Chapter 35
Chapter
Thirty-Five
Reece didn’t argue about going to the coven house, though he had wanted to point out that they had a perfectly functional bed right in their room, and plenty of food to get them through the next day or week or year, with no need to face the outside world.
They could spend it in bed with very few responsibilities or distractions.
But Reece was a good boyfriend, and Delainey wanted to see her sisters, so her sisters she would see.
He was going to dinner with his girlfriend’s coven.
His mouth kept wanting to curve into a smile, and he was forcing it down, trying to look tough, but he didn’t know why he was even making the effort. Delainey could see through him, like whatever walls he put up were made of cellophane, and he was trying his damnedest not to hide from her.
As a good boyfriend, he hadn’t argued when Delainey decided she was driving them.
He folded himself into the passenger seat of his own car, knees pressed up near the glove box the way they always were when she drove, and watched her adjust the rearview mirror even though she was the last one who’d touched it.
She reached out and took his hand, intertwining their fingers.
“Are you going to be cool with hanging out there?” She glanced at him sideways, one hand on the steering wheel. “Given everything.”
They hadn’t discussed his history much more, but sharing it had lightened something inside him. He was glad she knew.
“I understand that not all covens are the same,” he said, turning their joined hands over so his thumb could trace the ridge of her knuckles, his broad palm dwarfing hers.
Though the fact that the understanding only came after he had fallen for a witch might have rung a little hollow to some. Reece told any judgmental bastard who might be reading his mind to mind their own damn business.
“And your parents were dicks,” Delainey added.
At least she wasn’t treating him with kid gloves. They might not have discussed his childhood trauma much more, but Reece would be lying if he said he hadn’t been thinking about it.
“Maybe they don’t deserve to be called that,” he said.
“Dicks?” Delainey looked ready to go to war.
Reece squeezed her hand.
“No. Parents.” He didn’t have kids. He didn’t know if he ever would. Some of that would depend on what Delainey wanted, but he didn’t know if there was anything that could have forced him to send them away, especially when they needed him the most.
She tapped her free hand against the steering wheel. “Is their coven in the area?”
He could practically see her flipping through a mental Rolodex of every coven she knew. “We were up in New England,” he said.
She made a sound in the back of her throat, and if she were a wolf, he would have called it a growl. “Just say the word and I’ll send them a strongly worded email.”
His grin grew even broader. “Oh, I’m worth a strongly worded email?”
They were stopped at a traffic light, and Delainey leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You’re worth more than that, I think.” She looked away quickly, and her cheeks might have been on fire, but the light in the car was dim, so he couldn’t tell.
The light changed, and she started driving again. She was quiet for a block or two, her thumb tapping the steering wheel.
"My dad used to disappear for months," she said. Her voice was even, like she was telling him about the weather. "Research trips. Coven business. Important stuff, apparently. My mom wasn't great on her own. She kind of just… floated." Delainey flicked on the turn signal. "I handled things."
Reece didn't say anything. He recognized the tone. It was the same one he'd used by the fire in the woods, casual, throwaway, a story that cost nothing to tell.
It cost everything.
"When I left for Hobson, I thought the whole house would collapse.
I felt like the worst daughter alive for about six months.
" She let out a short breath that was almost a laugh.
"And then my dad came home and stayed. And my mom started figuring her shit out.
They're fine now. Better than fine, actually.
It turns out they just needed me to stop doing everything so they had a reason to do it themselves. "
She said it like it was a happy ending, and maybe it was. But Reece heard the thing underneath it, the thing she probably didn't even know she was saying: that the people she loved most had only risen to the occasion once she wasn't there to rise for them.
That she had spent her whole childhood being necessary and then learned she was replaceable.
No wonder she didn't let anyone in. Letting someone in meant they could figure out they didn't need her.
He brought their joined hands up and pressed his mouth to her knuckles. He didn't say any of that. But he held on tighter, and she let him.
Then out of nowhere she said, “I promise my sisters won’t kidnap you for dating me.”
Reece sputtered and choked a little bit. “Is that something I should be worried about?”
Where had that come from?
“Uh, no?” It was definitely a question.
“There’s a story there, isn’t there?” he demanded, but they were pulling into the driveway.
The old blue Victorian loomed up through the windshield, porch light on, the paint peeling along the eaves, and the front steps had that slightly warped look of wood that had survived too many seasons without being replaced.
Delainey made a production of backing the car in and paying close attention to the backup camera and the mirrors. She put the car in park, and Reece couldn’t resist leaning in close and giving her a brief kiss. When he pulled back, her eyes were locked on his lips.
