Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Reece was an asshole. He knew that. Everyone in the pack knew that. Delainey had known it even before their first kiss, but he normally didn’t feel bad about his assholish tendencies.
He wasn’t sure why this whole conversation about the kill switch on the tether was throwing him off so much.
If he was completely honest with himself, something he tried to be, he could admit that if the roles had been reversed, he would have done exactly the same thing and kept that potentially damaging information to himself until he was certain it wouldn’t be used against him.
Delainey hadn’t done anything that actually harmed their chances of separating, as far as he knew. She had protected herself. She had every reason to be cautious. He remembered how they had been treating each other in those first days.
The spark that had eventually combusted into them spending their nights together had been just as likely to burst into a conflagration that destroyed each of them.
But none of that sense he was thinking had allowed him to pad back inside and crawl into bed beside Delainey last night.
It felt wrong to sleep alone, even in his wolf form.
He had gotten used to waking up next to a warm body, her warm body specifically, gotten used to the way her scent coiled around him and the soft snores she would never admit to making.
He had gotten used to the soft looks she gave him when she crooked a finger and tempted him into bed earlier than either of them intended to sleep.
He wanted to keep doing it, beyond whenever this tether between them broke.
Maybe there was something about witches that attracted werewolves.
He had given Nico enough shit to fill a horse stall about falling for Elise, but was Reece any better? He hadn’t kidnapped the witch or accidentally brought her into the heart of pack territory, so yes, Reece was sure he was better than Nico on that front. But he was still putting things off.
Even though it was a chilly morning, Reece shifted to his human form while he was still outside.
The shift left him bare on the cottage’s small porch, the cold air sharp against his skin, morning dew slick under his feet on the wooden boards, and he could see his breath clouding in front of him in the gray early light.
If they were going to keep doing this, whatever this was, they had to be honest with each other. He had to be honest with her.
He plucked a flower from the flowerbed outside the front door and padded naked into the house.
He didn’t spot Delainey anywhere, but he heard the shower running.
It might have made things easier if she had seen him naked and they could silently communicate everything that needed to be said, but Reece knew that would be cheating.
He threw on clothes before either of them could get distracted.
Dark sweats, the worn black t-shirt that pulled across his chest, bare feet on the smooth wood floor, the cottage smelled like her shampoo and the juniper candle on the coffee table, both of which had become as familiar to him as the forest outside.
A while later she came out of the shower and went to work at her computer.
Her curls were still damp, darker at the roots than the ends, and she’d pulled them back with a wide band that left them springing out behind her head in a loose halo as she settled into the desk chair wedged between the bookshelf and the window.
She had told him a little about the web design project she was mostly avoiding while they were in Nico’s house. Without him to distract her, she must have been putting whatever frustration she was feeling to good use.
Reece had put the flower in a glass of water. He walked over to the desk and set it down beside her keyboard.
Delainey reached for it on instinct, then shook herself and pulled her hand back. Had she thought he was giving her a glass of water? He had been feeding her and watering her at every chance he got, so the confusion might have been warranted.
She reached out and stroked a finger over a petal, then looked up at him.
Her blue-polished nails caught the light from the window as her fingertip traced the edge of the flower, and when she tilted her face up, she looked almost golden in the morning light.
She spun around in her chair so she could look at him fully.
“Are you done sulking now?” she asked.
Her walls were back up, but not all the way. He wanted to tear them down brick by brick and prevent them from ever being built up again, but they had to get through this conversation first.
“I wanted to apologize,” he stood in front of the desk with his hands loose at his sides, resisting the pull to cross his arms the way he always did when he felt exposed.
Delainey wasn’t going to make it easy for him. “For what?” she asked.
Of course she was going to make him say it all.
“I wouldn’t have told you either,” he admitted.
“Yeah, I know that.”
Her expression was still closed off, and Reece felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. He couldn’t just apologize and be done with it.
If he wanted her to open up again, if he wanted everything with her, he had to be honest. She hadn’t lied to him about the kill switch built into the manacle and the tether between them.
But she had omitted that truth, and he had spent half a lifetime omitting his own.
“Can we talk?” he asked. His voice wasn’t quite steady.
She raised an eyebrow. “What are we doing right now?”
He held out a hand and tilted his head toward the couch.
Delainey was wary, but she took his hand and let him pull her out of her seat and over to the couch, where they both sat.
The loveseat was small enough that their knees touched when they settled, and Reece could feel the warmth of her thigh against his through the thin fabric of his sweats.
He didn’t even know how to start this story.
Delainey sat there for several minutes, looking at him.
“Reece,” she finally said. “You wanted to talk?” She wasn’t as closed off in this moment. She was giving him a chance to explain something she wouldn’t have done a few weeks ago. He had to figure out how to say the words. Otherwise… no. There was no otherwise.
“I was adopted,” he said. That was as good a place to start as any.
Delainey’s expression remained neutral. She didn’t say a word, which was good. If she interrupted him, he might not get started again.
