Page 71 of Bound to the Wolf
“This is a place of magic confluence,” Aya told him. She held up her hand. “That means there’s a lot of magic around and it’s really easy to do spell work here.”
“I know what magic confluence is,” he said. “Assume I’m not an idiot while you explain this.”
Aya rolled her eyes and shared a glance with Delainey, but Delainey didn’t have it in her to give a sympathetic look at the snark. “Reece isn’t an idiot,” she told Aya.
Aya raised her eyebrows in surprise.
Oh crap. That was definitely going to get back to the coven, and Delainey would have some explaining to do.
“I was trying to match the resonance, the magical signature,” she added, “of the tether between you to the resonance of the magic under our feet. I hoped I could shift it out of the two of you, through me, and into the ground.”
Reece narrowed his eyes. “You were trying to trick the magic.”
“It’s what you have to do sometimes. It didn’t work.”
“No,” Aya said. “However this tether is set up, it’s got its hooks in you deep. Short of killing one of you, I don’t see how we break it.”
Delainey nodded. “Yeah. Clearly that’s not happening.”
But Reece’s mouth had dropped open and his eyes were wide. “What the fuck? Killing one of us?” He sounded shocked. Then he realized Delainey wasn’t. “Did you know that?” he demanded.
Oh crap. This was even worse.
“I may have suspected that,” she admitted.
Reece jumped up from where he was sitting and stormed back towards the car, but it was more than thirty feet away. The tether tugged between them, and he had to freeze on the edge of the parking lot before he could make it all the way. He stood with his back to them at the treeline where gravel met dirt, his shoulders rigid under his t-shirt, fists balled at his sides, the muscles in his forearms locked tight.
“Thanks for trying,” Delainey told Aya. “Let me know if you want to do any more science experiments.”
“I will.”
Delainey got up and jogged towards Reece. He didn’t say a word as they got back to the car and he slammed his door behind him. They got on the road in silence, Reece white-knuckling the steering wheel, his jaw set in a firm line as they pulled onto the highway.
“How long have you known about that?” he asked.
She couldn’t play dumb. There was only one thing he could be asking. “I realized it when we were in the woods that first night,” she said.
“You’ve known for weeks that one of us dying would break this thing?”
“Not with any certainty, but yes. Our life forces are bound to it in a way that suggests death would sever the bond.” She kept her gaze forward and refused to look at him.
If she looked at him, she might be tempted to apologize, and she didn’t have a damn thing to apologize for.
It still felt like she had done something wrong.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” The words were a guttural growl, and she had a feeling his wolf was just as angry as he was.
Well, his wolf could fucking deal with it.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Delainey said. “Maybe because I was manacled to an angry werewolf, and there was the slightest chance that he might kill me to save himself.”
“I would never harm you.” The confession was torn out of him. “I would tear my own throat out before I did that.”
That hadn’t been true three weeks ago, and she didn’t point it out. Nor did she let herself really think about what that confession could mean.
This thing between them wasn’t real. It was magic bullshit.
It had to be because if she thought about it for even a second, well, she might do the same. Tear her own heart out before she let anyone land a blow on Reece.
