Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Nico must have fallen asleep at some point. The clock read three thirty-seven a.m. when he woke up to find Elise sitting next to him in bed with her hand resting gently on his head, playing with his hair.
I want her to stroke my fur, his wolf thought, and the man agreed.
He wanted her to see his other form so he could preen before her and show her just how mighty of a wolf he was. He wanted her long slender fingers to brush through his fur and offer him the same kind of comfort she was giving him as she petted his hair.
Would she do it or would that be a step too far?
Something had changed between them last night. He knew that. She'd been the one to say it.
It was real, whatever it was.
But a part of him was afraid that at one point he would take it too far. He would remind her too strongly that he was a werewolf, and she would eventually run away screaming.
She won't, his wolf protested. She's ours. He hoped, beyond all hope, that that was the case.
Her hand stopped playing with his hair as she realized he had woken up.
"I think I know how to break the tracking spell," she said, pulling her hand back to rest in her lap. Her voice was serious rather than triumphant.
He sat up next to her and took her hand, resisting the urge to play with her fingers. "Okay, do it."
She traced a circle on his palm with her thumb and looked contemplative. "You don't even know what I want to do." Her thumb paused mid-circle before starting again. "It's a little crazy, and I need you to trust me."
"I trust you with my life." It was a solemn vow. One he meant to the depths of his very core.
Her eyes widened. "You barely know me. How can you trust me like that? I'm a witch, or did you forget?"
"I'm a werewolf," he reminded her, with a gentle squeeze of her hand. "We've gone over this several times. I thought we established this thing is real. We're in this together. We are together, aren't we?"
And suddenly, they weren't talking about her solution to their magical problem anymore.
Elise swallowed hard, and her thumb stopped moving on his palm entirely. "Are you saying you're my boyfriend now?" Her voice got high, almost squeaky, at the end of the question.
He tucked a fallen strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "If that's the word you want to use, that's the word we'll use," he said.
But secretly, in the depths of his soul, he and his wolf were thinking: mate, mate, mate.
He leaned in and cupped her face and kissed her gently. "So what's the plan, girlfriend?" He pulled back just enough so he could meet her eyes.
She grinned and then had to look away from him as if speaking to him was too difficult after he said that. Her expression grew serious once more. "We need to trick the coven into thinking that you're part of the coven so the spell doesn't trigger."
"Okay." He tilted his head and tried to make sense of that. Maybe it did to a witch. This was definitely not his area of expertise.
She looked at him and braced herself. "I need to leave a spark of my magic inside you.
That should be magically the same as if we're holding hands, and the spell won't be able to trigger because, as far as the magic is concerned, you'll be part of me or part of the coven—it all is kind of the same thing. "
That sounded interesting.
Nico didn't know a lot about magic. He did his best to stay away from witches because whenever he encountered them, Elise notwithstanding, it ended in violence and bloodshed. If another witch told him that she had to put magic inside of him, well …
"Is this something you could use against me later?" His grip on her hand tightened.
Her expression grew even more grim. "Yes," she nodded, and then she continued quickly, "but I promise I won't ever. I would never hurt you."
He knew that feeling. He wanted to just say yes and get it over with.
There was a deep satisfaction with the idea that his mate would leave a part of herself inside of him, that they would be bound together somehow.
It felt significant, important. He might have been blowing it out of proportion.
Maybe this was something witches did all the time.
"Is there any other way?" he forced himself to ask.
Elise shook her head. "Not that I can think of right now and definitely not anything that would be as easy as this. We don't need to go get any spell supplies. I don't need to call down a lot of magic. There's no risk of hurting you with this spell, and I'm sure it will work."
"Is it permanent?"
"No," she said adamantly. "I can take the magic back at any time."
He wasn't sure why that disappointed him, but it was probably for the best.
Neither he nor his wolf had any intention of letting her go, but who knew what repercussions there could be by holding her magic inside of him. Maybe after experiencing it he wouldn't want it for long.
"Won't taking your magic back trigger the tracking spell?"