“What was that for?” she asked, her seatbelt already unbuckled, one hand still resting on the gearshift between them.
“Because I can.” He stole one more kiss before forcing himself to pull away. He put his hand on the door handle and paused. “How did you want to play this?” He wanted to scream from the rooftops that she was his, but he could recognize a delicate situation when he saw one.
They had been sleeping together for weeks, and they had seen her sisters several times since then, but it had never warranted an announcement. Everything was different now.
Delainey got out of the car without answering and came around. She opened his door for him and held out her hand, flexing her fingers a few times when he didn’t immediately take it.
Reece clasped their hands together. He guessed that was answer enough.
They entered through the front this time and found the coven, along with Nico, waiting in the living room. Elise was cuddled up next to her boyfriend and was the first one to spot their joined hands.
“Is there anything you want to tell us, Delainey?” Elise sat up straighter against Nico, her blonde ponytail swinging over one shoulder, blue eyes sharp and fixed on their interlocked fingers.
Delainey shrugged and gave an innocent smile and didn’t drop Reece’s hand. She glanced at him, then looked back at Elise. “Nope!”
He felt eyes on him from every direction. Nico had his lips pressed together, suppressing a grin. He was leaning back on the sectional with one arm stretched along the cushion behind Elise, his dark hair hanging past his ears, looking like a man trying very hard not to say I told you so.
Elise had narrowed eyes that looked almost angry. Serena’s eyes were wide.
Aya wasn’t actually looking at them. She had a magical tome open in her lap and was reading intensely, her straight black hair tucked behind her ears, reading glasses low on her nose, compact frame folded into one of the mismatched armchairs with her feet tucked beneath her.
And Briana was measured, but welcoming. She sat in the other armchair with her long strawberry-blonde hair hanging down over her shoulders, pale hands folded in her lap, her expression the particular kind of calm that Reece had learned meant she was assessing the situation before committing to a reaction.
Serena reached into her back pocket and grabbed a wallet, and took a bill out. “Aya, hey,” she said, and the studious witch looked up. Serena reached across the room with the money between outstretched fingers.
Aya looked at it. “What’s it for?”
Serena’s expression shifted to a can you believe this? kind of look, and she nodded toward Reece and Delainey.
“Oh, right,” Aya said, plucking the bill from Serena’s fingers and tucking it into the spine of her book without looking away from the page she’d been reading. She didn’t react at all to their announcement, or lack thereof.
He noticed Emerson wasn’t there. “Is your guest finally gone?” He realized the “finally” was probably giving something away, but he couldn’t make himself care.
Aya closed her book and put it on the table beside the couch. “He’s out doing some research. He’ll be back tomorrow,” she said.
Delainey’s coven swooped in around her and guided her toward the back of the house, leaving Nico and Reece alone. Reece dropped into a wingback chair that sat near the front window, its upholstery faded and threadbare at the arms, while Nico leaned back on his seat on the couch.
“So,” Nico said, expression falsely light, “you and Delainey.” He had that particular look on his face, the one that was supposed to be neutral but couldn’t quite hide the satisfaction underneath, the same look he got when he’d been right about something and was waiting for you to admit it.
“You’re going to give me shit for this, aren’t you?” Reece stretched his legs out in front of him, boots crossed at the ankle on the dark hardwood floor, and draped one arm over the chair’s worn armrest.
“I seem to remember my mate saying that you might like it if you tried it. Looks like she was right.”
Reece scowled; he’d forgotten that. “Your mate?”
That wasn’t a word that wolves used lightly.
“You think?”
Nico looked smug. “I know,” he said.
“Does she?” Reece asked.
“Of course she knows.” Nico leaned forward and looked at Reece like he was particularly dense. “I don’t keep things from her.”
But Nico might have been keeping things from Reece. “Delainey said something about a kidnapping.”
Nico waved a hand in front of him and rolled his eyes. “Water under the bridge.”
“When were you kidnapped?” he asked. Then he remembered a job gone wrong, where Nico had taken off for the night after the Iron Runners caused some shit.
That had been right at the time they discovered Elise was alive and a witch and with Nico, and he hadn’t realized there had been a kidnapping in the mix.
“Why do you ask?” asked Nico.
“Delainey told me they wouldn’t kidnap me for dating her.”
Nico grinned. “See, they like you more than me already!”
Reece very much doubted that. But Nico’s mate was a witch. They were making it work. That, more than anything, gave him hope that he and Delainey might have a future once this bond was broken.