Page 21 of Bound to the Wolf
They both agreed this was nauseating, and he was pretty sure she suspected this had been planned on the part of their friends.
“Did you guys want to come with us to get ice cream?” Elise asked, taking Nico’s hand and nodding down the path.
“I’m good,” Delainey said. She crossed her arms and shifted her weight onto one hip, angling her body away from the path Elise was pointing toward. “I don’t have much of an appetite right now.” She was clearly struggling not to let her true emotions show.
Elise raised an eyebrow at Reece, but Reece shook his head. “I’m good,” he said. “Go have fun.” He waved them off, all the while feeling awkward and exposed.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and he hated that he felt tricked. If Nico wanted to meet up with Elise, he could just meet up with her. Why did he have to make it into a whole thing?
“I swear those two get off on sneaking around,” Delainey muttered. She was watching Nico and Elise retreat down thepath, Elise’s blonde ponytail swinging between her shoulder blades as Nico leaned down to say something in her ear.
“You think that’s what it is?” Reece reached up and scratched at the back of his neck, trying to get rid of that discomfort. There were too many people around.
Delainey must have felt the same—when a jogger passed between them and nearly brushed by her, they hurried a little further down the path and turned a corner to where it was much quieter, as if they had passed through some sort of secret passageway that only a few people knew of. It wasn’t magic, just a bend in the path and more trees, and something like privacy.
The path here was packed dirt instead of concrete, shaded by a canopy of oaks whose lower branches had been trimmed to about eight feet. A wooden bench with peeling green paint sat to one side, and beyond it a low stone wall separated the walkway from a drainage culvert choked with leaves.
Reece didn’t want to be a total dick, and Delainey looked just as blindsided by this whole situation as he was.
So he was going to summon his inner peace and his inner strength and be a damned gentleman.
“If Elise ditched you in the park, do you need a ride somewhere?” he forced himself to ask. He kept his hands at his sides, fingers loose, his boots planted wide on the dirt path, maintaining as much distance between them as the narrow trail allowed.
He might actually die or go insane if he was in an enclosed space with Delainey, letting her scent surround him and remind him of that night.
Which he wasn’t thinking about.
As far as he was concerned, that night had never happened. It was just a bout of temporary insanity. Since there were no witnesses to the worst of it, no one could prove he had actuallykissed this witch, except for her. And it was clear neither of them was talking.
“I’m good,” she said. Then she paused, and an unreadable expression crossed her face. “What about you?” She was forcing the words out past gritted teeth.
They were both trying for normal and failing miserably.
“I’m good,” he said.
He could just walk away now.
He had done the bare minimum and made sure she had a way to get home. His car was in the parking lot, not far from here. The sooner he got away from Delainey—and hopefully never saw her again—the better.
His wolf grumbled at the idea of never seeing her again, and frankly, it was ridiculous to expect. Nico and Elise were still firmly in their honeymoon phase, and if they were going to crash and burn, it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Which meant he was going to see this witch some other time.
The prickling at the back of his neck still hadn’t subsided.
His wolf had been preoccupied with Delainey, but now some other sense finally triggered and he looked around. The park had gone almost eerily quiet.
He could still hear sounds of people in the distance, but it was much further away than it should have been. The traffic noise from the road that bordered the park had thinned to almost nothing, and even the birdsong in the canopy overhead had stopped, as if the air itself had been sealed inside a jar.
Reece breathed deep and caught the faint scent of magic.
In one moment he snapped into animal alertness, whipping around and trying to find the source. It didn’t come from Delainey.
He knew the scent of her magic, and his wolf liked it even if it made the hairs on his arms stand up.
Delainey noticed the shift in his demeanor. “What is it?” She dropped her arms to her sides, her fingers already spread and angled slightly downward, palms open—a stance he recognized from the last time he’d seen her summon fire.
“Something—” He was cut off by a blinding flash as magic washed over him.
