Just thinking of it, of the time we were separated, hits me like a punch in the gut.
Lydia is reaching for a fireplace poker and as I foolishly stand there thinking she’s going to stoke the cracking fire in the hearth, she instead presses it up against Romulus’ open wounds to cauterize them. For a minute, I feel like I’m going to be sick. She is a lot tougher of a woman than I’ve given her credit for, because she doesn’t so much as flinch.
Romulus looks at me quietly from over the lip of his whisky glass as he calmly pours himself a draught and takes a sip. He doesn’t make a sound at the searing of his flesh, in fact, the only sound he makes is a relaxed sigh as he appreciates the fine spirits.
The tension seems to melt away from his shoulders even as the skin of his neck burns back together. Lydia sits down beside him after she’s replaced the poker in its spot on the hearth and the two of them start to talk in hushed voices. He holds her hand against his thigh and Lydia looks at him in that way she does, as if she just absolutely worships him.
It’s a private moment, one I suddenly realize I shouldn’t be playing party to.
“Come on,” Kaleb says, sensing the same as he grabs my hand. I don’t pull back. I glance once more at Romulus and Lydia in their private moment and feel a pang of jealousy.
Kaleb and I follow Rory and Marlowe up the stairs—towards their bedrooms.
We all gather in Rory’s just like we used to … on the odd occasion Romulus wasn’t following us, watching and waiting like an overbearing mother hen.
Tonight, we all sit around on the corners of Rory’s large four-poster bed while Rory grabs a T-shirt to pull over his head. Kaleb stretches his legs out into the center of the bed and Marlowe leans back against one of the bedposts.
Although they all can’t help but seem excited and anxious about the eclipse tonight, they also seem much more at ease then I expected them to be. Even Rory seems like he’s finally winding down, finally able to take a breath without punching someone in the face.
And suddenly, I find that I can breathe too.
And with that breath, all the questions start rushing in.
“What did Remus mean by the blood oath that he made Romulus swear to?” I blurt, suddenly into the silence. “I’m guessing the whole bloody biting-neck thing wasn’t just for show.”
Rory comes to join all of us on the bed as I speak. Instead of sitting in the empty corner, he comes to sit next to me.
His hand reaches towards me, stopping just inches from actually touching me, as if he’s reconsidering.
“That wasn’t just an empty gesture,” Marlowe answers, from the other end of the bed. “Swearing on blood is a pretty serious thing, especially between brothers.” He looks over at Rory and Kaleb with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not really sure what’ll happen when Romulus breaks it. I don’t think a blood oath has ever been broken between the packs before … at least as far back as I can remember.”
Rory speaks up now. “I have,” he says, his voice quiet. “And when Romulus breaks it, it’ll be tantamount to declaring war between our packs.”
War.
There’ll be nothing to stop Remus from coming for his brother’s pack, his family, if that happens.
“So … so you think he’ll actually do it?” I say, hardly daring to breathe again. My voice comes out so small and quiet that if they weren’t shifters, they wouldn’t be able to hear me. “What he said earlier then … he really meant it?”
It’s too much … too fast … to believe it.
Rory and Kaleb seem to agree because they don’t say anything to the contrary.
“I don’t know why Romulus would risk breaking his agreement with Remus for me,” I say, forcing my voice a little louder, bolder. I pull my hand away from Rory’s. “Are you sure that’s what you want? Are you sure it wasn’t better for you, easier, when you were gone? When you didn’t have to constantly worry about me?”
r /> I already know as the words come out of my mouth that it isn’t true, at least not for Rory.
If what Vivian told me is true, he couldn’t even stay away from me for long. But I imagine that at least Romulus was happy about having the other two boys away from me for a while.
“Are you kidding?” Kaleb says, suddenly. He sits forward so abruptly that it startles me. “Do you not have any idea what kind of torture we went through trying to stay away from you? I thought that at the very least, Rory’s reckless stupidity would have shown you how much the three of us need to be with you.”
I look between Kaleb and Marlowe and see the same look in their eyes that Rory had back in the woods. It looks like an aching plea rooted so deeply inside that it wraps around the very fiber of their being.
I know how that feels, it’s how I felt while they were gone.
Without them, I was gone too.
I suddenly find it difficult to swallow.