Page 12 of Bound to the Wolf
Delainey glared at the hospitality gifts sitting on the mantle over the fireplace. There were five of them arranged in a neat row: two braided cord bracelets, a polished river stone etched with runes, and two small glass vials stoppered with wax, each no bigger than her pinky finger. The Nevins had brought a collection of charms for protection and prosperity, made by the most skilled witches in the Wallace Grove Coven. They were worth thousands of dollars if they could even be sold, and she wanted to chuck them out the window with the Nevins right behind them.
Elise’s parents had been staying at the coven house for over a week now with no signs of leaving—not without their daughter. Elise was dealing with the situation by making herself scarce, which Delainey understood in the abstract, but it was really freaking annoying for the rest of them.
The coven house was tense as hell.
Everybody was walking on eggshells, and the vibe was completely off. Their home was usually a chaotic comfort. Serena would be in the kitchen. Aya would be in the basement playing with her magic dollies. Elise would be quietly schemingto go against whatever bonds she thought someone was trying to inflict on her. Delainey would be living her own life, and Briana’s door would just be sitting open, ready for anyone who needed to vent.
Now it felt like the house was under siege.
Open doors were closed. The kitchen was spotless, which was disturbing in its own way. None of the coven members were stress cleaners, which meant there was always a bit of a mess somewhere, but now they were all on their best behavior for someoneelse’sparents. The kitchen looked like no one had ever eaten in it.
Nobody was talking, nobody was turning on the TV, and all the shoes were put away in the back closet. The place just felt wrong.
Tonight, Elise hadn’t managed to escape.
Delainey glanced into her room and then looked away quickly. Elise was stretched so thin she was practically translucent. She was working at the zoo; she was doing her EMT training, and now she was dealing with expectant parents when she couldn’t run away and avoid them.
The dark circles under her eyes were growing by the minute. Her blonde hair was a little greasy, which was not at all like her. She was sitting cross-legged on her unmade bed in an old hoodie that swallowed her frame, her bare feet tucked under a bunched-up quilt.
Every time she heard a noise she didn’t expect, she jerked her head around like an animal about to be caught in a trap. Or maybe she had already been caught in the trap.
Wasn’t that what her parents really were?
Delainey expected Elise to run back to Nico’s cabin as soon as she could figure out an excuse. Not that Delainey blamed her—if she had a place to run to escape the torture of parental expectations, she would be sprinting like an Olympian.
She wanted to go out and get a drink, or well, do anything that wasn’t sitting in the house and pretending to be polite to people who were being freaking assholes. But her responsibilities tugged at her, and she couldn’t let herself leave.
The only saving grace was that the Nevins didn’t spend all day at the coven house.
Once it had become clear that Elise wasn’t going to hang around and wait for them to lecture her every morning, the Nevins had found business in the city. Wallace Grove had its tendrils in many places—Hobson was no different.
Witches affiliated with that coven lived in the city, even though they were far away from home. There were plenty of allied covens in the city too, not to mention the supplies they could buy that they couldn’t get at home. Not that there were many ofthose. Wallace Grove was as close to self-sufficient as it came, but even they needed certain imported goods.
Delainey followed her nose to the kitchen and found three large bags from a local restaurant sitting on the counter. The bags were stiff white paper with the restaurant’s logo embossed in gold. Some local swanky restaurant. Briana was pulling foil-wrapped dishes out of the bags.
“This looks fancy,” Delainey said. She leaned her hip against the doorframe and crossed her arms. There had been more takeout than usual this past week, but that was mostly pizza or sandwiches. Not something from a fine dining establishment.
“The Nevins want ‘family dinner’.” Briana peeled the foil back from a dish of roasted meat without looking up, her strawberry-blonde braid swinging forward over her shoulder. She made air quotes around the words.
“We’re not their family,” Delainey scowled back.
Briana shrugged.
This was all Elise’s fault.
Delainey felt guilty even thinking the words, but it was true. If Elise hadn’t started dating a stupid werewolf—and then, even worse, told her parents about it when she got caught instead of doing the smart thing and just lying—they wouldn’t be in this mess.
She didn’t blame Elise for the controlling parents. That wasn’t anyone’s fault but Brenda's and Tim’s. But at this point, Elise could have told them to get out of the house and go back home. The rules of hospitality meant no one but family could do it, not unless Brenda and Tim broke etiquette first. And frankly, their small little coven was not in any place to piss off healers from Wallace Grove.
If they made an enemy of them… Oof. The coven would need stronger allies first before they even considered what that might mean.
Their dinner table fit five people just fine. Seven was a stretch, but the circular table did its best. It was old oak, scarred from years of use. Delainey had to force herself not to elbow Serena, who was seated to her right.
Elise was stuck between her parents and looked about fourteen years old and miserable. Brenda sat with her napkin spread precisely across her lap and her back ruler-straight against the chair, while Tim occupied his seat like he was enduring a hospital waiting room, his long fingers laced together on the table’s edge.
Briana was next to Tim with Aya on her other side, and on the other side of Serena was Brenda, which made them one big miserable family.
They ate quietly. The food was about as delicious as takeout could be, especially when it came from a restaurant that didn’t list prices on the menu. But since it all came with a side of sour disapproval from two parents who could make their faces look impressively pinched, it all tasted a bit salty, metaphorically.
