Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
Nico didn't drive back to the pack compound immediately after freeing Elise.
He started that way, heading down the highway, the familiar path done more by memory than any conscious thought, and then he kept driving deeper and deeper into the countryside.
He needed to go where he didn't know anyone or have any place to stay. Going right back home was a bad idea.
He would have to explain himself to Reece, to Cole, and to the others, to the part of himself that was the head beta of the Southern Basin Pack and not a man obsessed with a woman who could destroy him.
His cell phone started ringing a few hours later. He turned it off. Someone must have noticed Elise was gone by now, and that he was gone too. That same someone would likely put two and two together.
Again, that was a problem for future Nico.
He parked his car at a scenic outlook and took off into the woods as a wolf, finding a comfortable place to sleep overnight.
He slept in his furry skin until sunrise woke him up.
His wolf tugged at him to go deeper into the woods, to follow the chirping of birds and chase the stream he could barely hear in the distance.
He could get lost here forever, stay in his fur skin and forget about ever being human.
It was so tempting that Nico had to jerk himself away from the call of the wild.
He stalked back to his truck and transformed once more, slipping back into the clothes he'd left on the driver's seat.
He forced himself to turn his phone back on and scrolled through the dozen texts that he had received.
He couldn't put returning home off any longer, especially when he got the news: Cole was awake.
Nico felt like a thief sneaking back into the house.
He was quickly caught, which suggested that his luck at the zoo and getting Elise out of the house had been flukes.
He wasn't about to take up a career in heisting.
His last bit of luck was that it was Javi who caught him.
Reece would probably attack him on sight.
"We're meeting now," Javi said, jerking his head toward the meeting room. "Come on." And that was very serious for Javi. Not a greeting, not a smile.
Yeah, Nico was in deep shit.
In the meeting room, Cole was on his feet and didn't look like a man who had been in a coma for six days. He was a little thinner than before, but that only made him look harder—as if he wasn't already a hard man—and he kept scratching at the place on his abdomen where he'd been injured.
"You're back." Hugh was leaning against the far wall, arms folded across his chest.
"I'm back," Nico agreed. No need to add more, no need to give them ammunition. He just had to make it through today and hopefully he could figure out what to do next. He tried to keep his posture relaxed, non-threatening. Innocent. "Are you okay?" he asked Cole. "How are you feeling?"
"I feel like something gross and slimy was inside my veins," Cole dragged a hand through his hair, leaving a chunk of it standing on end. "I feel tainted. This was magic," he spat the word.
Terror shot through Nico.
Had Cole realized that he'd been healed by magic? Were they going to figure out Elise was a witch?
But his mind caught up to him a moment later. Cole was talking about whatever had been done to him, whatever had left that silver embedded inside him. He didn't know about the healing. But Reece, Javi, and Hugh were staring at Nico like he was hiding something.
"Why do you think I have any idea what's happening?" he said and tried not to hunch his shoulders defensively. "Did you ask Mark what was done to you?" The healer had to be back now, and hopefully he would have some answers.
But Cole was shaking his head. "As far as Mark can tell, there's nothing wrong with me.
He said there was no reason for me to be in a coma for six days.
I feel completely fine. I got out of bed this morning like it was nothing, and the only difference is I'm hungrier than I've ever been in my life. "
"It sounds like whatever hurt you and made you feel all gross worked its way out of your system before we could find Mark and get him back here," Nico offered.
That was sort of true, if you included the fact that Elise had used magic to assist the silver to leave Cole's system. Nico had to keep that secret forever. He had to protect her. And the pack wasn't going to make it easy.
"Do you know what this idiot did while you were passed out?" Reece jabbed a finger Nico's way and seemed about a second away from lunging for him.
Cole's expression was interested but cautious. "What?"
"He brought a human to pack territory," Hugh said as he took his seat and leaned back in the chair. "A veterinarian. He made her take care of you."
"She was cute," Javi added, and Nico couldn't stop the growl in the back of his throat.
Javi grinned at him, and Reece looked ready to tear his spine out.
"I said no doctors," said Cole.
"A veterinarian is not a doctor," Nico replied. Though, was that even technically true? "They aren't doctors for humans," he added. He didn't want to get in the weeds on this one.
"He disobeyed orders," said Reece. "He should be out of this pack."
"Are you challenging him?" Cole turned his full attention to Reece. For all the talk of betrayal, he seemed surprisingly chill. Reece was bristling. But Cole continued speaking. "I left him in charge. He made the call, even though it seems kind of useless. We have to live with it."
Cole leveled his toughest alpha stare at Nico. His eyes were pale, unblinking, and the shadow of his wolf was peeking out. Nico had to resist the urge to bare his throat. "Where is this human now?"
Reece's glare only grew more dour. "Yeah, Nico, where's the human? We haven't seen her in a while."
"I took care of it," he said. "She won't be a problem anymore."
He would never see her again.
She would live her life, he would live his, and he hoped that one day this pain would fade into something that didn't feel like being stabbed every second.
"Did you kill her?" Cole asked carefully.
The pack didn't harm humans—at least they tried not to.
That was a pretty strict rule among supernaturals.
Even vampires did their best to leave their prey walking around after they fed.
It was the only way to ensure their survival, when there were billions of humans with guns and pitchforks and nuclear bombs.
Going on a spree that revealed the existence of the supernatural to the human world was the last thing anyone needed.
But the occasional protective murder, violence to keep the secret safe? Everybody looked the other way when that happened. It was an unfortunate necessity of their existence.
Now Nico understood exactly what Elise was saying when she said that of course she went along with him, an angry werewolf, forcing her into a situation she didn't want to be in.
Right now, he had four angry werewolves staring him down. There was no other choice.
"She's dead," he said, and he felt like he damned himself by answering.