Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Elise had never pretended to heal someone before, and she certainly hadn't pretended to heal someone while two angry shapeshifters looked over her shoulder with one slightly less angry but distractingly hot shapeshifter standing in the corner.
Before today, she hadn't actually spent any time alone around shapeshifters, and she was beginning to wish that things had stayed that way.
She had done what she could to make it look like she was treating Cole.
He didn't look good. Under his fur he was too pale, too sweaty.
His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths, and every so often, he'd twitch.
She had figured out how to put in an IV, and she was pretty sure she had done it right.
She had managed to give him some Tylenol, some antibiotics, and a sponge bath, which had caused one of the werewolves to growl, but she wasn't sure who.
It wouldn't do anything to help, but it wouldn't hurt him. And that was the important thing.
She knew that if Cole died, she was next on the chopping block. Unless her sisters could get to her in time.
Did they even realize she was gone yet?
She didn't know what time it was, but it had to be late. She had been working in this room for hours, and it had already been close to midnight when she’d sneaked into the zoo. When was it? Four a.m.? Five?
None of her sisters were early risers, but someone would realize she wasn't at breakfast, and no one would think she had gone home with a man and forgotten to call.
Though technically, she had.
Elise stole a glance over at Nico and had the fleeting thought that she wished that was the case.
He was handsome, even if he was a werewolf.
Dark hair fell across his face, his skin had a hint of a tan, and his eyes were so intense that if he looked at her for a second too long her heartbeat decided it needed to start pounding.
If she had gone home with him, if she had spent the night in his bed, then she could walk into the kitchen in the morning and give her sisters a smug smile and refuse to answer questions.
It would be awesome.
But Nico was a kidnapper, and she had to remember that.
He had freaking kidnapped her.
Why was she thinking about one-night stands when she should have been thinking of bashing his head against the night stand?
Elise wrung out the cloth she had been using to scrub down the table beside Cole's bed a little too forcefully. If she had werewolf strength, she probably would have torn it in half. But so far, they were buying the innocent human story, and she hoped to keep it that way.
Though she had no idea how she was going to heal Cole.
She understood why they didn't want to leave her alone with him. She wouldn't leave any of her coven sisters alone with a stranger, especially if they were unconscious and still bleeding. But that didn't make her situation any easier.
"Enough," said Nico as the sun started to peek through the windows.
So it was late. Or early. It had to be close to six a.m.
Nico placed a hand on her shoulder, and Elise's eyes sank shut without her permission. Part of her wanted to lean back into his touch. His hand was so warm, almost protective.
It just felt good.
But that was the exhaustion and whatever weird hormones her body was throwing out in his presence. It had nothing to do with anything.
She wasn't allowed to be attracted to her kidnapper. That was fucking insanity.
"What?" she asked.
Even if she wasn't actually doing anything useful, she had sort of gotten into the zone. Now that she was coming back to herself, her muscles ached. Her mouth was dry, and she really had to go to the bathroom.
"You've done enough for tonight," said Nico. "You need to rest."
If she had any plan to argue, that was quickly stripped away by the yawn that tore out of her throat. Not a bad idea, she silently agreed.
"Your friend is stable for now," she said. "There's not much I can do. We just have to wait and see." And she added silently, We have to wait till I can sneak in here and do actual healing magic on this guy, because nothing is going to change until I can use my real skills.
That gave her an idea.
"Do you have a sleeping bag or something?" she asked. "Or maybe I can sleep in the chair. That way, if something changes, I can be here to help." There was a recliner in front of the TV near the window, and it would be comfortable enough.
"Absolutely not," said Javi. He was still standing vigil, well, leaning vigil against the far wall, and he shook his head at the idea of her staying in the room.
"No way," Reece spoke at the same time.
"While you are here, you'll sleep in a bed," Nico said.
She really didn't need to imagine Nico and bed in the same sentence.
"We aren't leaving you alone with Cole," Javi continued. "No way."
Reece agreed.
Well, she tried.
"You are our guest," Nico said. "We won't make you sleep on the floor or in the chair."
Was she really a guest? Because that kidnapping had happened six hours ago, and she was pretty sure they wouldn't let her leave if she walked out the front door.
Not that walking out the front door would do much good. They were miles from the city and probably deep in this pack's territory. She did not want to imagine a bunch of shifters chasing her down in the woods.
She was a city girl.
And even if she fully unleashed her magic, she doubted she was up to outrunning a pack.
"It's really okay," she said. "I'm here to look after this guy. Let me look after him."
Nico shifted his grip from touching her shoulder to holding her hand as he guided her up from where she was sitting beside the bed. "Come on," he said, as if she hadn't said anything.
So no luck on alone time with the alpha.
She didn't wave goodbye or anything to the other shifters. They clearly didn't like her, and the feeling was mutual. She might be slightly insane for feeling safer with Nico, but that was the way of things.
He hadn't hurt her. He'd even jumped in to protect her when Reece got all growly and close.
So if she had to choose one of them to hang out with for now, it was Nico.
They didn't walk far. He stopped in front of a door just down the hall from the alpha's and opened it.
For a second, Elise thought it was a guest room.
There were hotel-grade decorations on the wall, and all of the surfaces were empty of clutter and personal belongings.
