Page 73 of Bound to the Wolf
Delainey wasn’t going to make it easy for him. “For what?” she asked.
Of course she was going to make him say it all.
“I wouldn’t have told you either,” he admitted.
“Yeah, I know that.”
Her expression was still closed off, and Reece felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. He couldn’t just apologize and be done with it.
If he wanted her to open up again, if he wantedeverythingwith her, he had to be honest. She hadn’t lied to him about the kill switch built into the manacle and the tether between them.
But she had omitted that truth, and he had spent half a lifetime omitting his own.
“Can we talk?” he asked. His voice wasn’t quite steady.
She raised an eyebrow. “What are we doing right now?”
He held out a hand and tilted his head toward the couch. Delainey was wary, but she took his hand and let him pull her out of her seat and over to the couch, where they both sat. The loveseat was small enough that their knees touched when they settled, and Reece could feel the warmth of her thigh against his through the thin fabric of his sweats.
He didn’t even know how to start this story.
Delainey sat there for several minutes, looking at him.
“Reece,” she finally said. “You wanted to talk?” She wasn’t as closed off in this moment. She was giving him a chance to explain something she wouldn’t have done a few weeks ago. He had to figure out how to say the words. Otherwise… no. There was no otherwise.
“I was adopted,” he said. That was as good a place to start as any.
Delainey’s expression remained neutral. She didn’t say a word, which was good. If she interrupted him, he might not get started again.
“My birth parents died in a car accident when I was five, and my mom’s best friend was a witch. That’s who adopted me. My mom didn’t know about the magic.”
A breath escaped Delainey, but she stayed quiet. She was staring at him, practically vibrating with the need to ask questions.
He almost felt sorry for her, stumbling through these words when she clearly wanted to direct the conversation. His voice was controlled, but he could only get one sentence out at a time. He had to push his wolf down to the very bottom of his soul before it could start prowling and growling and causing problems.
“Obviously I had no magic,” he said, “but I learned potions and the theory behind things, all of that. My parents didn’t have any other kids. They never actually wanted kids, but, well, accidents happen.” He shrugged.
He heard Delainey suck in and figured she was about to tell him he wasn’t an accident or something. He shook his head and hoped she interpreted it correctly. She kept her mouth shut.
“All of my friends were in the coven,” he said. “They knew I was human, but who gave a shit? I was basically just a witch who couldn’t do magic, as far as they were concerned. And in our territory there was a clearing, kind of like the one we went to yesterday, with a confluence of power, right on the edge of territory with an enemy pack. Things were much more tense with them. There had been skirmishes going on for months. We were hanging out when some wolves from the pack came to bother us. They were the same age as us. We all went to high school together, but you know how it is. It was a pissing match that turned into a scuffle, and one of the werewolves nipped me. He must have thought I was a witch. We knew what the rules were. They would have never bitten me if they thought I washuman. And because I was an idiotic teenage boy, I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Reece.” Delainey breathed his name out but said nothing else. Her hand had come to rest on the cushion between them, her fingers curled loosely against the fabric, close enough to touch him but not quite reaching.
He kept talking. “I knew herbal medicine. I thought maybe I could get the poison out of my system before anybody found out. I was going to be in so much trouble if they found out. We weren’t supposed to be playing there. We were supposed to run away if wolves came. Honestly, my friends were so used to me they forgot I was human and forgot it was a big deal. By the time my parents found out, it was too late to try and reverse the transformation.”
Delainey fully reached out and covered his hand with her own, and it was only then that he realized his hand had been balled up into a fist. Her fingers were half the width of his; her blue nails bright against the pale, scarred terrain of his knuckles. He turned her hand over and laced their fingers together, kneading the connection to her.
“It went downhill from there.” He didn’t want to remember it, but he was in it now, and he had to get the words out.
He couldn’t get the poison out of him that had turned him into a werewolf, but maybe this would help: telling someone. Not even Cole knew. He had created a new life for himself when he came to the Southern Basin Pack. But Delainey needed to know the truth of him. If she was going to be… well. She just needed to know the truth.
“The first six months sucked,” he said. “All of my friends turned away from me. They couldn’t believe I had been changed and that I was the enemy now. They thought I was going to attack them. Ididattack one of them on accident. He came for me and my new instincts took over and I nearly tore his throatout, but luckily we got him to the healer in time.” He could still feel the phantom give of flesh under teeth that weren’t quite human anymore, the hot copper rush that had flooded his mouth before he even understood what his body was doing.
He could still taste the blood. It had been the first blood he had tasted.
“Right after I turned eighteen, my parents kicked me out.”
Delainey squeezed his hand tighter.
