The hand she was holding got sweatier, which she took as a good sign, and hoped that meant his body was expelling the poison.
Her own stomach roiled as she worked. This was bigger than anything she'd done before, and normally, one of her coven sisters would be there to act as backup and to pull her out of the healing if things started to get too intense. But that wasn't an option right now. And Elise let herself get lost in the work.
But she wasn't so lost that she didn't hear the door open.
On pure instinct and panic, she tore her magic out of Cole and had to bite her lip to keep from yelping in pain from the backlash. If it hurt her likethat, it had to be excruciating for him.
He should be thankful he was still unconscious.
Cole groaned in pain, and Elise hoped that was a good sign. Maybe she had gotten enough of the silver. Maybe he was starting to fight off the poison on his own.
She didn't have to look towards the door to know who it was. Her body seemed to be attuned to Nico's. She took a deep breath and looked his way anyway and almost flinched at the furious expression on his face.
"What the hell are you doing in here?" Nico demanded, stalking towards her and yanking her away from Cole.
Elise gulped and scrambled for that excuse she was supposed to have come up with earlier. "I couldn't sleep," she said, panting a little bit, and that wasn’t an act. She’d useda lotof magic. Could Nico smell it on her? "I was just worried about him, and I came to check his vitals."
That was plausible, she hoped. It wasn't like they had any sort of machine monitoring. And she truly didn't want to wake up one day and find that he had passed in the night.
Nico glared at her. "You arenotto be alone with Cole. I thought we made that clear."
He drew in a deep breath, and terror rocked Elise.
The scent of magic was supposed to dissipate quickly. It wasn't a real scent; humans couldn’t smell it. It was magical, and it didn't linger in the air like bacon grease or anything like that. But she had still been performing her healing when Nico opened the door.
Could he smell it? Did he suspect?
She wanted to hide her hands behind her back, like that might have any effect, but she forced herself to remain as calm as she could, which wasn't very calm to be honest, because an angry werewolf, an angrysexywerewolf, was looking at her like he might do violence.
And she wasn't nearly as scared as she should be.
Elise really did not have her head on straight when it came to this guy, and she needed to figure out why.
"I wouldn't hurt him," she said, and tried not to feel guilty about her train of thought before she’d gotten to work. She wouldn't. She was a healer. Healers didnothurt people. That was how it worked. "What did you think I was going to do? Come in here and smother him with a pillow?"
"No," said Nico. "But you can't go sneaking around here. It's not safe.”
“It's a house!" she objected. A human wouldn’t know there were furry killers roaming the halls at all hours or the threat they could pose. "Do you have serial killers walking around or something?"
"It's notjusta house," Nico said, but he didn't explain further. "And if someone other than me had caught you …" He trailed off. Then he grabbed her wrist and dragged her towards the door. "You can't be in here tonight," he said.
Chapter
Eleven
Nico was fuming.
He tried not to crush Elise's wrist in his hand as he tugged her into his room and shut the door firmly, resisting the urge to slam it because that might draw attention, and at this moment, attention was thelastthing they needed.
Ten minutes ago, when he had woken up to find Elise gone, he had assumed she might be in the bathroom, taking care of her bathroom needs. But that door was open, and a quick glance inside showed she wasn't there.
He had run straight to Cole's room after and found her kneeling next to the bed, holding onto Cole's hand like she was praying for him.
Was she religious? Some humans took that really seriously, he knew, though he hadn't heard her mention God or church or the Pope. He wasn't sure what religious humans cared about. He possibly wouldn't be able to recognize it if she had been saying churchy things.
The sight of her touching Cole had sent a wave of fierce and possessive jealousy through him that made his wolf rise to the surface and want to howl. Which was strange.
He had spent all day watching her work on Cole and all the night before that, and it hadn't bothered him in the slightest. She had been efficient, medical, doing the job that he hired her—well, kidnapped her—for. But seeing her alone in Cole's room had roused something dark and possessive and wolfy within him.
