I know I should be furious at myself, or him, or embarrassed even … but I just feel …
I just feel.
Those mushrooms may have caused the events of tonight, but the feelings, the longing … the bond that I have with Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb; that part is real. I just didn’t see it before or feel it like they did. But now I do.
Emptying my stomach seems to dull the psychedelic effect of the mushrooms, at least enough for me to start recognizing where I am.
Even as I’m able to think straight enough to find my way home, that link to the boys remains. Even though they left, the interconnectedness remains.
If this bond is truly there, still, I don’t think they can get rid of it any more than I can.
And if they can, then I wonder how they ever left.
And more still, how they’ve been able to stay away.
I stumble up to the cabin just as daylight starts to break. My mother left the door unlocked and I can see her open eyes staring at me from her bed as I try clumsily to climb up to my loft. When I get onto my mattress I drop down and let my head flop against the pillow. I close my eyes, but I can still see them, the yellow, wolfish eyes glowing at me from between the trees.
I wonder if I hallucinated that part too, or if there really were wolves in the forest watching us.
As I fall asleep, the lingering effects of the mushrooms mixed with the revelation of how deeply I’m connected to the boys—wolf-shifter or not—plays havoc on my dreams.
I’m at the bonfire with Tom with no one else around except for the two of us this time.
He kisses me and I let him and before I know if we are both naked and lying beside the fire. As Tom kisses my neck, I turn my head and see the glowing yellow of hundreds of eyes from between the trees and I feel an energy in the air that seems to radiate up through the ground beneath the paws belonging to all those eyes, and into my body.
When I turn my head back around to see Tom, I see Marlowe and Kaleb standing behind him. They lift Tom up and throw him onto the bonfire as they stand there and watch him burn. I don’t watch, because I can’t take my eyes off the sight of Rory walking nakedly toward me on his two feet as a man with a swollen need between his legs.
He lays down over me and as Kaleb and Marlowe tend to the fire, Rory doesn’t stop where Tom did. The way I made him. Rory ignites every feeling of desire I could ever have.
All around us, the sound of packs of howling wolves grows louder in volume and intensifies, building until the dream comes to an abrupt end.
The last thing that I see before I wake up is the smoldering heat in Rory’s eyes on top of me, both man and beast.
Just like the Rory I still love.
Like the Rory I can now feel, along with every aching emotion in my body—awake or dreaming.
20
Sabrina
“I’ve had enough!”
It’s my mother’s voice.
Her voice grates against the edges of each of my brain cells first thing in the morning, thanks to the lovely after-effects of the mushrooms. Everything in my head and body hurts.
Thanks to the mushrooms, I’m not numb anymore.
Instead, every inch of me inside and out, seems to be in pain.
When I open my eyes, she’s leaning over me on the ladder. She has the crumbled remains of a mushroom in one hand—something that must have been left in the pocket of the pants I vaguely remember leaving in a heap at the bottom of the ladder before I crawled up here last night.
I groan and cover my face with my hands.
“Seriously what the hell is wrong with you, Sabrina?”
“I don’t know mom,” I grumble at her from between my fingers. Even with my face covered, the smell of wine is thick on her breath. Thick enough to make my temper rise.