Page 43 of Bound to the Wolf
He caught Delainey looking at him and stared right back, unable to tear his gaze away.
They were caught like that for several moments before she broke the spell.
“We should go downstairs,” she said, already turning for the door and pulling it open so that the cooler air of the hallway rushed into the cramped, steaming bathroom. “The others will be here soon.”
Chapter
Twenty
Who the hell was that?
Reece narrowed his eyes at the blonde man sitting next to Briana and Aya and racked his brain trying to remember if he had ever seen him before.
He had a car salesman’s smile and neatly pressed clothes, quite the contrast to everyone else who looked like they’d been sleeping in the same outfit for three days. At least they hadn’t been covered in dirt. The guy sat with his legs crossed at the knee, his pressed button-down tucked neatly into his chinos, wire glasses perched on his pointed nose, every line of him clean and precise against the old dining table.
He realized he had seen the guy when Reece and Delainey had entered the house. Reece had been basically in a daze then, too focused on the sudden safety and the food in front of him to think about who was supposed to be there.
Briana stood and gestured at the man. “This is Emerson. He’s a guest of our coven, staying with us for a while. I’m sorry I didn’t think to introduce you earlier.”
“Right,” Reece planted his hands on the back of the nearest dining chair, his fingers curling over the wooden spindle. “I guess it was kind of busy.”
Emerson smiled and offered his hand. “It’s not the best way to meet, but hello.”
Reece had to force himself to take it. Emerson’s grip was firm enough to be polite but nothing more; his palm dry and smooth, a hand that had never done manual labor or held its own in a fight.
He already didn’t like witches. He was getting used to Delainey’s coven by force.
But who the hell was this guy supposed to be?
A stranger in their mix, right after they’d been kidnapped by unknown forces? Yeah, that was great. He loved that.
None of the coven seemed to find it strange, and Briana was vouching for him. Clearly, they had a history. Reece tried to put it in werewolf terms.
If a visiting beta from an allied pack had been around when Cole was injured, would they have included him in the situation? Almost certainly not, but if the threat had been different, if the pack had been at full strength or they needed the help, there were situations where they might have accepted an outsider.
He looked over at Cole, who shrugged. “It’s her coven.”
Cole stood near the doorway with his arms crossed over his broad chest, his stone-cut face as unreadable as ever, taking up the frame of the door the way an alpha naturally filled any space he occupied.
“It’s not my coven to rule,” Briana corrected him. “We don’t have a leader. It’s not like a pack. We’re all equals.”
Cole shrugged again as if to say,sure, you can think that. Reece had to suppress a smile.
He could feel Delainey champing at the bit to get into the dining room. He backed up from Emerson and followed her towhere they could take two seats. The dining room was cramped with this many bodies. A table that might have comfortably seated six now ringed by mismatched chairs pulled from the kitchen.
Serena brought in a tray of cupcakes. Despite the half a pizza he had eaten earlier, Reece was tempted to reach out, but Serena was one of the fiercer members of the coven and he wouldn’t put it past her to poison him through sugar.
“You made these?” he asked, eyeing the tray, two dozen cupcakes in neat rows, half chocolate and half vanilla, frosted with a precision that bordered on aggressive. She didn’t give off the vibe of a kitchen witch.
“Serena stress bakes,” Delainey informed him.
Serena flipped her off and set the cupcakes down with more force than was strictly necessary.
Hugh, Javi, and Mark were already waiting in the dining area. Hugh leaned against the wall with his arms folded, quiet as a shadow. Javi had claimed a chair near the head of the table and was tilted back on its rear legs, one foot braced against the table’s edge. Mark sat apart from the other wolves, a lean man with careful hands resting flat on his knees, his posture still and watchful in the way healers often were.
Hugh reached forward, took one of the chocolate cupcakes, and bit into it with a grin. “It’s delicious. Thank you.”
Serena stared at him with narrowed eyes, said nothing, and walked back into the kitchen.
