Page 4 of Bound to the Wolf
Yeah, Delainey was getting the exact idea of why Elise had fled for Hobson instead of staying within the cloistered walls of the Wallace Grove Coven.
Tim held up his finger and flicked it towards Nico. It took Delainey a second to realize that he had sent out a spark of diagnostic magic toward the man.
Nico snarled.
His eyes glowed yellow for a moment, and he stepped in front of Elise, pushing her behind him.
They were ten seconds from a fight.
Crap! What the hell were the Nevins thinking? That was beyond rude.
It also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Nico was a werewolf.
“We had heard rumors,” Brenda said, ignoring Nico’s aggression. By now Briana had come to join them, along with Aya. Serena was going to be so pissed she had missed this kerfuffle.
Delainey would have to recount it in excruciating detail once she got back from school.
Briana reminded Delainey a little of a guidance counselor with her calm demeanor and her ease at keeping a cool head, as long as there wasn’t any bloodshed. Her long, strawberry-blonde hair was hanging over her shoulders in two braids, and she was pale enough that Delainey wasn’t sure she’d seen the sunlight in the last week.
“I had hoped the rumors weren’t true,” said Brenda, keeping her gaze steady on her daughter. “You’re a smart girl, Elise, and this is utter foolishness.”
Elise tugged on Nico’s arm until he was standing behind her. “They’re my parents,” she said. “They’re not going to hurt me.” She turned back to her mother. “Why don’t we go into the living room and talk?”
Neither Brenda nor Tim seemed very enthused by that, but they let Briana and Elise usher them back down the hall to the living room.
Everyone filed out except for Delainey.
Screw it.
She reached up onto the third shelf of the cabinet next to the fridge and grabbed the bottle of bourbon.
Who gave a shit that it was three p.m.? When this was done, they were all going to need a drink.
Chapter
Two
The soil was damp under Reece Monahan’s black paws. But it wasn’t mud that dirtied his fur. They blackened as they reached the ground, as if he’d been formed out of the earth and only turned into a gray wolf halfway up his legs.
Around him the forest teemed with life. It was green and fresh. Perfect.
He pushed himself faster, vaulting over a fallen log and taking a turn on his path so fast he almost jammed his hind legs into a tree. Even though he’d been a wolf since he was seventeen, he sometimes forgot what this body could do versus his two-legged form. Luckily, the bruises from those mistakes rarely showed once he shifted back.
The ground flew beneath his paws. His muscles stretched until they almost hurt. He loved to run.
The smells were layered—wet earth, animal trails—and throughout it all waspack, family. This was his territory, his home, and he had covered every inch in one form or another.
An owl hooted, and he heard the burbling of the creek in the distance. His senses were at their most potent right now, though the colors were more muted than when he was human. That wasa small blessing. If he lived every moment of his life with that much sensory detail, he might go mad.
Again.
Around him, wind whistled through the dull-green of the trees that would have been lush if he were human. It wasn’talldifferent. Brown was still brown, as was yellow. And he relied far more on his nose than his eyes in these woods.
Reece had made an excuse about going out to patrol. He was a beta for the Southern Basin pack, so it was accurate enough. But he was out here to clear his head.
The past few months had been strange, and it was still difficult to wrap his mind around the fact that there was awitchin the house from time to time, and most people weren’t bothered by it.
Sure, Elise earned a few glares from the holdouts, but she was so damned annoyingly nice that even those who had assumed she was tricking Nico with her feminine wiles and planning to take down the pack from the inside had started to open up to her.
