Page 79 of Bound to the Wolf
Elise had narrowed eyes that looked almost angry. Serena’s eyes were wide.
Aya wasn’t actually looking at them. She had a magical tome open in her lap and was reading intensely, her straight black hair tucked behind her ears, reading glasses low on her nose, compact frame folded into one of the mismatched armchairs with her feet tucked beneath her. And Briana was measured, but welcoming. She sat in the other armchair with her long strawberry-blonde hair hanging down over her shoulders, palehands folded in her lap, her expression the particular kind of calm that Reece had learned meant she was assessing the situation before committing to a reaction.
Serena reached into her back pocket and grabbed a wallet, and took a bill out. “Aya, hey,” she said, and the studious witch looked up. Serena reached across the room with the money between outstretched fingers.
Aya looked at it. “What’s it for?”
Serena’s expression shifted to acan you believe this?kind of look, and she nodded toward Reece and Delainey.
“Oh, right,” Aya said, plucking the bill from Serena’s fingers and tucking it into the spine of her book without looking away from the page she’d been reading. She didn’t react at all to their announcement, or lack thereof.
He noticed Emerson wasn’t there. “Is your guest finally gone?” He realized the “finally” was probably giving something away, but he couldn’t make himself care.
Aya closed her book and put it on the table beside the couch. “He’s out doing some research. He’ll be back tomorrow,” she said.
Delainey’s coven swooped in around her and guided her toward the back of the house, leaving Nico and Reece alone. Reece dropped into a wingback chair that sat near the front window, its upholstery faded and threadbare at the arms, while Nico leaned back on his seat on the couch.
“So,” Nico said, expression falsely light, “you and Delainey.” He had that particular look on his face, the one that was supposed to be neutral but couldn’t quite hide the satisfaction underneath, the same look he got when he’d been right about something and was waiting for you to admit it.
“You’re going to give me shit for this, aren’t you?” Reece stretched his legs out in front of him, boots crossed at the ankleon the dark hardwood floor, and draped one arm over the chair’s worn armrest.
“I seem to remember my mate saying that you might like it if you tried it. Looks like she was right.”
Reece scowled; he’d forgotten that. “Your mate?”
That wasn’t a word that wolves used lightly.
“You think?”
Nico looked smug. “I know,” he said.
“Does she?” Reece asked.
“Of course she knows.” Nico leaned forward and looked at Reece like he was particularly dense. “I don’t keep things from her.”
But Nico might have been keeping things from Reece. “Delainey said something about a kidnapping.”
Nico waved a hand in front of him and rolled his eyes. “Water under the bridge.”
“When were you kidnapped?” he asked. Then he remembered a job gone wrong, where Nico had taken off for the night after the Iron Runners caused some shit.
That had been right at the time they discovered Elise was alive and a witch and with Nico, and he hadn’t realized there had been a kidnapping in the mix.
“Why do you ask?” asked Nico.
“Delainey told me they wouldn’t kidnap me for dating her.”
Nico grinned. “See, they like you more than me already!”
Reece very much doubted that. But Nico’s mate was a witch. They were making it work. That, more than anything, gave him hope that he and Delainey might have a future once this bond was broken.
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Delainey eyed the door to the root cellar with more than a little envy. She couldn’t go down there, not after what had happened last time.
Who knew what her magic was doing now? She couldn’t risk sending more jars crashing to the ground or making something even worse happen.