"Yes," she sounded a little defeated, "unless we can find whoever in the coven put it on you in the first place, probably Delainey or Serena, and get them to lift it."
"And is that likely?" He raised an eyebrow.
She threw up her free hand in exasperation. "Not in this century."
The decision was clear.
"Do it."
It was frankly an insane thing to agree to.
He was making himself vulnerable to a witch, allowing magic inside of him. Even if, as far as he understood, it would just sit there and do nothing.
But this wasn't any witch. She was his witch, his mate, his girlfriend, his lover. His everything if he could get her to agree with it. He would hold all of her magic inside of him if he had to. And so much more.
He didn't realize Elise was going to dive right into the spell until he felt warmth travel up from his fingers, up his arm, over his shoulder, and settle in his chest, right beside his heart, beating strong and certain for her.
It felt a little bit like it had when she healed him in the basement, but the tingles in his arm faded and left only the heat behind. It took less than thirty seconds.
She opened her eyes and let out a sigh. "There," she said, "it's done. We can stop holding hands now."
But neither of them let go.
It was still before four in the morning, and before long, they fell back asleep cuddled together.
Nico woke alone and was worried for a heartbeat that Elise had left him, that she had used that spark of her magic as an excuse to say he was safe and gone back to her coven, leaving him to his own fate.
Then the toilet flushed and he realized she was just in the bathroom. He didn't like her out of his sight even for a second.
She came out and sat on the bed next to him and leaned in and gave him a good morning kiss. She smelled like toothpaste, so she must have gotten some from the reception desk.
"Did you come up with any more brilliant plans over this morning?" he asked, propping himself up on one elbow.
She nodded to the bedside table. "I got us coffee from downstairs, does that count?"
It was still steaming so she must have not been gone for long. He was surprised he hadn't woken up by the sound of the door opening and closing. The fight and kidnapping had taken more out of him than he'd thought. He hadn't realized just how exhausted he'd been.
Nico sat up and reached for the coffee. It wasn't great, just cheap hotel grade, but he could use the jolt of caffeine anyway.
"We can't stay here for long." He sipped and grimaced at the bitter slap. "We're in Iron Runner territory."
"Yeah, I realized that at some point." She sank onto the bed beside him and clutched her own cup in her hands. "Is that going to be an issue?"
"I hardly think they're tracking every person who checks into or out of a commuter hotel." At least he hoped that was true. "But my pack was pulling a job last night, and they won't be happy with us if they find me here."
"What kind of job?" She turned to face him fully. "What is it your pack does, exactly?"
"Each member tends to have their own employment.
We don't have a major business or anything like that.
Though there are several small businesses that solely employ pack members.
But sometimes we help people from big or abusive packs get out.
That was what we were supposed to be doing last night before we got interrupted. "
She was quiet for a moment. "Do you have to do that a lot? Help people escape abusive packs?"
Nico tried not to remember the bruises he'd carried as a child, or the challenges he'd seen, all before his first shift. "Some alphas are assholes." His voice was rougher than he wanted, the past too close to the surface. "Sometimes running is the only option."
Elise set her cup down and laid her head against his shoulder, placing her hand on his thigh. "Is that something that happened to you?" Her tone was gentle, and Nico knew she'd let him wiggle out of talking if he wanted.
But he didn't want to keep secrets from her.
"I'm not actually from around here, did you know that? I grew up out west. In Montana." Territories were huge out there and the packs even bigger. "My family, well, my dad really, was the alpha of the biggest pack in the state. And he was even worse than Dawson."
"Dawson?"
"The alpha of the Iron Runners."
"Ah, right."
He kept talking, and the longer he went, the easier it got.
"Everyone thought I'd take over for him.
But he poisoned that pack from the top down.
It was all strict discipline, cruelty for cruelty's sake.
I'm glad you didn't meet me a few years ago, right after I joined up with Cole.
I wasn't someone you'd want to know back then.
" Reece was a puppy compared to how vicious Nico had been that first year, and Nico was lucky that Cole had given him the time to heal.
She squeezed his hand. "I can't imagine you being someone I wouldn't want to know."
He huffed out a laugh. "Believe it. I was a dick."
