Page 72 of Bound to the Wolf
No, she wasn’t going to think about what that meant.
“I know you wouldn’t hurt me,” she said. “Honestly, I forgot about it. I forgot I didn’t tell you. I forgot you didn’t know. And it’s irrelevant, because I’m not going to let anyone kill you to free me from this thing. You’re not going to let anyone kill you, or kill me, to free you. Nothing’s changed, except now you know.”
“Now I know.” If he clenched his jaw any tighter, it might break.
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Delainey went into the house and hoped she could find a way to get Reece out of his pissy mood and maybe slightly apologize for keeping him in the dark.
But he went into the bedroom, and a moment later trotted out on four feet, and let himself out the front door, where he remained for the next several hours in wolf form.
She hoped this wasn’t a return to that first week, and she tried with all her heart not to care.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Reece was an asshole. He knew that. Everyone in the pack knew that. Delainey had known it even before their first kiss, but he normally didn’t feel bad about his assholish tendencies.
He wasn’t sure why this whole conversation about the kill switch on the tether was throwing him off so much.
If he was completely honest with himself, something he tried to be, he could admit that if the roles had been reversed, he would have done exactly the same thing and kept that potentially damaging information to himself until he was certain it wouldn’t be used against him.
Delainey hadn’t done anything that actually harmed their chances of separating, as far as he knew. She had protected herself. She had every reason to be cautious. He remembered how they had been treating each other in those first days.
The spark that had eventually combusted into them spending their nights together had been just as likely to burst into a conflagration that destroyed each of them.
But none of that sense he was thinking had allowed him to pad back inside and crawl into bed beside Delainey last night.
It felt wrong to sleep alone, even in his wolf form.
He had gotten used to waking up next to a warm body,herwarm body specifically, gotten used to the way her scent coiled around him and the soft snores she would never admit to making. He had gotten used to the soft looks she gave him when she crooked a finger and tempted him into bed earlier than either of them intended to sleep.
He wanted to keep doing it, beyond whenever this tether between them broke.
Maybe there was something about witches that attracted werewolves.
He had given Nico enough shit to fill a horse stall about falling for Elise, but was Reece any better? He hadn’t kidnapped the witch or accidentally brought her into the heart of pack territory, so yes, Reece was sure he was better than Nico on that front. But he was still putting things off.
Even though it was a chilly morning, Reece shifted to his human form while he was still outside. The shift left him bare on the cottage’s small porch, the cold air sharp against his skin, morning dew slick under his feet on the wooden boards, and he could see his breath clouding in front of him in the gray early light.
If they were going to keep doing this, whateverthiswas, they had to be honest with each other. He had to be honest with her.
He plucked a flower from the flowerbed outside the front door and padded naked into the house. He didn’t spot Delainey anywhere, but he heard the shower running. It might have made things easier if she had seen him naked and they could silently communicate everything that needed to be said, but Reece knew that would be cheating. He threw on clothes before either of them could get distracted. Dark sweats, the worn black t-shirt that pulled across his chest, bare feet on the smooth wood floor, the cottage smelled like her shampoo and the juniper candle onthe coffee table, both of which had become as familiar to him as the forest outside.
A while later she came out of the shower and went to work at her computer. Her curls were still damp, darker at the roots than the ends, and she’d pulled them back with a wide band that left them springing out behind her head in a loose halo as she settled into the desk chair wedged between the bookshelf and the window.
She had told him a little about the web design project she was mostly avoiding while they were in Nico’s house. Without him to distract her, she must have been putting whatever frustration she was feeling to good use.
Reece had put the flower in a glass of water. He walked over to the desk and set it down beside her keyboard.
Delainey reached for it on instinct, then shook herself and pulled her hand back. Had she thought he was giving her a glass of water? He had been feeding her and watering her at every chance he got, so the confusion might have been warranted.
She reached out and stroked a finger over a petal, then looked up at him. Her blue-polished nails caught the light from the window as her fingertip traced the edge of the flower, and when she tilted her face up, she looked almost golden in the morning light. She spun around in her chair so she could look at him fully.
“Are you done sulking now?” she asked.
Her walls were back up, but not all the way. He wanted to tear them down brick by brick and prevent them from ever being built up again, but they had to get through this conversation first.
“I wanted to apologize,” he stood in front of the desk with his hands loose at his sides, resisting the pull to cross his arms the way he always did when he felt exposed.
