Chapter 36
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Delainey eyed the door to the root cellar with more than a little envy. She couldn’t go down there, not after what had happened last time.
Who knew what her magic was doing now? She couldn’t risk sending more jars crashing to the ground or making something even worse happen.
She got less ribbing than she might have expected while she and her sisters chowed down on a pizza from Franklin’s. But judging by the looks Elise had been shooting her all night, Delainey was going to need to apologize to her.
Ugh, that was stupid.
You kidnapped one woman’s boyfriend a little bit because he was a werewolf, and then suddenly when you start dating your own werewolf, people tried to make it weird.
In Delainey’s defense, she wasn’t trying to hide anything. Reece had never kidnapped her. The kidnapping had been done by a mysterious third party who had yet to reveal themselves, and Delainey was beginning to worry they might never do that.
She and Aya were sitting at the table in the dining room with Aya’s large History of Magic Connections open before them, but the book hadn’t offered any clues into how to break the tether.
The book took up most of the table’s surface, its leather cover cracked along the spine, pages thick and yellowed with age and heavy enough that Aya had to use both hands to turn them.
Extension cords still snaked across the hardwood floor from the single outlet to the laptop chargers shoved aside to make room.
Aya sat straight-backed in her chair, her black hair tucked tightly behind her ears, reading glasses perched low on her nose as she traced a line of text with one fingertip.
“I don’t think they took this from a spell book,” Aya said. “Someone developed this nasty piece of magic themselves.”
“Lovely,” was Delainey’s response.
There were many ways to do magic. They had hundreds of books in the basement with thousands of spells, or more, that could handle everything from getting blood stains out of white fabric to flying, though she had never quite mastered how to actually make herself fly.
“What’s this about Emerson and research?” Delainey asked. She was glad the man was gone, but it didn’t sound like he was gone forever, and Aya was still wearing the hospitality bracelet he had given them, so he was assuredly coming back.
“He said something about a book in the Wallace Grove libraries that he thought might help,” Aya said without looking up. “It’s been more than three weeks, closer to a month,” Aya pointed out. “Are you sure we don’t want to start asking them for help? I’m sure they would give it.”
“At what cost?”
Their little coven was connected to Wallace Grove through Elise, and tangentially through the fact that Briana and Emerson used to date. They had no connection to Delainey. They owed her no loyalty or favors.
She wasn’t special enough to warrant their help without a high cost, one she definitely couldn’t afford to pay. And frankly, given how the Nevins had reacted to Elise and Nico, she wasn’t sure she wanted to now that she and Reece were something.
“Maybe it’s not as much of a priority right now.” Aya gave her a sly grin.
Delainey rolled her eyes. “Apparently, you don’t realize how close thirty feet really is. I like him, but I don’t want to be joined at the hip.”
Aya’s mouth dropped open and her grin took up her whole face. “You like him!” she teased.
“Oh my God, shut up. Are you twelve?” Delainey wanted to bury her face in her hands and possibly never look at anyone in her coven again.
But Aya wouldn’t let it drop. “I literally cannot remember the last time you liked a guy enough to bring him home. And now you’re shacking up with a werewolf!
“Against my will,” Delainey had to point out. “He and I would not be a thing if it weren’t for the stupid manacles and the tether and all of this bullshit.”
Which was true, and Delainey didn’t really like to think about that.
Would she and Reece have found each other if it wasn’t for magical interference? They had that night at the bar. Even without the tether between them, she had felt a pull to that man she couldn’t quite resist, ever, even when she knew it was the smart thing to do.
Look at her now.
She liked to think that maybe they would have ended up together without being locked in a house, though she was stubborn and so was he.
They might have danced around each other for a decade, glaring at each other over Nico and Elise’s inevitably adorable children before they could finally admit that they wanted each other.
“What’s it like?” Aya asked. “Elise doesn’t share, but you’re more fun.”
“If you’re so curious, you should sleep with one of them.” Delainey wasn’t giving details. If she told Aya, it would spread to Serena and Briana and Elise before sunrise, and then they would start critiquing every possible detail she shared.
