Page 11 of Bound to the Wolf
“I need some air,” Delainey said, and didn’t wait for Briana to respond.
She stepped through the sliding glass door and breathed in the scent of night and the fresh wood smell that came from what looked like a newly built back porch. The porch was about eight feet deep, built from pressure-treated lumber that still had a greenish tint.
A string of unlit patio lights was looped along the railing, and two folding camp chairs sat against the wall of the house. Beyond the porch, the grass ran about twenty feet before it was swallowed up by the trees. Delainey rested her hands on the wooden railing and looked out into the darkness.
There was a buzz of bugs and a distant hooting of owls. The air was clean and cold, sharp and a little bit chilly, but it was refreshing after the warmth inside. She breathed deeply and let herself relax, which lasted for about three minutes until the sliding glass door opened again and someone followed her out.
Without looking, she somehow knew it would be Reece.
“They’re going to notice if both of us are gone,” Delainey told him. “This is my hiding place. You go find somewhere else.”
“I think there’s room enough for two,” Reece said, sliding the glass door shut behind him. He had to duck slightly under the porch light fixture.
He set himself up a little further down the railing from her, with several feet of space between them. He planted his hands wide on the railing and faced the woods, his shoulders taking up what felt like half the porch.
“This is torture, right?” Delainey asked.
“It’s fucking insane,” Reece said without turning his head, his voice pitched low enough that it wouldn’t carry. “If those two want to make kissy faces at each other, that’s their business, but I don’t see why we all have to be friends.”
“Exactly!” Delainey didn’t like how easy it was to agree with Reece about the insanity that was Nico and Elise’s relationship, but it was nice to complain with someone who understood.
“It’s going to explode in all of our faces,” said Reece.
Delainey almost added that it was starting to, but she would not share that Elise’s parents were around and causing trouble. Because if she was going to side with anyone on that, it would be Elise, and Elise wanted her boyfriend.
Delainey didn’t want to agree with Elise’s parents on anything.
“And eventually,” Reece mused, “I don’t think Elise could hack it in a werewolf pack.”
Delainey scoffed. “Like you would last a day in a coven.”
Between one breath and the next, Reece shut down. His face turned dark. He glared at her, eyes flashing yellow for a second before he turned away and stalked off without another word.
He vaulted over the porch railing rather than taking the single step down, landing hard in the grass, and walked straight for the tree line with long, rigid strides. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, and the set of his shoulders had gone from relaxed to locked tight, like something had seized inside him.
Um, what?
Delainey replayed the conversation back in her mind and tried to understand where exactly she had crossed the line and pissed off the giant red werewolf. Every snipe flowed one into the next, and there was nothing particularly mean that she had said.
You wouldn’t last a day in a coven.
What was so bad about that? He was a werewolf. Why would he even want to? Maybe it was a little rude, but he’d been rude about Elise. He deserved that.
Delainey watched his form retreat into the woods, his red hair the last thing visible before the trees closed around him, her mood souring. She felt something at the edge of her senses, almost like magic.
Was someone inside doing a trick?
No, it felt like it was coming from the woods. How?
Delainey took a step towards the stair that led down onto the grass and forced herself to stop. Clearly, she was imagining things. No one was going to be doing magic on Southern Basin pack territory unless they were in the house behind her. And if they were, it wasn’t her responsibility to figure out who.
She checked her watch.
She’d made it forty-five minutes. It would be rude to leave. But when she walked inside, everything was bright and loud and hot. And before she could think better of it, she scooped up her coat, waved goodbye to whoever could see her, and left.
Chapter
Five
