Page 84 of Bound to the Wolf
She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw that Reece was still on his feet, but barely moving, as if he was trying to run through molasses. His shoulders were hunched forward, one arm pressed against his chest, every stride a stuttering half-step.
She could do this.
She could feel the thin stretch of the tether, and he was right. It felt like it was about to snap.
All she had to do was make it a little further.
She put her hand in front of her and then moved her leg, crawling inch by inch to try to get to the edge of the woods and break this damn thing with all the might that was in her.
Her fingers dug into the dirt. She could feel it getting under her fingernails, but she didn’t give a damn. She just had to keep moving. Her arms shook with the effort, muscles burning as if she were dragging something impossibly heavy behind her, and the grass tore loose in clumps under her grip.
Every inch forward sent a fresh spike of white-hot pain through her chest, and she could feel blood warm and metallic on her tongue where she’d bitten the inside of her cheek.
Behind her, Reece cried out, and she heard him fall even through all the noise in her head.
Delainey hit a brick wall, not literally.
It wasn’t even a tree.
She simply couldn’t move any further. Her heart beat so fast she couldn’t see, and she was only pain. And Reece was on the ground somewhere behind her.
Her hands had gone bluish-gold at the fingertips, her magic surging unbidden under her skin in a desperate, useless flare that had nowhere to go and nothing to break.
It was agony to turn around, even as the pain lessened with every inch she covered in her weak crawl.
She dragged herself through the grass on her forearms, the dew soaking through her sweatshirt, the world slowly widening back from that pinprick into something she could navigate; the cottage roof, the stone chimney, the tree line, all swimming back into focus.
She found Reece lying in the dirt and ran her hand over his hair and down his face until she finally found his pulse, which was beating strong, even though his eyes were closed and his breath was coming in heaving gasps.
His red hair was damp with sweat, plastered to his forehead, and his skin was pale enough that every freckle stood out against white skin. One of his large hands was still curled into a fist against his sternum. She didn’t have the energy to try to sit, so she laid her head against his chest and willed him to wake up.
It had nothing to do with magic, and only with the emotion she was feeling for him, the things she refused to name. She found his hand and grabbed onto it, and had no idea how long she lay there before he groaned and tried to move.
“Don’t,” she told him. “You’re okay.”
It didn’t work. He moved.
“You passed out,” she said. “I had to come rescue you.”
Delainey felt his chin move, and he kissed the top of her head.
“That’s what you’re there for,” Reece said, his voice rough and scraped thin, barely louder than the sound of his own breathing.
“Can I try magic now?” She tried not to sound like she was sayingI told you so, but there was a bit of an ‘I told you so’in her voice she couldn’t hide, what with the exhaustion and pain still lingering.
Reece groaned, but agreed.
Delainey sent her mind into the bond between them and found the individual strands linked into both of their life forces. She tried peeling them back one by one, but every time she got one strand to let go and moved to the next, it would snap back into place with athwack.
Each snap sent a jolt through her, and she could feel Reece flinch beneath her every time one reattached, his heartbeat spiking under her ear, his fingers tightening around hers. She tried for several minutes, losing herself in the magic, but eventually had to give up, afraid that if she messed this up the bond would snap back together even tighter.
Delainey came back to herself. She was still lying against Reece’s chest, and he was still holding her close.
They were still stuck together.
But at least it was with Reece.
She wanted her freedom back, but there were worse people to be stuck with.