“My birth parents died in a car accident when I was five, and my mom’s best friend was a witch. That’s who adopted me. My mom didn’t know about the magic.”
A breath escaped Delainey, but she stayed quiet. She was staring at him, practically vibrating with the need to ask questions.
He almost felt sorry for her, stumbling through these words when she clearly wanted to direct the conversation.
His voice was controlled, but he could only get one sentence out at a time.
He had to push his wolf down to the very bottom of his soul before it could start prowling and growling and causing problems.
“Obviously I had no magic,” he said, “but I learned potions and the theory behind things, all of that. My parents didn’t have any other kids. They never actually wanted kids, but, well, accidents happen.” He shrugged.
He heard Delainey suck in and figured she was about to tell him he wasn’t an accident or something. He shook his head and hoped she interpreted it correctly. She kept her mouth shut.
“All of my friends were in the coven,” he said.
“They knew I was human, but who gave a shit? I was basically just a witch who couldn’t do magic, as far as they were concerned.
And in our territory there was a clearing, kind of like the one we went to yesterday, with a confluence of power, right on the edge of territory with an enemy pack.
Things were much more tense with them. There had been skirmishes going on for months.
We were hanging out when some wolves from the pack came to bother us.
They were the same age as us. We all went to high school together, but you know how it is.
It was a pissing match that turned into a scuffle, and one of the werewolves nipped me.
He must have thought I was a witch. We knew what the rules were.
They would have never bitten me if they thought I was human.
And because I was an idiotic teenage boy, I didn’t tell anyone. ”
“Reece.” Delainey breathed his name out but said nothing else. Her hand had come to rest on the cushion between them, her fingers curled loosely against the fabric, close enough to touch him but not quite reaching.
He kept talking. “I knew herbal medicine. I thought maybe I could get the poison out of my system before anybody found out. I was going to be in so much trouble if they found out. We weren’t supposed to be playing there.
We were supposed to run away if wolves came.
Honestly, my friends were so used to me they forgot I was human and forgot it was a big deal.
By the time my parents found out, it was too late to try and reverse the transformation. ”
Delainey fully reached out and covered his hand with her own, and it was only then that he realized his hand had been balled up into a fist. Her fingers were half the width of his; her blue nails bright against the pale, scarred terrain of his knuckles.
He turned her hand over and laced their fingers together, kneading the connection to her.
“It went downhill from there.” He didn’t want to remember it, but he was in it now, and he had to get the words out.
He couldn’t get the poison out of him that had turned him into a werewolf, but maybe this would help: telling someone.
Not even Cole knew. He had created a new life for himself when he came to the Southern Basin Pack.
But Delainey needed to know the truth of him.
If she was going to be… well. She just needed to know the truth.
“The first six months sucked,” he said. “All of my friends turned away from me. They couldn’t believe I had been changed and that I was the enemy now.
They thought I was going to attack them.
I did attack one of them on accident. He came for me and my new instincts took over and I nearly tore his throat out, but luckily we got him to the healer in time.
” He could still feel the phantom give of flesh under teeth that weren’t quite human anymore, the hot copper rush that had flooded his mouth before he even understood what his body was doing.
He could still taste the blood. It had been the first blood he had tasted.
“Right after I turned eighteen, my parents kicked me out.”
Delainey squeezed his hand tighter.
“Their coven leader said they couldn’t have a wolf in the family. It was too dangerous. I was a risk to other coven members, and they couldn’t trust that I wasn’t somehow being controlled by the enemy pack.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Delainey sat forward on the couch, her free hand gripping the edge of the cushion hard enough that her knuckles went taut under her skin.
He appreciated the support. “And that’s when I found the other pack I told you about.”
“The one that made you kill,” she prompted.
“Yes,” he answered.
“That’s disgusting,” Delainey’s upper lip curled, and she shook her head once, sharply, her curls bouncing against the band holding them back.
Reece tried to pull his hand away, but she held on tighter. “I know you don’t like the idea of wolves in—”
“That your parents would choose their coven over their son!” she was vehement. “You were their kid the second they adopted you. That was it. They didn’t get another choice.”
He hadn’t been expecting that.
He had been braced for her to defend the coven, to explain why the rules of their existence were what they were, as if he needed the reminder. Instead she was angry on his behalf, fuming even.
Something in his chest cracked, and he let out a sound that was half relief, half sob. His whole frame shuddered once, his broad shoulders curling inward, and his grip on her hand tightened.
Delainey scrambled onto his lap and straddled his legs.
She clutched his cheeks and made him look up at her.
Her thumbs rested just below his cheekbones, her palms warm against his jaw.
Those walls he had hated to see were gone now.
All he saw was raw vulnerability, the kind of honesty he had wanted so desperately and yet was completely terrified of.
“Oh, Reece,” Delainey said.
She pressed her forehead against his. He could feel the damp ends of her curls brushing against his temples, her knees pressed tight against his hips on the narrow loveseat, the weight of her steady and grounding in his lap.
He didn’t hear pity in her voice. He might not have survived pity.
He tilted his head up and kissed her and gave her his entire soul.