"What was that about?" she asked. He was breathing deep, his shoulders moving up and down with every exhalation.
"I thought I smelled …" He cleared his throat. "Um, I thought I heard someone," he said. He ran a hand through his hair, tussling it a bit, and a strand fell over his forehead. He didn't look relaxed. She couldalmostsee the werewolf prowling deep under his skin, ready to face a threat that wasn't there.
"Okay." She let his slip-up slide. Maybe a human would catch it. Maybe they wouldn't, but there was no benefit to her calling him out on it.
He looked really good in the woods with the trees all around him. Like he belonged there. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to pull him right back up against the tree and get lost in him just for a little bit.
But she couldn't do that. Cole was still sick in his room. Nico was still a werewolf. She was still a witch. And there was like a forty percent chance she was going to end up murdered.
Now the date was really ruined.
"Is everything alright?" Nico asked.
She smiled sadly and couldn't help the way her shoulders slumped. "Alright as can be," was how she managed to respond.
Chapter
Fifteen
Wasit a mistake to have taken Elise out of the house? