Page 59 of Bound to the Wolf
“Maybe he meant to grab Nico and Elise again,” Reece guessed. “They were right there just before. If he was using hired help or something…” It was a long shot, but he wasn’t sure.
“I’ll put in a call to Dawson,” Cole said, pulling his phone from his back pocket. “I don’t know if he’ll tell me anything, but we can see if he’s got eyes on Austin LaSalle, if the man’s even still alive. It might give us a place to go.”
There was a crack of thunder outside, and Delainey jolted. Reece didn’t even think about it. He reached out and put a hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. He hadn’t realized thunder could scare her, and she didn’t pull her hand away.
He could feel Javi’s eyes burning into his skin, but he didn’t let the other beta bother him.
“I should probably get going,” Briana said.
“We’ll increase patrols within the bounds of the wards while you two scan around for more little surprises,” said Cole. “I don’t like the idea of strangers in my territory.”
Neither did Reece.
There was another crack of thunder. This time Delainey didn’t jolt.
“Do you want me to drive you guys back to the cottage?” Briana offered.
They accepted, rather than deal with getting soaked on the fifteen-minute walk back.
They rode in silence and sprinted for the front door when Briana dropped them off. The rain came down in sheets, and by the time they crossed the ten feet from the car to the porch, Delainey’s jacket was plastered to her shoulders, and water was running off Reece’s hair and dripping from the end of his nose.
On the threshold, Reece hesitated. He had a sheltered spot outside and the rain wouldn’t be too bad, though it was getting kind of cold.
Delainey let out a frustrated noise. “Don’t be an idiot. You’re going to drown out here. I don’t care what form you’re in. Just hang out inside. Okay?”
Reece nodded and followed her through the door.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
With the lightning crackling in the air, Delainey was humming with energy. It always made her feel a little off balance, but in the best way possible.
Add in the walk and the attack and Reece, and she was about to burst at the seams. She had resented him hanging out outside in his wolf form for the past several days, but now he was inside and she couldn’t ignore him.
He was there in the space, taking up all the air. Now the cottage felt tiny. It had always been small, but with a six-foot-and-change, red-headed giant sitting on the couch, his linebacker shoulders taking up more than half the space, it became clear how much of a favor he had been doing by staying outside.
Delainey couldn’t stop looking at him.
She tried to find other things to do.
She had a work project she was supposed to be getting done, but she had been successfully putting it off for the past week. She could go into the bedroom and scroll through videos on her phone, but lying on the bed made her hyperaware of the fact thatshe and Reece hadn’t discussed sleeping arrangements for the night.
The couch was more than sufficient to lounge around and watch TV, but for sleeping it became clear it was really more of a love seat. Neither she nor Reece would fit comfortably, especially when there was a gigantic king bed taking up most of the square footage of the bedroom.
A part of her, a very small part she would never admit to anyone, wished she could transform into a wolf and start pacing back and forth.
She was beginning to feel like a caged animal, but she wasn’t a wolf. She thought she was more of a jaguar type. All sleek black fur and deadly elegance.
Human pacing wasn’t as satisfying.
Delainey needed to sit down andwork. Her client had emailed twice, and she’d read both messages and closed them without responding, which wouldn’t win her any repeat business.
She was usually the responsible one. The one who answered emails within the hour, who kept the calendar, who remembered to stock the pantry before they ran out of coffee rather than after.
She had been that person since she was old enough to reach the kitchen counter. Her dad had been in Peru or Portugal or wherever his latest research had taken him, and her mom had been on the couch watching reality TV with the vacant expression of a woman who had checked out of her own life and couldn't figure out how to check back in. So Delainey had learned to cook. She had learned to pay bills online using her mother's laptop and a sticky note with the bank password on it. She had learned that if she didn't do it, it wouldn't get done, and that was fine. She'd been good at it.
The problem was that she didn't know how to stop.
