Chapter 46
Chapter
Forty-Six
Delainey made Reece spend the next three days in bed, though after about twelve hours he’d convinced her he was physically fine and a little lonely.
It hadn’t taken her long to break and join him.
There was some sort of connection between them now. They had spent time trying to figure out what the limits of it were, if they existed, but there didn’t seem to be a physical limit.
They could walk as far apart or as close together as they wanted. She hadn’t spent enough time away from him to know if there was some sort of time limit, but she didn’t think so.
Somehow, in her desperation to heal them and bind them together, some of Delainey’s magic had come to live inside Reece.
He didn’t have much of an answer for it.
He’d told her he didn’t remember what happened after he passed out, but every so often she found him absently rubbing at his heart, in the same spot where she could feel a piece of him living inside of her.
They would probably need to examine that at some point. They were both alive, the tether was gone, Wallace Grove wasn’t bothering them anymore, and she would call it a win.
Her bags were packed and in the back of Reece’s car, as was all his stuff that had migrated over to Nico’s cottage over the last few weeks.
They had spent most of the morning thoroughly cleaning the place, and at Reece’s suggestion, they had also hired a cleaning service to come in and give the counters a final shine.
After all, it seemed a bit rude to leave the place smelling like sex. Delainey figured as long as Nico and Elise never asked, they wouldn’t have to tell them.
They got out of Reece’s car and came around to the front. She grabbed his hand, and he leaned down to kiss her like they had been separated for days rather than about four seconds.
Delainey was grinning when he pulled back.
The park brimmed with activity. Families clustered on blankets across the green space, a pair of cyclists coasted along the paved path, and somewhere near the fountain a dog was barking at a squirrel.
You wouldn’t have known that about a month ago they’d been abducted in broad daylight.
As far as she could tell, there hadn’t been any sort of human awareness of the attack.
As she and Reece walked down the path, she picked up her pace when they got toward the turnoff where they’d been taken.
She didn’t need to walk down there and risk any sort of traumatic response.
Elise and Nico were coming up the other way from the path and waved at them.
The meeting was entirely intentional this time.
They were about to go to lunch at a restaurant near the zoo.
Reece reached into his pocket and handed the keys to the cottage over to Nico.
“Thanks for letting us stay, man. It really is a nice place.”
“Yeah, I’d like to finally figure that out,” Nico pocketed the keys and crossed his arms, the leather of his jacket creaking at the shoulders. “I knew it would be nice to have a place of my own. I didn’t really expect the first month to be spent back in my old quarters.”
Delainey rolled her eyes. “Oh, poor Nico.”
“Exactly,” Nico agreed. “Poor me.”
Elise got up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “You really are the most abused out of all of us,” she said.
Nico tapped his lips. Elise kissed him. “All better?” she asked.
“Getting there,” he said.
She and Reece shared a glance as if to say, can you believe these two? And she thought, actually, maybe, yeah, she could.
She reached up and gave Reece a kiss on his cheek as they followed Nico and Elise toward lunch.