Page 47 of Bound to the Wolf
She slouched on the couch and wished she could go downstairs and solve magical problems. She couldn’t wait until the manacle was off her wrist and everything got back to normal.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Delainey’s room was a sanctuary.
The coven had eventually come up from the basement and spent hours poking and prodding at Reece and Delainey to no avail. There was hope they’d be able to break the manacles in the morning, and Aya had said something about pulling an all-nighter, but exhaustion was dragging at Reece. The prospect of sleeping in an actual bed for the first night in days was something he couldn’t resist.
The room wasn’t what he had expected.
She was a witch. There should have been candles on every surface, herbs and stones for protection, whatever they claimed to offer. And while he saw a few, an amethyst, a tourmaline, what might have been hematite, they were clustered in a group that made no sense for protection or amplification. They were nice-looking, shiny rocks and nothing more.
A massive computer setup occupied a table in the corner, two giant monitors and a gaming chair that looked fairly comfortable, not that he was going to sit down and try it. The room itself was smaller than he’d expected, with hardwood floors partially covered by a worn rug in deep purple, and thewalls painted a slate gray that made the space feel close, almost cocoon-like. A single window to the left of the bed let in the moonlight through sheer curtains, and a floor lamp beside the computer desk provided the only other source of illumination, its warm glow pooling over stacks of books and a half-empty water bottle.
“Are you a gamer?” he asked. He had never considered it before.
“I’m a web designer,” she said. “Freelance. I get to make my own hours. It doesn’t suck.”
No, it wouldn’t.
His whole life was the pack. He worked for Cole, did what was necessary, and kept things running. There wasn’t exactly space for freelance work, and he didn’t mind that. But this was another piece of the puzzle that was Delainey, and it took effort to not ask more.
How had she gotten into it? How long had she been doing it? Was she any good? Of course she was. She wouldn’t be doing it if she wasn’t, wouldn’t be paid for it if she sucked. She might hold it against him if he said anything that impugned her skills.
Despite the exhaustion, he felt a bit desperate. This would, hopefully, be the last night they were bound together. He stressed that to himself.
In the morning they would walk away, and he had a feeling deep in his gut that Delainey would stay away from him for good. Every time she looked down at the manacles, she had that caged animal look in her eyes. It had become clear how much she didn’t want to be confined. Not that he could blame her.
They would sleep beside one another tonight, wake in the morning, and hopefully her coven would have a solution.
Then the best he could hope for were stolen glimpses while Nico cozied up to his own witch and Reece was left alone.
He should have been eager to find someone else,anyonewho could erase the memory of her, but his wolf was so absolutely against it that Reece could feel phantom claws scraping at his insides for even thinking it. Justthinkingit. He wasn’t actually considering it.
There was no one who could replace Delainey.
They were both staring at the bed. Reece tried to walk to one side and Delainey to the other, and the manacles started to burn. The cuffs flared hot enough that the heat radiated through his wrist and up the tendons of his forearm, a sharp, bright pain like pressing his palm to a stovetop.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Delainey said.
It was a standard queen bed. A quilt in shades of purple and gold was folded neatly at the foot, and two mismatched pillows sat propped against a simple wooden headboard. They couldn’t even get six feet apart. Delainey scrambled onto her side and glared down at the empty space beside her.
“Get in,” she ordered. “And don’t say anything about sleeping on the floor. If one of us rolls the wrong way we’re going to wake up in excruciating pain, and I would rather avoid that.”
Reece didn’t argue. He slid under the covers, and the bed dipped under him. The borrowed sweats were too short at the ankle and tight across his thighs, and the mattress was softer than anything at the pack house, sinking under his weight until he could feel the outline of springs beneath the padding.
He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, trying not to think about Delainey right next to him. Her bed smelled even more like her than anywhere else had. He was hyperaware of every inch of space between them, and every inch that wasn’t. Their body heat mingled, making it almost too hot for comfort, but the softness of the bed was a luxury after days in the forest.
All he wanted to do was reach out and hold her, which was insanity.
He didn’t want witches. He didn’t fall for witches.
This was him temporarily going out of his mind.
A clock ticked on the wall somewhere, an unfriendly reminder that their time together was growing short with no way out of that. He needed to force himself to sleep, close his eyes, even his breath, let nature take its course.
But that wasn’t happening. His body was thrumming with need.
