They had families, sure, but they didn't have thirty people living in a compound with a hierarchical power structure. A human would probably be curious, she decided, but she didn't say anything because she didn't want to give herself away by knowing too much or accepting too much.
She was really bad at this pretending thing.
And she was pretty sure Nico might have questioned her about it if he wasn't trying so darned hard to hide the fact he was a werewolf.
He led her down the same stairway he had forced her up several days ago and out the back door into the backyard. It was a beautiful day out. The sun was shining high, and the sky was bright blue with fluffy clouds in the air. There was a breeze that blew over her skin, and everything smelled fresh.
Elise tilted her head back and closed her eyes to soak in the sun. She stood there for a while, but after a moment she could feel Nico's gaze on her.
She looked at him, and he was smiling. Her heart did a little flip, which it couldnotafford to do, because that was just more evidence that she really liked him. But she smiled back.
He was a werewolf, she reminded herself. He had kidnapped her. He was holding her hostage. The other werewolves wanted to kill her.
Even with all those reasons not to smile back, the expression didn't slip off her face.
He took her hand again and led her deeper into the yard. There was a nice gravel walking path that led into the woods. Wildflowers, like the one he'd given her at breakfast the other day, poked up along the edge of the path. Nico leaned down and plucked one, handing it to her as they walked.
"How many acres do you have?" she asked as she idly stroked the petals of the delicate purple flower. That was a normal human question to ask. She was sure about that. Humans loved talking about real estate, if reality TV was anything to go by.
"Not as many as you think," he said. "We back up onto a national forest, and some of the people who live here …" He stumbled a bit over how he phrased that, and she was pretty sure he meant to say some of the pack. "They like to go running in the woods," he finished.
She wasn't sure what her next question should be. Part of her brain was hung up on the fact that Nico had casually given her a flower, like this was a date or something. She needed to figure out something.
And then it came to her.
"Um," she began. "This isn't like a cult or anything, is it?" she asked.
Yes. If this situation was anything human, a cult was what it would remind her of, if Netflix documentaries were anything to go by.
The trees got thicker as they stepped off the gravel path and properly into the woods. It smelled green and woodsy, and the pack probably had a hundred different ways to describe it. The dirt was edging towards mud in a few places, and it must have rained recently, so Elise stepped carefully. But not even a tiny part of her wanted to go back inside.
"Cole isn't like your leader or something, the incarnation of God, right?" Okay, she was laying it on a little thick, butin addition to reality TV, she really loved documentaries about cults, and it justfit.
Besides, Nico wanted her to believe he was just as human as she allegedly was. She was doing him a favor by asking this question.
Nico coughed out a startled laugh. "A cult?" he asked. "Why do you think that?"
"Um, I don't know," she said. Then she rattled off the reasons as they came. "The whole no doctors thing is a bit strange, and a bunch of people living together in the middle of the woods away from civilization," she said. "I don't want to, like, offend your church or anything. I mean, you can believe anything you want."
Nico hadn't stopped holding her hand since they left Cole's room, and now he squeezed it. "I promise you we're not a cult."
They walked farther into the woods, and she decided not to press any further. If he didn't want to agree that he was in a cult, she couldn't make him.
It was nice walking with him. They didn't say much, but they didn't need to. It felt normal. Two people out on a nice date in nature, one of them secretly a witch and trying desperately to hide that fact. One of them, a werewolf who didn't know he had been found out, and the threat of death hanging over her head every moment.
Okay, date ruined.
But right then, Elise refused to let herself dwell on that. Nico was doing a nice thing for her. He was letting her outside, and she was breathing fresh air and it was a beautiful day. And?—
And Nico was pressing her up against a tree and covering her body with his.
She thought he was about to kiss her, but his body was much too tense for that. He leaned in close and shushed her. She barely dared to breathe.
His body was pressed up close to her, chest to chest, one leg accidentally or not so accidentally lodged between hers. If he kept her in this position for much longer, it would turn into a kiss, no matter what was going on. He held her there for so long she began to worry about danger. This was his pack’s territory, it should have been safe … for him at least.
Her heartrate kicked up, half from his closeness and half from imagining monsters in the shadows.
After another two entire minutes, she counted the seconds, he backed up.
