Page 88 of Bound to the Wolf
He hadn’t realized how much it would hurt to hear that, to know she wanted to escape him so much. He’d thought they’d turned a corner. That this thing between them was real.
But could it survive the fucked-up bond between them breaking?
Deep inside his chest, the tether itched. It felt wrong, and Reece knew it didn’t belong. He knew it had to be causing trouble, but it had given him the time it took to tear down Delainey’s defenses until he could live inside of them beside her and start to build something real.
Given her attitude right now, he was pretty sure she would run at the first opportunity.
There were three cars parked in the grassy section that acted as a lot, which shouldn’t have been strange. From their journeys to the coven house, he recognized most of the coven’s vehicles.He saw Briana’s, but he did not recognize the other two, other than to identify one as a Rolls-Royce.
Reece was absolutely sure none of the coven members, all of whom were in their twenties or perhaps early thirties, could afford one. It was large and silver, gleaming in the moonlight. The second unfamiliar car was a dark sedan parked tight against the tree line, its plates obscured by the angle.
Inside of him, his wolf grumbled and looked curiously at the scene.
Delainey was standing at the edge of the car and waved at them before Reece could say anything about his suspicions. She was already halfway across the grass before he had his seatbelt off, chin up and shoulders squared the way she always walked. He opened his mouth to try anyway, but she got out of the car before he could say anything.
“Damn it,” Reece muttered to himself. He unclipped his seatbelt and opened the door. He wasn’t going to let Delainey face this alone, whatever was going on right now. The night air hit him immediately, cool, carrying the sharp green smell of the forest and, beneath it, something sour that made the hair on his forearms stand on end.
Everything felt wrong.
Reece could smell the magic, which wasn’t that odd considering the coven was supposed to have some trick up their sleeve to break the bond between him and Delainey. But there was an oily quality to this magic, something almost bitter. He might have called it a note of coffee if he was being generous, but all of his generous instincts had flown out the window.
All he could do was lean into his suspicions for the moment.
He jogged around the front of the car to keep pace with Delainey, but she didn’t spare him a glance. The instincts that had kept him alive for thirty-three years were screaming at him that something wasoff.
Briana was walking beside Delainey.
Briana was pale enough that the moonlight made her look almost translucent. Her face looked pleasant, but she kept scratching at her wrist like she had been bitten by the most aggressive mosquito. Her shoulders were stiff.
No, Reece didn’t like that at all.
Briana stumbled a step, and Delainey steadied her. But Briana waved her off with a laugh that was a little too tittering, a little too high-pitched. He didn’t know Briana well, but… this was fucking weird.
“Where are the others?” he asked. He didn’t see or smell any of the other members of the coven, and he realized they probably should have called in the pack for whatever was about to happen. Mark would be pissed at him if his wolf healing was needed.
“Come on, come on.” Briana didn’t answer his question, but she waved them forward.
This is fucking wrong,he thought to himself.
Briana kept scratching at her wrist. He could see it now: the skin around the thin braided cord was red and raised, and her nails dragged across the irritated flesh again and again.
“Is something wrong?” Reece asked.
The coven leader tilted her head, expression puzzled. “No, why would there be?”
“Whose cars are those?” he asked.
“Reece, why are you being rude?” Delainey glared at him over her shoulder.
Didn’t she feel it too?
He was about to say something, but Delainey glanced down at Briana’s wrist and furrowed her brow. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Finally! At least now she was starting to realize things weren’t adding up.
“Delainey,” he said, “we should?—”
Between one second and the next, he felt the magic roll over him and realized Briana had led them into the center of a magical circle that had already been set up. Every nerve in his body fired at once, and when he looked down, he could see the faint chalk marks on the flattened grass, a circle already drawn and charged, the lines glowing a dim, ugly yellow in the dark.