But there was a leather jacket hanging over the chair in the far corner of the room and a book cracked open and sitting on its pages on the small table.
There was a small glass of water on the bedside table.
And there was only one bed.
It was a king bed, but still just the one.
And that leather jacket looked Nico-sized.
"Is this your room?" she asked, and it came out a little panicky.
She was trying to sound cool, calm, collected. She was failing miserably.
"It's best for you to stay in here," he said, which wasn't an answer, but it wasn't a denial.
"Are you kidding? This house is huge. Surely you have a guest room or some place I can stay."
If she was stuck in the same room as Nico, she would never be able to sneak away and heal Cole or try and spy around the house. She didn't want a full-time guard.
And that was really the only problem, she told herself.
It definitely wasn't that her body felt like it was on fire every time he came within two feet of her, and it definitely wasn't that her lips tingled, or that she felt sparks running up her arm from where he was holding her hand.
It was completely practical.
"You'll stay in here," Nico repeated, unwilling to argue.
Damn it.
It really did look like a hotel. Did the man have anything personal? She was tempted to ask, but that seemed a little rude, and while he was her kidnapper and did deserve rudeness, Elise was not rude by nature.
So she held that inside.
Nico pointed to a door on the other end of the room. "Bathroom's in there if you want to get cleaned up. I'll find you some pajamas."
Now that she was no longer working, exhaustion washed over her, and she just wanted to crawl into the bed and sleep for a week or three.
She had used a lot of magic to heal the fox earlier, and normally she would have immediately slept or eaten or done something to refill her reserves. So she was already on edge.
But she couldn't say any of that.
And it wasn't really worth arguing.
She did have to go to the bathroom.
And while she was in there, she took a quick shower, because it was a beautiful shower with one of those waterfall shower heads and multiple sprayers and room enough for about six people.
She did not think about multiple people in the shower with Nico.
She did not think about herself in the shower with Nico.
At least, she tried her best not to.
And when she stepped out and toweled herself off, she blamed her flaming cheeks on the warm water.
She cracked the door, realizing now she needed clothes, and found a set of pajamas neatly folded right next to the door. She darted her hand out, grabbed them, and slipped them on.
There was even a pair of boxer shorts, which were kind of huge on her, but they would do the trick.
In fact, the pajamas were all huge on her. The shirt clung to her boobs a bit, but it hung down to mid-thigh, and there was about an extra foot of fabric at the bottom of the pajama pants. She had to pull the drawstring tight to keep them from falling down.
Were these Nico's pajamas?
Well, probably.
He hadn't gone anywhere else, as far as she knew.
Though there had to be women in this pack, right? Someone had to have a pair of medium-sized women's pajamas. But of all the things she could complain about, she wasn't going to complain about oversized sleepwear.
He didn't have a hair dryer, so she dried her hair as best she could with the towel. Then she paused for a moment.
This was really her life right now.
She had really been kidnapped by a werewolf and was being held hostage to heal his alpha, and he had no idea she was a witch.
Laughter threatened to bubble out of her throat, and she forced it down.
She couldn't afford to go crazy now.
It was almost six a.m. Her sisters would figure out she was missing soon enough, and they would start looking for her. There was no way this place had magical protections, so scrying would work eventually, once they were able to narrow down the direction she'd been taken.
She just had to be patient.
And not get killed.
She took one last breath and forced herself out of the bathroom.
Nico stared at her when she exited, and her body got all warm and tight again.
Damn it.
Why was this happening?
She really needed to work on her trauma responses, because attraction was the exact opposite of what she needed.
The bed was just as gigantic as it had been when she entered the room the first time, but now there was a blanket and a pillow on the floor.
"I'll sleep down here," Nico said.
"Don't be ridiculous." The refutation was out of her mouth before she could think better.
Damn right he should sleep on the floor. He had kidnapped her.
What was she doing trying to give him his bed back and be all polite?
"It's not a big deal," he said. "I've slept in worse places."
"And there's room for four people in this bed," she said, because now that she had made the decision, she wasn't going to back down.
She needed some kind of win, even if this was the strangest win she had ever gone for.
"I'm not a Victorian lady. My reputation will not be damaged.
We can just put a line of pillows down the center.
It's basically two beds anyway. Though you do deserve to sleep on the floor for kidnapping me.
So. Remember that I'm being nice to you.
" She almost stuck out her tongue, which was ridiculous. She was twenty-four, not twelve.
He looked like he was trying to suppress a smile.
Then his gaze turned even more intent, and his eyes raked her up and down.
"They're a little big for you," he said. "I'll get you properly fitting clothes in the morning," he promised.
Elise just nodded.
Nico scooped the blanket up from the floor and placed it down the center of the bed to give her the barrier she'd asked for. Then he added a line of pillows, and all they needed were a few soldiers and they could call it the DMZ.
Elise crawled into her side and curled up under the covers. The bed dipped as Nico got in opposite from her, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
She couldn't think about sharing a bed with her gorgeous kidnapper.
She couldn't think of the weird ways her body was responding to him.
She had liked guys before. She had had boyfriends before.
But this felt different.
And she could not afford to feel anything. Her mind struggled for some time, but eventually exhaustion overcame her, and she surrendered to sleep.