Page 1 of Bound to the Wolf
Chapter
One
There was a werewolf in her house, and Delainey Boyd couldn’t kill him.
She glared at the toilet seat and the small speck of pee on the rim. She gritted her jaw so tight her teeth might break.
Who did that? Who left the toilet seat up and didn’t bother to flush?
Okay, the freaking wolf had flushed this time, but two days ago there had been evidence. Delainey supposed this technically wasn’t a mark against werewolves. It was a mark against men.
And Elise was betraying the entire coven by bringing one of those into their midst.
The bathroom was exactly as cramped as you’d expect in a more than a century old Victorian that had been retrofitted to add running water and the other amenities of modern life. Which meant Delainey could reach her hands out and touch the opposite walls at once.
She and Elise had been sharing the hallway bathroom with its tiny shower, tinier window, and terrible ventilation for years. Adding awerewolfto the mix made the space intolerably small.
Delainey wiped the speck of evidence away with a vicious swipe of toilet paper, put the seat down, and did her business, all while seething with the fact that there was a werewolf right down the hall. She thought she had been doing okay tolerating this whole fiasco, but the man was an animal.
Literally.
She finished and washed her hands. Her frustration was compounded when the creaky pipes in the walls of the old blue Victorian that the coven called home burbled and coughed for a minute before giving her blessed lukewarm water that turned scalding far too quickly. She yelped and jerked her hands back.
“Seriously, you too?” she asked the house.
It got bad-tempered some days, and she might have thought it was haunted, but it was just old and cheap. That’s what happened when you got a good deal on real estate.
But it was theirs.
The smell of sage and lavender suffused the air from the spell work the coven did at home and the protective wards they kept up to date. Under it all was the scent of old coffee that had nothing to do with magic, except for the magic of caffeine.
Each windowsill held a collection of small rocks, meant for protection, among other things. And there wasn’t a table surface in the place that didn’t have smudges of wax burned into them.
Delainey clomped down the back stairs to the kitchen and nearly tripped over the pile of shoes at the back door. She wanted to growl at Nico again, but that one was on her sisters and their allergy to putting things in the closet. Though Nico’s shoes were the largest and they were jutting out the furthest, so she was still going to blame him.
Delainey still wasn’t entirely sure how this whole thing had happened.
She knew, of course, she’d been there. But how did a woman go from being kidnapped by a guy—a werewolf!—to shacking up with him in four months?
Four months? Ha!
Elise had fallen for the guy in a matter of days. And though they didn’t technically live together, they were always in each other’s pockets now, whether they were at the coven house, or over with the pack, or hiding out in some little love hotel like they expected the fury of supernatural society to rain down hard on them.
Okay, Delainey had been that fury at one point, but she was trying to look out for Elise.
Elise was young and innocent, naive, really, or at least that was the vibe she gave off. It wasn’t like Delainey was that much older than her, but some days it felt like she had mountains more experience.
And all that extra experience sometimes tugged at her and made her want to go out and do something reckless. She wanted to get a drink or pick a fight, maybe get laid, anything except sit in the house and ruminate about their werewolf guest.
But it was three p.m. on a weekday. If she went out and started getting drunk right now, someone might think she had a problem. And she didn’t want to deal with those concerned stares. Not unless Serena went with her. But Serena was at work, and she wasn’t going to get into trouble without her partner in crime.
Plates were stacked up in the giant sink, which meantsomeonehadn’t loaded the dishwasher. The floor could use a sweeping, and the paper towel holder was empty. Delainey ignored all of that.
Late afternoon sunlight was streaming into the kitchen, and she soaked it up as it shone over her brown skin and reminded her that fall wasn’t over yet. She shoved a curl behind her ear, asif that might do anything, and wished she’d bothered to grab a hair tie. Too late for that now.
The coffee was old, so Delainey started a fresh pot, reaching automatically for where they kept the filters and the grounds. She was thankful that Nico hadn’t infiltrated this deeply into the kitchen.
At least the werewolf was civilized enough to understand the importance of the dark brew.