No, thank you.
“I think we have enough pairings with the Southern Basin Pack right now. Don’t you?” was Aya’s pert response.
But it made Delainey think. Elise and Nico were going strong, and Nico was the second in command of the pack. She and Reece were new, but this felt real. It felt long term, even if it had been official for only a day.
It could change things for the coven.
Right now, they had a truce that was getting closer by the day, simply by the fact that Delainey and Reece were magically bound together. But that bond would break. She had faith in Aya, and what happened to the relationship between the pack and the coven then?
It was rare, but covens and packs did form alliances, and that could change the power calculus in the city for both of them.
It was something to worry about later, Delainey decided.
Aya had a piece of one of the manacles sitting on the table, and Delainey glared at it. The fragment was about the size of her palm, its etched surface dull under the overhead light, edges ragged where it had broken apart during the ritual.
Part of her was tempted to reach out and grab it to fidget with, but she didn’t want to touch the damn thing. She was afraid it might somehow magically bond back to her and bring the six-foot limit back, which, no thank you. Delainey would deal with thirty feet for as long as she had to.
“I don’t know how the connection from the manacles could have created this tether thing without interference from a witch,” Delainey said. “I know that you, Elise, Briana, and Serena would never do that, but Emerson...” She let the sentence trail off.
“I didn’t feel him do anything strange during the ritual, and I don’t know why he would,” Aya said. “I’m not blaming you, but you did break up our power when you called your own that day. It could have interfered enough to disrupt the connection.”
“Because it was killing Reece!” It sounded defensive, and damn right Delainey was defending herself. “Unless you’re suggesting we, I don’t know, stop one of our hearts, hope the tether breaks, and then bring the other person back.”
Aya looked even more thoughtful.
“No, that’s not an option,” Delainey said. But the thought did not disappear when she tried to put it out of her mind.
“Maybe there was an outside third party, one we didn’t sense,” Aya said.
Cedar Street was their coven’s territory, and there wasn’t another coven for several blocks. Werewolf territory wasn’t set up the same way. Werewolves were split into packs, one pack controlling a defined geographic area.
Covens tended to live throughout the city of Hobson and in their own areas out in the countryside, but there weren’t defined borders. It wasn’t like they would prevent another coven from walking down their street, but it would be very impolite for them to meddle.
“The only witches who have caused us any problem recently were Elise’s parents, and I very much doubt they would put her at risk. Besides, it was me and Reece who were kidnapped, not her and Nico.”
“But what if you weren’t the target?” Aya suggested.
It wasn’t the first time Delainey was hearing this. She let the question roll around in her head. She had been there with Elise. Elise and Nico had been together.
“I don’t see how you confuse me and Elise.
We couldn’t have looked more different, and Reece doesn’t exactly look like Nico.
Are you really suggesting Elise’s parents might have had something to do with this?
Whoever took us dumped us in the middle of the forest with no resources.
We could have died. I think we were supposed to. ”
“If Elise had been taken and Nico had been injured, she would have tried to use her magic to heal him.” Aya’s voice was so quiet that Delainey had to strain to hear her, and she realized Aya did not want Elise hearing this.
“If she had used her healing magic, do you think it would have worked, given the way the manacle was interfering with your magic?”
Delainey’s mind flashed back to that moment in the forest, the rogue wolf flying into the tree, his neck cracking. She remembered throwing Reece nearly through the wall, and he could have just as easily died.
If Elise had tried to use her magic, what if it had gone wrong? Aya had a point.
“There are much easier ways to kill a werewolf,” she said, “and we still don’t have any reason to think that Nico and Elise were the targets rather than Reece and me. It’s pretty damn convoluted, if you ask me.”
She yawned and covered her mouth. It was getting late, and she had forced Reece to hang out at the house long enough.
“Please figure this out,” she begged Aya. “Any ideas, I am willing to try. We just... I want to come home.”
“But you have that new boyfriend to keep you warm,” Aya teased.
Delainey flipped her off and walked away.