thing that I so desperately need.

  Safety. Security.

  And I’ve grown tired of waiting to be given it, so I’ve decided I’m going to take it.

  There’s no point in waiting around. I’m ready now. And I’m finally prepared to demand it happen—and happen now.

  It’s just after breakfast time when I walk into the mansion’s expansive kitchen and slam an armful of books onto the table, the weeks’ worth of evidence accumulated to back my desires to be turned sooner rather than later. I’ve taken to sleeping alone in the cabin even though I’ve been offered a room up at the house. It’s my own personal stubbornness now, I suppose, making me do it.

  Lydia is in the process of brewing a pot of coffee and the slam of the books onto the wooden tabletop startles her, making her jump.

&n
bsp; “Dear Lord, Sabrina,” she gasps, one hand fluttering up to rest at the base of her throat. “You terrified me, sneaking up like that.”

  “She shouldn’t have been able to scare you,” Romulus says, appearing behind her in the doorway to the hall. “You’re getting too comfortable around her.”

  “Nonsense,” Lydia says. She opens her mouth to say something more, but a strange look comes over her face as her gaze settles on something outside the kitchen window.

  I suck in a deep breath and gear myself up to announce that I am ready to be turned into a wolf shifter and there is nothing they can do to deny me … when I see what she does outside the window, and am stricken dumb.

  I am stunned to silence as Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb walk inside, garlands of forest wildflowers in hand. There’s a look on their faces, an expression in their eyes.

  I know, at once, that I was wrong about last night.

  They weren’t angry with me. They were impatient.

  They too had made up their minds about something … and this something … it makes my heart feel as if it’s going to explode. Because for once, I feel seen. I feel heard. They’ve sensed my impatience, and for once, they’ve determined to give me what I need instead of making me wait for it.

  “Sabrina,” Rory says, his eyes alight as he and his brothers look down at me with rapture on their faces.

  Behind me, Lydia and Romulus fall silent as all three of them drop down to one knee in front of me and holds a hand over their hearts.

  “It’s time, don’t you think, for us to become one?”

  I hold a hand up to my mouth.

  Each one proposes in turn, starting with Rory and ending with Kaleb. Each man says a single sentence that appeals to the reason I should marry them and become bonded to them in every way possible.

  Rory speaks of needing each other, Marlowe speaks of an unbridled desire, and Kaleb speaks of wanting to be at my side forever.

  I can feel the look of pure shock on my face as if it is a mask that I can’t breathe from beneath. I don’t know what to say or do as I stand there in a surprised silence.

  I’m so used to being pushed aside, even by them—even when they mean well. Now, here, I don’t know what to do.

  I can see the faces of the boys’ parents reflected in the glass. They wait with their own bated breath for my answer.

  I want to say yes. I want to accept the proposals from all three of them as if my life depended on how quickly I can utter the word. But I am frozen, because there is still so much undecided. There’s still so much that’s been kept from me.

  Something in the reflection of the glass makes me glance over my shoulder, to look directly at the man most responsible for my hesitation.

  As Romulus stands and watches the elongated moment between us, something in him bends and gives way to a softer and more compassionate man than I’ve seen in him before. Lydia stares at him with knowing eyes and an expression that seems to melt the layers away from the persona of who I thought Romulus to be.

  “I was wrong to force you to postpone all this time,” Romulus says, catching my gaze. “I was wrong to try to control what you felt and how you chose to act on those feelings. After what I saw the other night, and after seeing Sabrina working so diligently to understand us and our culture, I have realized that I have no place telling you what to do anymore.”

  “Really?” Kaleb asks from his kneeled position. He’s unable to hide the surprise in his voice.

  Rory and Marlowe don’t say anything, but I can see that they share in Kaleb’s sentiment. No one expected Romulus to have this change of heart. Not, at least, so openly.

  I’ve seen him soften over the last few months, but he’s never been exactly sentimental.

  “Really,” Romulus says. “I was wrong to hold you back. Any of you. I won’t stand in your way any longer.”

  I can see Lydia giving Romulus a pleased smile out of the corner of my eye. All three of the boys look as if a heavy burden has been lifted from them, but then the moment has passed and all eyes are back on me.

  I still don’t know how to respond.

  After a few more awkward moments of silence, I look around at all of them, not knowing who I should direct my question to and not wanting to sound completely ignorant.

  “Do I have to choose?” I ask. “Because if I have to choose between you three, I’d never be able to.”

  I feel so embarrassed for having even asked that question, but I don’t know what I’m doing with all of this and I don’t want to screw it up. If I have to choose one of the boys, then I don’t think I can. It would be like asking which limb I would rather do without.

