Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
Elise wrenched out of Nico's grip and stared at him with wide eyes and an open mouth. Her bottom lip trembled, and her shoulders were drawn back like she could somehow make herself seem bigger. If she was a wolf, he would have said she was bristling.
But she was the furthest thing from a wolf you could be.
He was frozen, confused, and more than a little deceived. He could still feel the heat of her skin on his hand. The whole room smelled like magic. That magic was coming off of Cole.
And Elise.
Elise was a fucking witch.
Nico had been protecting a witch for the past several days. He'd been wanting a witch. He could still taste that witch on his lips. And if he closed his eyes, he could summon the memory of her writhing beneath him.
He'd been losing his moon-damned mind over a witch.
What the hell?
He wasn't sure if he said it out loud.
Betrayal washed over him, hot and hard and riding the edge of violence. He almost reached out and grabbed Elise again, like he could wring the truth out of her, but something pulled him back.
What if she was using some sort of magic on him?
What if this had been some sort of trick to get close and … and … and he wasn't sure because in the past five days, nothing she had done had indicated that she wanted to cause any harm, when, in truth, he really deserved it.
Reece was going to kill her when he found out.
Betrayal was replaced by terror.
Nico took a step closer to the little witch, but Elise scuttled back. Her arms came up to block her chest like he might do something violent.
"I—I—" she tried to speak, but no words came out. Nothing. There wasn't anything she could explain away.
He had caught her magic-handed.
Nico had to keep her safe from Reece.
He still had a day till the beta got back, but was that enough time? If Javi or Hugh caught on, they wouldn't be happy about this turn of events either, but maybe Nico could say something to get control over this situation.
Who was he kidding?
They would be just as pissed. He had brought a witch into their world, into the pack headquarters, their safe haven. She could have destroyed it at any moment. Witches were their ancestral enemies.
They might not have been at war right now, but that could change any day. And wars had started over less than this.
She hasn't done anything wrong, a small, rational part of him whispered, but he wasn't listening to logic right now. He grabbed Elise's hand and pulled her farther away from Cole. His fingers circled her whole wrist, and she felt so small, so defenseless in his grasp.
She was a damned witch, why wasn't she doing anything to defend herself? Did she want to get killed?
"What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded, and he was happy, at least, that the words came out intelligible.
His wolf was at the forefront of his mind, angry but mostly scared, and his wolf was hardly ever scared.
"He was … I just …" Whatever excuse she was trying to come up with died on her lips.
The scent of magic had faded completely, like it had never been there at all.
A part of Nico wanted to pretend that it had been a hallucination, that he had been confused or sleep deprived or anything that could make this make sense and leave Elise innocent of any wrongdoing. The wrongdoing of birth.
She couldn't be in this room. She couldn't be near Cole.
But before Nico could decide what to do with her, the bedroom door opened, and Hugh stuck his head in. "Oh," he said. "I didn't realize you guys were in here."
It could all be over right then. Elise was still looking at Nico with wide eyes, but her expression had calmed down a little.
He knew she was guilty, but she no longer looked like a child whose hand had been caught in the cookie jar.
He still had a hold on her and could throw her before Hugh and leave her at the pack's mercy with one jerk of his arm.
Nico made a split-second decision. He stepped fully in front of Elise and turned towards Hugh, letting his body be a wall between her and the other beta.
"We've been sitting with him," he said. "Elise said she wanted to get his vitals one more time before she went to sleep."
Elise let out a little gasp, but it was barely loud enough for him to hear, let alone Hugh from the other side of the room.
"Have you heard anything from Mark?" Nico asked, like everything was business as usual. He couldn't allow Hugh to suspect a thing.
They hadn't mentioned Mark once in front of Elise, he realized, but he wasn't giving anything away by just saying the name.
"Reece is still working on it," was Hugh's reply.
"Good," said Nico. "We're just about done in here. Did you need anything else?"
Hugh shook his head and backed out of the room, letting the door click softly behind him.
Nico waited for several seconds to give Hugh time to clear the hallway. Then he dragged Elise's wrist with more than a little force and dragged her out of Cole's room, down the hall and into his own.
It was a mistake.
It still smelled like sex, though the scent had dissipated a little over the last hour. Had it only been an hour since he feasted on her like there was no tomorrow? Could his world change that much in such a small amount of time?
Nico flipped the lock on his door, as if that might do anything. It was just a flimsy interior door lock, not made to fight shifter strength or keep anyone out who was really determined to get in. It was an extra sign that he wanted privacy.
If he was being completely honest, it was mostly for Elise's benefit to remind her that she was not leaving without his permission.
He was an ass and an idiot.
"You lied to me," he said. He couldn't get over it. Anger rode him hard, and it was taking all of his crumbling self-control not to back her up against the wall and demand why.
She had been lying to him this whole time, lying while she wore his clothes and while she let him feed her breakfast. While he took her on a walk in the woods and while she slept next to him every night.
Lying to him while she laid back and let him give her pleasure.
