Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Elise wasn't lying beside Nico when he woke up.
He'd clutched her in his arms, like holding her tight enough could keep the universe from forcing him to let her go. At some point in the night, she must have slipped out of his arms.
He heard the shower running, so he wasn't concerned that she was off on another secret mission.
But it was another reminder of what she really was—of the sword looming over both of their heads.
If the other betas found out that he knew she was a witch, they were both screwed.
But what was he supposed to do about it?
He'd told the others that the decision about what to do about Elise was up to Cole.
And now he was starting to believe that Cole might actually wake up.
This was a clusterfuck waiting to happen.
"We need to go check on him," Elise said once she was done in the shower. Her skin was flushed pink, her hair a bit damp. She had a towel wrapped around her, but that was more temptation than coverup.
Nico had put out another one of his shirts for her along with a borrowed pair of pants that would fit her.
She looked at the shirt, then looked at him and gave him a knowing look. And she put that shirt on anyway. His wolf let out a huff of satisfaction.
A few minutes later, all of that satisfaction was gone once they entered Cole's room.
The sheets were covered in sweat, and when Elise checked the bandage on his abdomen, it was covered in a strange, silvery black substance.
"What the fuck's wrong?" Nico demanded.
Elise pulled back the bandage and checked the wound before grabbing fresh gauze to clean up what was there. She moved quickly and efficiently, not pausing for a second when reaching for fresh gauze or a towel to wipe him off. The wound looked worse now, puckered and inflamed red all around it.
"His body is expelling whatever's inside it," she said. "I think we should probably leave this uncovered for now. If anything more comes out, we don't want to have it sitting against the skin."
"What you did last night, it worked?" he asked. Even talking about it in a roundabout way felt like a betrayal of his pack.
He should have told the others the moment he found out, not dragged Elise back into his room and fucked her like it was the only thing keeping him alive. He never should have even considered keeping it a secret. Yet here they were.
"It definitely helped," she said.
"He'll get better on his own now?" And Nico knew his ask was a little too hopeful.
Elise stared down at Cole's injury, and her head moved from side to side, but it wasn't exactly a denial. She leaned closer to the bed, one knee resting on the mattress edge as she bent over Cole's torso and studied his wound with pursed lips.
"I can't know without …" She trailed off and let her hand hover over Cole's wound.
Without magic was what she wasn't saying, but she wasn't asking him if she could do it.
Clearly, she felt uneasy even mentioning it in his presence, and he couldn't bring himself to tell her to use her powers while he was standing right there. Maybe another man would feel like he had some sort of control over the situation if he observed it.
But to Nico, it felt like the final duplicity to his pack.
They needed to know. He couldn't just sit here and let her do it. He was still a werewolf, and she was still a witch. The reality of that was not going to go away. But … there was always a way around certain situations.
"We need breakfast," Nico announced with finality. "I'm going to go downstairs and get some. It will probably take me about thirty minutes. Do you think that's enough time to prepare breakfast?" he asked with a pointed look, and then a look down at Cole just to make sure she got what he was saying.
Elise stared at him with a too-serious expression on her face. She straightened from the bed and turned to face him fully, her bright blue eyes locked on his, her posture rigid.
He wanted to see her smile, not this, but the time for smiles was long past, if it had ever been there at all.
"Some meals take longer to prepare than others," she said carefully. "You can't really know until you're in the kitchen."
At least she understood what he meant.
"Be that as it may, breakfast is going to be ready in thirty minutes, and you need to be prepared for that."
"All right." She nodded, and he forced himself to leave the room. He tried not to think about what it meant to leave her alone with Cole, knowing what she was about to do.
Down in the kitchen, Nico was staring at the pantry as if it might magically make the food for him when Reece walked in the kitchen door.
His hackles immediately went up. He wanted to tell the man to get off the property and never come back, which was ridiculous.
Reece was one of his best friends, even if things had been tense over the past few days.
He was a trusted beta of the Southern Basin Pack.
He just wanted what was best for the pack.
But none of that mattered because if Reece found out Elise was a witch, Nico would have to kill him.
