Page 7 of Bound to the Wolf
Ah, the joy of communal living.
At least six pack members had the duty to load and unload the dishwasher whenever it was needed, and yet somehow Reece found himself doing it at least once a week. He was objecting to taking on that extra task on principle.
Nico walked in, and Reece flicked his fingers in a greeting. Elise followed right after him.
Of course she did. When wasn’t she there these days?
He had to suppress a growl. Reece didn’t hate her exactly. She had saved Cole’s life when she had every reason to do him harm. But it didn’t mean that he enjoyed having her at the pack house.
The witch wore an oversized gray t-shirt, doubtless one of Nico’s. If the man thought he was being sneaky with his territorial claims, he was sorely mistaken. Her hair was held back in a swaying ponytail that a part of Reece wanted to flick. Nico wore a matching gray top, but probably by accident.
The couple wasn’t quite nauseating enough to match their everyday outfits.
The happy couple chatted as they went to the fridge and pretended that Reece wasn’t there.
Ah, wonderful. Young love.
Nico crowded in behind his mate as she grabbed something out of the fridge, and she giggled and told him to stop. If this lasted much longer, Reece would need to run for cover. Or possibly vomit.
Elise had been at the pack more this week than usual.
Though Reece didn’t like her, he couldn’t help but be curious about why. He’d heard a few whispers that there was some kind of drama going on with her own coven, but he hadn’t been ableto find out more without seeming interested, which he refused to do.
He expected that Nico and his girl would take their food and leave, or sit at the stools by the counter, or even take up places at the table. Instead, Nico shoved his leg off the chair so Elise could sit, and then dragged a chair from the table for himself. As if there wasn’t an entire kitchen where they could have had some semblance of privacy.
But Reece wasn’t an idiot.
He had scented magic on the property, and he had a bona fide witch sitting right in front of him.
Cole hadn’t explicitly told him to ask Elise, and he didn’t know if Cole planned to use her as a resource. It was a precarious situation. The Southern Basin pack and Elise’s coven werenotallies.
He’d never heard of a witch coven and a werewolf pack being allied in that way. They had a truce, and plenty of packs and covens had truces. But that didn’t mean that they would offer assistance to each other without a price.
But Elise was rightthere, and Nico was a fellow beta. It wouldn’t hurt to mention the issue. He knew Elise wouldn’t use the information against them. Because of her relationship with Nico, she didn’t want any harm coming to the pack.
“Is everything all right?” Nico asked him between sips of his coffee.
“Did Cole talk to you?” he asked. There would be a meeting of the betas later to go over the new patrols and share what he had sensed last night, but Cole had to sleep sometime, and it was fairly early in the morning, so news might not have gotten around yet.
Nico pursed his lips. “Should Cole have talked to me about something?”
Elise was drinking her coffee and looking out the window as if she wasn’t paying attention to every word they said. Reece wasn’t sure if he appreciated the illusion of privacy or if it made him grit his teeth more.
“Interlopers last night,” he said. “I ran into two of them and chased them off, but?—”
“But what?” Nico prompted.
“I smelled magic afterwards. It was… slimy,” he said. “Not at all like Elise’s. And the source of it was more aggressive than—” He cut himself off.
Werewolves didn’t talk about the sources of magic. The scent, sure, but everything else was guesswork. And he had a witch in front of him. He didn’t need to do guesswork of his own.
Elise had turned to look at him, her blue eyes wide. She flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and gave him an assessing look. “Magic?”
He nodded.
“Are you sure?” She sounded doubtful, which made his inner wolf bare its fangs at her. Reece had to clamp down on the instinct to mirror the action with his human teeth. Nico wouldn’t take kindly to that, and they didn’t need to brawl in the kitchen.
“I know what magic smells like,” he said, “and it was definitely there. I was on the eastern part of the territory near the cottages. The wolves ran after we fought, then the scent bloomed, and then it dissipated.”