"I didn't lie," Elise protested. She glared at him defiantly, her arms crossed and bunching up the fabric of her shirt. Of his shirt. "You never asked if I was a witch."
And there that word was, no denying it now, no pretending that he hadn't sensed what he'd sensed, that he hadn't seen what he'd seen.
The fear that rose in Nico threatened to destroy him. "Do you understand what's going to happen to you if the others find out?"
Elise let out a disbelieving laugh. "Are you seriously asking me that? I've been spending the better part of a week thinking about nothing else. You've got to be freaking kidding me."
"I've been harboring a witch," he said, more to himself. "You've been sleeping in my bed."
She threw her hands up. "You didn't give me another choice," she said.
"I very specifically asked for a different room that first night.
This," she gestured to the room around them, "is not my fault.
Do not put that on me." Her voice was getting louder, but she pulled it back and narrowed her eyes.
"Just how good is your hearing?" she asked.
It was such a simple question, and one she wouldn't have dared ask earlier. "Don't yell and we won't be overheard," he warned. How had she fooled him for so long? "Why were you asking about the cult? If you knew this whole time, why make something up?"
She stared at him like he'd grown a second head. "You thought I was human, and a human would be asking questions at this point."
"So you were lying," he said.
Elise rubbed her fingers against her temple and squeezed her eyes shut. "I was trying to survive. Jesus Christ, Nico.”
"I can't believe you."
"You can't believe me?" she spat. "You kidnapped me from my place of work. It isn't my fault that you couldn't tell that I was a witch. It's not my fault that you couldn't tell I wasn't a veterinarian."
"You're not a veterinarian?" he asked. In the time since he'd discovered her secret, he hadn't considered that possibility.
"Oh my god." She tilted her head back and closed her eyes.
Her jaw clenched as she exposed her throat.
She couldn't know what that was doing to him, to his wolf.
She took two deep breaths. "No, Nico. I'm not a veterinarian.
I work as an admin at the Wildlife Rehab.
I'm also a healer. I snuck into the zoo that night to heal one of the foxes.
It was in bad shape, and I wanted to help. "
"You were wearing scrubs," he said helplessly.
"You know they don't ask for any sort of medical ID when you go and buy scrubs, right?" she asked.
He hadn't really thought of what was involved in purchasing scrubs ever in his life before. It had never occurred to him. "But you told me you were a veterinarian." He remembered that, even if he hadn't been thinking clearly at all that night.
"No," she corrected, shaking her head. "I told you I worked at the zoo."
"But why did you play along?" It made no sense. A witch should have run from him. And she had, he now remembered, but she should have used magic against him.
"Were you actually carrying a taser?" he asked. He vaguely remembered throwing her keys away and that strange flashlight he thought had hurt him.
She shook her head slightly. "No, I tried to zap you, and I failed miserably. And as for why, seriously? Wouldn't you play along if an angry werewolf was trying to kidnap you? I'm trying to survive."
"But you were in there doing something to Cole.
" He had sensed the magic in that room, seen the way her brow was furrowed, and her concentration was so intent she hadn't seen him watch her for a solid ten seconds, mind reeling with what he was seeing.
"After all this, you're just going to go in there and hurt him? "
"No, you idiot. I was trying to save him.
" She moved like she wanted to pace but kept herself rooted in place.
"Oh my god. Don't you get it? I'm trying to heal him, but I could not use magic around any of you assholes.
Because then, you'd try and kill me. I never wanted to be here.
" She paused and took a deep breath. "I don't have anything against your alpha. He's not the one who kidnapped me."
"How can I possibly know you're telling the truth?" He'd gotten close to her, close enough to touch, close enough to sense the angry change in her scent.
"You need to trust me," was her response.
"How can I? You've lied to me this whole time."
"To be fair, you lied to me too," she pointed out.
"It's not like you ever told me you guys were werewolves.
And I haven't lied about his condition. He's almost healed.
There's some sort of silver concoction inside of him that I've been trying to remove.
It's like a liquid or a powder or something.
We can't just go in surgically and get it out.
But I was getting his body to expel it, and there's only a little bit left.
" She was talking the way Mark talked when he was working on a difficult healing, determined to solve the case like he was a detective and the disease was a serial killer.
"You really think he's almost healed?" He wanted to let himself hope.
"Would you believe me if I said yes?"
They were too close now. It was almost harder not to touch her. And he couldn't stop himself from running the back of his fingers down her arm.
She shivered.
"I trust you," he said.
And then he kissed her.
She was too close. The emotions were too high. Everything was too intense, and he couldn't stop himself.
It was more than desperate. The want that had fueled their earlier kisses was nothing compared to this. It was fueled by desperation and the horrible truth that reality was crashing down around them.
Any sane man would pull back in that moment, but nothing was going to stop Nico from getting more.
He tore off his shirt and ripped his own off Elise. They kissed again before managing to wrench themselves apart.
"This can't happen," Elise gasped.
"I know," Nico responded, and then he kissed her again.