Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
The shower couldn't get hot enough to scald away the memory of Nico walking out on her. If Elise had aggressive powers, she would be doing something to his dick right now—and not the fun things she wanted to do to his dick half an hour ago.
She couldn't believe it.
Well, she didn't want to believe it, but unfortunately, the sane part of her understood exactly why Nico had walked away like that.
Like a dick, her mind muttered.
Yeah, he made her come until she saw stars and the earth shook under her. But she expected at least a little bit of a cuddle. Was that so much for a girl to ask after her kidnapper took her on a date and ate her out?
Oh God, she was screwed.
And she was running out of time.
Elise got out of the shower and wiped herself down harder than was necessary.
She glared at the hair dryer sitting on the counter.
She hadn't thought much of it when it appeared after that first night, but now it was another reminder of the little things Nico was doing to her, the little kindnesses he had no reason to bestow.
She needed to get control of her body back, because Nico sure as hell hadn't earned anything else.
The bastard.
Everything had gone too far, and this time she was sure it wasn't just about whatever strange attraction was going on between them. If she stuck around here much longer, she and Nico were going to … well, best not to think about that.
His fellow betas were getting impatient, and she definitely couldn't keep pretending that she was doing any real doctoring for much longer.
If this situation had taught her anything, it was that she did need more medical training.
She was CPR certified, and she had watched quite a few YouTube videos by paramedics giving advice on what to do in certain situations, but if—no, when—she corrected herself, she got out of this, she was going to sign up for an EMT course, she decided.
That was the first step.
Magic could do a lot, but if she was ever in a situation again where she couldn't use her magic or she exhausted it, she wanted to do more than fake her way through the situation like she was some actress on Grey's Anatomy.
That determination settled her thoughts until she stepped out of the bathroom and saw the ruffled blankets on the bed.
The sheets were scrunched up, the comforter had been thrown to one side, and the pillows were still scattered around the room.
She couldn't believe that she had let Nico do that to her, that she had begged for it.
What the hell had she been thinking?
Things had gotten out of control.
But what she was thinking now was that it was the hottest fucking thing that had ever happened to her. And if he kissed her again, she wasn't letting him get away until they fucked, which was not smart.
She could pretend that she didn't want more from him, or that she was going to be able to resist, but she knew herself well enough. Elise had a weakness when it came to Nico.
Nico the werewolf.
Nico her kidnapper.
Nico the guy she would have fallen in love with in another life.
Damn it.
Whatever temptation she was feeling, Nico had to be feeling it tenfold. After all, at least she had gotten to come. Serves him right, a nasty part of her thought. If he wanted to walk away, he got to deal with the frustrating consequences.
Nico wasn't in the room, and she had a feeling he wasn't coming back. His control had to be beyond frayed. And if last night was anything to go by, he was going to go find somewhere else to sleep.
Which meant this was her chance.
A look at the clock on the nightstand told her it was close to midnight. Hopefully, no one would be around to question her. She darted her head out into the hallway and didn't see anyone.
Step one, good.
But would anybody be in with Cole? Nico had slept in the room with him last night. What if he was doing that again?
Hesitating would only make this worse. She took a deep breath and walked down the hallway and carefully opened the door only an inch, praying the hinges didn't creak. She only saw Cole.
Step two, success.
She closed the door behind her and rushed to Cole's side.
This time, she didn't waste any time waffling over what to do. Elise sent the biggest jolt of magic she could manage into him and immediately found the silver that was still living in his system. She got to work attacking it methodically. One cluster here, another cluster there.
She could feel Cole's hands getting sweatier by the second, and when she opened her eyes, she saw that the bandage on his abdomen was covered in an ugly black fluid.
Good. Good. That had to be good. Please let it be good.
She closed her eyes again and poured even more magic into the werewolf alpha. It was too much, she knew almost immediately.
If another witch had been with her, they would have pulled her back from the edge before she could lose herself in it, but Elise was already feeling a little bit reckless. She had to get this done tonight. If Cole was better, she could go home.
She hoped.
She found more silver, and this cluster was smaller. That had to be a sign of progress. If she was only finding smaller clusters, it meant the worst of it was gone, and hopefully this was some kind of poison that relied on a critical mass to succeed.
She could barely feel her own body now. She thought about opening her eyes to check the wound again, but she couldn't tell the difference between her own eyes or Cole's, and she decided not to worry about it.
She didn't know how long she had been in there. She hurt, but it wasn't a physical kind of pain. Her magic was stretched beyond its bounds, and she was doing far more work than she had ever tried before.
There were still small pockets of silver, mostly resting in Cole's guts, but she could do this. She could see the end.
She just had to keep working at it.
She might have been able to do that if a hand hadn't clamped on her shoulder and torn her away from Cole. The grip was as hard as iron, and the fingers dug in hard enough to leave bruises. He yanked her backwards so hard that she stumbled.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Nico's eyes blazed yellow, and she knew she was caught.