Chapter 39
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
Afew hours later, fully recovered from their failed experiment, Delainey and Reece were walking through the woods. This time he was in his human form, which was nice. But she was still crawling out of her skin from feeling all cooped up, and even sex with Reece wasn’t helping.
Delainey wondered if this was some new manifestation of the tether binding them together.
Was it making things worse since they hadn’t killed each other already? Was it some form of amplification?
She had gotten used to the way her magic wasn’t working properly, and the way Reece’s eyes were usually more gold than brown.
She was even used to him being in her space all the fucking time, which was normally okay, but they had been in each other’s company every freaking minute of every freaking hour for the better part of a month, and it was wearing on her.
Reece reached out to grab her hand, but Delainey pulled it away from him.
She liked him. Maybe she more than liked him.
But she also wanted a bit of space, not just from him but from everyone, which was strange because the two of them had been more or less isolated in Nico’s cabin. It wasn’t like she had been forced to deal with a lot of people.
But Delainey wanted the freedom to go anywhere she wanted, when she wanted to.
“Did you want to go to Target later?” Reece ducked under a low branch, his boots scuffing against an exposed root.
“I’ll tell you if I want to fucking go to Target,” she snapped. “I’m sorry.”
It was like he was reading her mind. He was getting to know her a little too well, and she didn’t want him seeing to her every need.
Delainey picked up her pace and walked a few steps ahead of Reece. He tried to catch up.
“No, just stay back there please,” she said. Maybe if she couldn’t see him, it would almost be like she was alone. But the tether was still that connection deep in their chests, and she had gotten used to what it felt like to be near Reece, to feel his presence.
There was no way to ignore that he was trailing ten feet behind her like some sort of bodyguard.
“Let’s just go back to the house,” Delainey said after a few more minutes. This wasn’t getting them anywhere, and she was becoming more frustrated by the fact that they were stuck together.
“Is something the matter?” Reece stopped on the trail behind her. “Did I do—”
“You didn’t do anything.” She talked over him. From the way she said it, it sounded like she was lying, but she wasn’t.
“I’m just frustrated today,” she said, turning to face him on the trail. “I really thought we might be able to break that thing, which I know is stupid. My entire coven can’t figure this out. And I think we’re going to be at a point where you and I need to have a talk.”
His face grew serious.
She kept talking. “About how we live our lives. I don’t know if we’re ever going to break this thing, but we can’t just be cloistered out in this cabin forever and ignoring the world around us.
I don’t know what that means for you as a beta of the Southern Basin Pack, or for me as a witch with my own damn life. But how much longer can we wait?”
Reece looked away, and her questions must have hit close to home.
He was a beta. She wasn’t sure exactly what that entailed, but he had to have duties to the pack, duties that his fellow betas and his alpha must have been taking over for the past month.
Making some sort of plan for how to live with the tether felt a bit like giving up, but at this point that seemed better than standing still.
They were almost to the path that would lead directly back to the cabin when Delainey’s phone rang. The caller ID said it was Briana.
“Please tell me you have a solution,” she answered without a greeting.
“Hey,” Briana said, a strained tone in her voice. “Yeah.”
The forest must have been interfering with their call because there was some static as Briana spoke. “Can you say that again?” Delainey asked.
“Meet me at the clearing tonight. I think we know a way to break the bond that won’t kill either of you.”
“You’re kidding!” Delainey said. “Really? How? Is Aya there with you? She’s been working so hard on this.”
“We’ll tell you later,” Briana said. “We are getting prepared.” She hung up, which, okay, rude. Delainey would have appreciated a bit more detail, but suddenly her mood was about ten times better, and she grinned over at Reece.
“This nightmare is about to be over,” she told him.
His expression turned dour.
“Nightmare?” The warmth fled his eyes. His jaw set into the hard line she hadn’t seen in weeks.
Delainey wondered if she had misspoken, but what else was she supposed to say? “Briana thinks they have a way to break the bond. We’re going to meet them tonight.”
“So we’re just going, without you even asking me beforehand?”
“Do you need me to ask if you want us free of this thing?”
“I guess I know where you stand,” Reece said, and he turned away from her on the trail. He plowed ahead of her and headed for the house. Delainey had to jog to keep up before he broke the thirty-foot boundary and pain washed over them both.