“I know you think that I can’t feel what you can feel. I know what Lydia said about me not being able to feel the bond that we have because I’m just a human. But I swear to you, Rory, I can feel it. I can hear you in my thoughts and feel you there with me in my dreams.”
It’s his turn to shake his head in disbelief.
“But … but that’s not possible?”
The wolfish growl still lingers on his tongue.
I reach out to touch the side of his face, brushing back the shaggy hair that’s grown longer in my absence.
“But I can. I can feel the pain that you felt when you thought I had been with Tom. I can even taste your tongue in my mouth and smell the scent of your skin when you aren’t even with me. It’s not just in my head, it feels as if our very cells are wrapped together.”
Rory looks at me with a flicker of understanding and I think that he finally believes that somehow, I actually can feel it too.
“How sickeningly sweet,” a voice calls from behind Rory.
I look up over his shoulder to see Remus standing within arm’s reach.
And he’s not alone.
24
Sabrina
Remus is flanked on all sides by members of his pack.
Members of his enormous pack.
Rory doesn’t turn around right away at the sound of his voice. Instead, he stands up slowly and brings me up to my feet too with his arms wrapped tightly around me. I can see his glowing eyes looking over my shoulder at Vivian as if he’s asking her a silent question and she is answering it with only her eyes.
Then Rory turns around with his back toward me, still holding my hand as he places his body between me and Remus.
“I see you’ve made it easier on me by showing up nude. I do hate when fabric gets stuck in my teeth,” Remus taunts.
“No rules have been broken,” Rory says cautiously. I catch the sight of him moving his bare foot back slightly so that it’s no longer touching the trodden section of grass. “We have no quarrel with you now.”
“And yet still you have,” Remus growls. “Here you are, on my territory, a naked and broken excuse for both a man and a wolf; groveling to some human girl as if your life depends on her. When in fact, your life now depends on me.”
I can hear Vivian moving behind me, getting closer to us, I think. And I can see Remus’ pack tightening their semi-circle around him.
“I’m so disappointed in you, Rory,” Remus continues. He sounds partially sarcastic, but also somewhat sincere. “You are the eldest, and the only pure-blood descendent of my brother. I thought that you were the wisest too, but I can see I’m mistaken.”
The low guttural growling coming from Remus’ pack is silenced when Remus puts his hand up to hush them. He steps onto the territory line so that half of his foot is outside of it and half still within. His toes touch the tips of Rory’s and he speaks to him quietly enough that only Rory and I can hear.
“You did break a rule tonight and we both know it. You set foot on my territory after being specifically warned not to. You came in wolf form and with so much rage within you that I can still smell it. You came here to kill or be killed, and I don’t think you can honestly deny that, can you?”
Rory stares at his uncle and I squeeze his hand so tightly that if he had been a human, I probably would have broken his finger.
“No,” Rory says with conviction. “I can’t deny that.”
“You were warned,” Remus says again. “It pains me to lose my one and only blood nephew, but you’ve put me in a difficult position. If I don’t kill you, my pack will smell the weakness of their leader … and that’s just not something I can allow.”
Rory pulls his hand from mine and gently pushes me backward toward Vivian.
He’s preparing to fight his uncle, and he knows that he won’t win. That’s what his look to Vivian was about a moment ago. I see that now.
It wasn’t a plan to win … it was a plan to get me away.
A plan to protect me.