Page 34 of Bound to the Wolf
“Yeah, that had to be a rude awakening,” she agreed.
“A pack took me in a little bit later. I was just as big then as I am now. The senior wolves saw me as a threat, like I was going to start challenging for leadership, when all I wanted was to apply to college and start my own life. I didn’t want to deal with any wolfy bullshit.”
She had a feeling she knew where this story was going, but she let him keep talking. The more he spoke, the better she felt, which was kind of strange.
He was doing it on purpose, she knew, but it didn’t change the effect. She found herself scooting closer to him, to share his body heat, she told herself, but that didn’t explain why she let her hand creep out and brush against the side of his thigh.
He lowered his own hand and covered hers. Neither of them said anything about it.
His hand was furnace-warm, the calluses on his palm rough against the back of her fingers. The cuff on his wrist rested against hers, brass on brass, and the metal had gone warm from his skin.
“One day, one of the pack betas challenged me. It didn’t need to be to the death, but he wouldn’t let up, and I wasn’t a skilled fighter. I didn’t know my own strength,” he admitted.
Delainey might have said something sarcastic then, but she bit it back and saw Reece spare her a disbelieving look. “They all say that,” she finally muttered.
His teeth glinted in the firelight as he smiled.
It was the first real smile she had seen from him, not the wolfish baring of teeth or the suppressed half-smirk, but something that actually reached his eyes and softened the hard line of his jaw. It changed his whole face, making him look younger, closer to the kid he’d been describing.
A gust of wind blew through the forest, and she shivered.
He lifted his arm. “Get in here. We need to share warmth.”
“That’s what they all say,” she repeated.
He rolled his eyes. “I won’t bite,” he told her. He patted the space against his side with his open palm, the gesture almost absurdly domestic for a blood-stained werewolf sitting in the dirt.
She had to resist the urge to make a face.
It was one thing to wake up cuddled against him; that was embarrassing enough. Her body was a heat-seeking missile while she slept, and Reece was an inferno. It wasn’t her fault if she was trying to perform a bit of self-care. Cuddling up next to him while awake was different. Vulnerable.
But hadn’t his story been an act of vulnerability?
He had told it so she didn’t have to sit alone in her guilt over killing the wolf, and now he was offering body heat.
If she didn’t know better, she might think he actually liked her. She refrained from making that sarcastic comment. They were stuck together. They didn’t need to admit their dislike for one another.
She cuddled up close, and once his arm came down around her shoulders, the change was immediate. He was better than a heated blanket. When she shivered again, she told herself it was a natural reaction.
They were sharing body heat. This was survival, nothing more.
For a few minutes neither of them spoke. The fire crackled and settled, sending a lazy curl of smoke drifting sideways in the breeze.
"My mom would have hated this," Delainey said, and wasn’t sure why. Reece clearly won the Childhood Trauma Olympics. But the words wormed their way out anyway.
Reece didn't push.
"She's not outdoorsy." She picked at a splinter on the log. "She's not really anything-sy. I mean, she's sweet and she tries hard, but she's the kind of person who needs someone to tell her the power bill is overdue, or she'll just… not notice. My dad was always off doing research for our coven. Sometimes he was off for months in mystical lands or chasing monsters. And someone had to make sure the lights stayed on."
She could hear how she sounded. Like she was complaining, which she wasn't. Her mother wasn't a villain. She was just soft in places that required someone else to be hard.
"It’s whatever." Delainey shrugged under the weight of his arm.
She could have left it there, but the fire and his warmth and the fact that he had bled for her tonight made her add, "I was twelve the first time I called the electric company and pretended to be her. I thought was pretty convincing. I think that's when I figured out that if something needed doing, I should just do it myself."
Reece's arm tightened around her, and she let him.
She fit against his side perfectly, her shoulder tucked under his arm, her hip against his thigh, the top of her head just reaching his collarbone. The torn fabric of his shirt was rough against her cheek, and underneath it she could feel the steady thud of his heartbeat.
