Had her family tried to pull something and made the coven think that she was with them instead? Why would they do that?
Unfortunately, she could answerthatall too well. Her family, and by extension the Wallace Grove coven, were meddlers, and they'd wanted her back for months. But at this point, Elise was starting to fear that she was never going to get rescued. And she didn't know if that was because she was catastrophizing, or because she hadn't been outside since her stolen moment on the balcony.
To make matters worse, she hadn't managed to do any of the secret spy shit that she had promised herself she would do. How could she? One of the betas was always with her, and she was stuck in the same hallway every day.
If she couldn't manage healing magic, she certainly couldn't manage any other kind. And she hadperhapsoverestimated her capabilities when she first thought that she could turnthis situation into her favor. Elise just needed to find another opportunity to finish the healing on Cole and then somehow get Nico and the others to agree to let her go.
That sounded so much easier said than done.
"So is there really nothing you can do for Cole right now?" Nico pressed.
I could if you let me stay in this room alone with him, she thought.
A small part of her was tempted to beg him to leave the room for an hour or even half that time so that she could do her magic and get this over with.
Could she make up an excuse that Nico would buy? What would even work? A sterile field? That was a medical thing. But then she would need to do something medically to get him to believe that she had actually needed the field in the first place.
For half a second she considered telling him that she was really a healer, a witch, and that she could heal Cole if only Nico gave her the opportunity.
That thought was beyond insane.
She'd spent five days desperately trying to pretend to be human and hide her powers. She couldn't throw it all away just because something inside of her liked kissing Nico, and—even worse—thought she could trust him.
And that instinct was freaking crazy! He had kidnapped her. He was a werewolf. He was thewerewolfwho hadkidnappedher. She couldn't trust any werewolf.
Why was she so certain deep within her soul that she could trust him?
She forced down the temptation to confess all and refused to consider it any further.
"No," she said, and considered her patient. "There isn't anything I can do for Cole right now. We just have to wait. He's in stable condition. He doesn't have a fever. We've gotten someliquid into him. We just have to hope that his body can do the work."
Nico crossed his arms and turned his scary glare to Cole's prone form. "So why isn't he improving?"
She couldn't be anything other than honest. "I don't know."
Though, if she wasn't pretending to be human, she could have told him about the silver. Shouldn't the werewolves be able to smell that on him?
She wasn't sure about werewolf senses, but they were supposed to be heightened. Maybe they couldn't differentiate between precious metals or smell them within someone's body. It would probably be annoying if they could smell every piercing or piece of jewelry a person was wearing.
"So you're saying that sitting here in this room isn't doing Cole any good," Nico pressed. His voice had shifted from intense to something almost … schemy. She wasn't sure she liked it.
She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess that's true."
He nodded, expression going from all-consuming concerned werewolf to, well, just a normal guy, and then he held out a hand. "Come with me," he said.
"The last time you said that I ended up being kidnapped from my job and taken to a compound in the middle of the woods," she said. "I don't know if I want to come with you." But she was smiling.
He wasn't smiling, but there was a softness in his eyes she hadn't seen before. "I'm asking," he said. "Believe me, you'll like it."
Was she really joking about the kidnapping already?
These thoughts were all more points to the fact that she had gone mad. But a part of her justlikedNico and didn't want to be angry with him, so she took his hand and stood up. Nico led her down the hallway and held up a finger to his mouth.
"Be quiet," he warned, "because the other guys will kill me if they find out I'm doing this."
Would a human be questioning the power dynamic here, she wondered.
She understood that the other werewolves she met were betas. She was pretty sure Nico was the head beta, Cole's second in command when he was conscious. But she knew humans didn't organize that way.