  Lydia comes up next to me and puts her hand on my shoulder as she speaks quietly.

  “I know that this is a different experience than what most humans have,” she says. “But you are soon to not be human anymore anyway. In our world, the world that you want so desperately to be a part of, you don’t have to choose.”

  “What?” I scramble to put the pieces of my aching heart back together, even as I struggle for words. “But I didn’t see that in any of the books. I didn’t …”

  Lydia interrupts me.

  “There’s much about our culture that’s unwritten. Unspoken. But if what you want is all three of them …”

  “Then you can have us,” Marlowe says, finishing her sentiment. His eyes are dewy with tears.

  It’s a sparkle that’s not missed in my own eyes.

  “Go ahead,” Lydia says, quietly again. “All you have to do is say yes.”

  I look at all three of the shifters I love in front of me as Lydia takes her hand off my shoulder and goes to stand next to Romulus.

  “Yes,” I say. When I say the word, it feels as though the air in the house vibrates all around us and pulls us even closer still. “A thousand times … yes.”

  Rory hugs me first and then I feel Kaleb and Marlowe’s arms wrap around me as well. I can be with all three of them, each of whom holds my heart in a way that I wasn’t ready to let go of. I look over at Romulus and Lydia, who are now standing beside each other with their arms wrapped tightly behind each other’s waists.

  I won’t stand in your way.

  I know what he means.

  It’s time—when I am ready—to be turned.

  No more waiting. No more wondering.

  This is everything I’d hoped for and more. Not only didn’t I have to choose between the three boys, but Romulus and Lydia actually seem happy that I plan to stay with them all. No amount of studying from the books would help me figure out this strange situation.

  I stay at the house for most of the day as we talk excitedly and make plans for the ceremony. It will be small, it has to be small, so that it doesn’t draw the attention of any of the other packs for as long as possible.

  There will be hell to pay for bringing me into the pack. Not only will I be married to all three boys, but I will be turned. An abomination for both human and shifter.

  But I don’t care.

  Romulus and his family are ready and willing to accept the consequences of their actions, but there is no need to advertise it needlessly. The wedding ceremony will include only the boys and I, Romulus and Lydia, a shaman officiant from their pack to perform the ceremony, and maybe one or two close friends.

  When Romulus asks if my mother will be coming, I hesitate to answer because I don’t know. I guess I should go tell my mom what’s going on.

  But when I go back to the cabin to tell mom the news, I remember she’s gone.

  I still haven’t told them, because I still haven’t come to believe it myself.

  I allow myself a moment to grieve the image of the mother that I wanted, the one with the soft wings who would carry me far away from any sign of trouble. Then I accept the sour and bitter sting of the truth; my mother will never be that person and I am better off without her.

  At least now, even without her, I’ll no longer be alone.

  3

  S
abrina

  When I still insist on staying in the cabin alone for the weeks leading up to the ceremony, the boys protest when I finally get up the courage to tell them the truth about my mother’s abandonment.

  They aren’t as shocked about that as they are my refusal to move up into the house right away.

  “I don’t understand,” Rory says in frustration after a few attempts to convince me otherwise. “Why don’t you want to stay with us?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to stay with you,” I say, finally. “I just think that it’s a good idea for me to stay here alone until the ceremony before I fully shift into my new life. I’ll still come up to the house during the day, but I need to take a few nights over the next couple of weeks to say goodbye to who I used to be.”

  Maybe what Romulus said to me the other night has taken hold.

  There’s so little left of my life to hold on to, I want to make sure I don’t end up with any regrets.

  “Take as long as you need then,” Marlowe says, nudging both of his brothers until they agree as well, even though I can tell they still don’t fully understand. “You know that we’re right here if you need us.”

  “Thanks,” I say with a smile.

  “I think you’re just afraid that we’ll seduce you before the wedding ceremony,” Kaleb teases as he gives me a hug. When he pulls back, he has a more serious expression, and I know he’s thinking about the consequences of that. I have to be a virgin for the turning ceremony. If it weren’t for that little fact, we would’ve given in where that’s concerned a long time ago.

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” he says after a second.

  “Definitely then,” I say, laughing.

  Marlowe looks more serious than the other two. “You’ll stay inside the cabin though, right?”

  “I mean, I might want to take some walks in the woods and maybe a swim in the river,” I say, waiting for their reaction as Marlowe’s face frowns with concern and he gets ready to open his mouth to argue with me about wandering off on my own.