But strangely, Reece was smiling.
"I found Mark," he told Nico. "He's going to be here this afternoon."
Nico should have felt relief. He managed to nod, but a part of him was panicking. Would Mark be able to sense the magical healing that Elise had done on Cole? Would that give her away?
"This is good news, dude," said Reece. "Now we don't have to rely on a fucking human veterinarian anymore."
Right. The veterinarian story.
"Good," he said. "That's good."
"Are you okay?" asked Reece. "I know this clusterfuck has been stressful, but it's going to be okay."
Nico forced a smile. It might have been more of a grimace. "Of course I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?"
Reece didn't respond to that. "We need to figure out what to do about her," Reece said, as if Elise was just a problem, not a person.
Nico had to catch the growl in the back of his throat.
"She might have seen something," Reece continued. "I just feel like she knows too much, you know?"
"I don't know," Nico said. "I've been with her basically this whole time. If not me, then one of the others. Maybe she thinks we're in a cult or something," he offered, finally taking up the story that Elise had given him. "There's nothing illegal about that."
Reece tilted his head and furrowed his brow. "You do remember that you kidnapped her, right?" he asked. "That's illegal."
"I don't think she's going to go to the cops," Nico said.
In fact, he was sure of it, but he couldn't tell that to Reece in a way that would assure the other man.
He heard footsteps coming down the hallway and chattering voices, and a moment later, Javi and Hugh walked into the kitchen.
Reece's smile evaporated. He looked at Nico and then at Javi and then at Hugh and then back at Nico.
"Is the human still sleeping?" he demanded.
Fuck.
Nico had been so intent on giving Elise enough time to finish healing Cole that he hadn't thought of an excuse if all of the betas ended up in the same place together.
"Yeah, she's sleeping." He nodded firmly.
It was a little late for that, but hardly late enough to cause comment.
"Oh, so we're bringing her breakfast in bed now?" Reece demanded. He bared his teeth, and Nico's own wolf wanted to match with teeth of his own.
"She needs food," he said. "Or do you think we should start starving our prisoners?"
Reece was still scowling, but he let it drop.
And he must have believed Nico's lie.
"I know what I'm doing," Nico told him.
Reece gave him an almost pitying look. "We all know that's not true."
Nico wanted to lunge at him, wanted to fight, but he had to be on his best behavior, had to ensure that none of these betas went upstairs and found Elise alone in Cole's room. If they smelled the magic that he had smelled last night … well, they would have a much different reaction than he had.
Which was good because he would rip out the throat of any man who touched her.
"Mark is going to fix Cole when he gets here," Reece said. "And then Cole is going to decide what we do about your little mistake. Are you going to be okay with that?"
Nico looked Reece dead in the eye and lied. "Of course."
"Now if you don't mind, I need to take this upstairs." He scooped up the tray and pushed his way out of the room.
It had been fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. Definitely not the half hour he had promised, but at this point, he didn't care.
Nico rushed up the stairs and was glad he hadn't brought a pot of coffee today because it would definitely have splashed everywhere. He opened the door to Cole's room and was relieved when he didn't smell the scent of magic. Elise was sitting back in her own chair and wiping her brow.
She looked tired, but anyone could look tired. More importantly, she looked human. If any of the others came into the room right now, they wouldn't see anything that would put her in more danger.
"It's done," she told him. "I got all the silver out of his system, and his body just needs more time to heal. But I can feel that it's working. He's healing naturally. He's going to wake up."
That should have been good news. He should have been fucking elated.
Instead, Nico's heart was beating fast, and panic was threatening to creep in.
It was almost nine a.m., which meant they had no more than three hours until Mark got back.
And Mark would start questioning things because even if he couldn't sense the magic, he would wonder why Cole had been unconscious for six days before miraculously getting better just in time for the pack healer to show up.
"When?"
Elise shrugged. "It could be an hour, it could be a day, I don't know. I'm not familiar with werewolf healing, remember?"
He remembered all right. And they were out of time.
"Come on," he said.
"Are you going to tell me where you're taking me this time?" she asked.
"Away from here." He held out a hand. "Let's go."