"Oh, you were totally a dick when I met you, too. Clearly I have a type." She gave him a playful glare. Then she scowled. "Did my sisters hurt anyone other than you in the attack? Now that you're telling me you're all superheroes or something I feel even worse."
Nico had to be honest. "I don't know. And we're definitely not heroes. There's a reason we're hiding from both of our people right now. Maybe we should go hang out around the university after we check out. There's plenty of places to bum around there. We can figure out our next move."
Elise looked away from him and grew tense. "I don't think that's a good idea. Apparently, you weren't really paying attention last night, but the coven house is close to the university. And Serena is an adjunct professor there, so it's not exactly safe territory, even if its neutral."
Nico tried to imagine the warrior-witch grading papers and holding lectures and couldn't. How did she resist zapping students who talked back in class or didn't turn in their homework? She really didn't seem to have an educator's temperament.
"You could go back to your pack," Elise offered. "You'll be safe there, and I guess I can go back to the coven."
"Won't you be in trouble?" He put his arm around her and pulled her even closer.
She tilted her head up and gave him a look. "They'll be pissed at me, but at this point I don't care because I am super pissed at them. I told you it's fine. Believe me. Are werewolf packs really that different—your terrible childhood notwithstanding?"
"The alpha is in charge," Nico said, and it was as simple as that. "Cole tries not to be a dick about it, but he gets the final say. Doesn't your coven have a leader?"
She shrugged. "Not really. Briana sort of, I guess. But it's more of a democracy … or a bunch of independent magic users with ideas of their own butting heads until we all kind of come to a consensus."
"It doesn't matter anyway." He shook his head. "It's not a good option. I'm not walking away from you this time. We've tried that. It sucks. I don't want to."
"So what do we do about that?" she asked. "Because I have never heard of a witch and werewolf dating."
"Be real," he said, "we can't be the first people to get together."
"It kind of feels like it though, doesn't it?"
He only had one idea, and it was a little bit insane. But if they were going to be together without running away to a deserted island somewhere and eking out an existence like frontiersmen, they had to take a step and ask for acceptance.
"I think we should call Javi," he said, watching her reaction carefully.
"The beta?" Elise sounded surprised.
"He's my friend, and he liked you." The last bit came out a little too much like a growl, but Nico would have to live with it.
"If we can get anybody to understand, it'll be him.
Maybe he can soften Cole up. Everyone else is kind of pissed at me right now.
He's kind of pissed at me too but actually calling him now could fix that. "
She looked very doubtful. "Uh, how?"
"So, funny story." It had slipped Nico's mind. What with being wrapped around his mate all night, but there was the little fact that … "The pack thinks you're dead." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I might have implied," or stated outright, he added mentally, "that I killed you."
"Your alpha is okay with killing humans?" Elise squeaked.
"Not usually," Nico held up his hands in verbal defense, "but he is when one of his betas is stupid enough to bring one to the pack house and reveal too much about the situation."
Elise was still shaking her head. "I'm not sure calling your pack is a good idea," she said. And then she added, "But I don't have any other better ideas. Do you want to use my phone?" The phone, in its pink sparkly case, was sitting next to her coffee on the nightstand.
"I think it's better if I use the hotel phone."
He called Javi and told him where he was and gave him his room number, but Nico didn't give Javi any other information. This was a conversation best had in person.
Twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Nico answered it. Javi took one step inside the room and then froze. He breathed deep, and his eyes widened.
"Those damn wi—" he cut himself off, jaw clenching, "bitches did something to you."
Elise took that opportunity to step into the little entrance area, and she waved at Javi. "Hi," she said. "So, uh … those bitches are my coven. I know you're a werewolf. I'm a witch!"
And if Javi had been shocked to catch Elise's scent in the hotel room, that confession nearly sent him into a coma. His mouth dropped open, and he stared at Nico like he had grown a second head.
"A witch?" Javi demanded, glaring at Nico.
Nico stepped forward, positioning himself between Javi and Elise. "You better watch your tone, man. She's my mate. You lay a hand on her and you die."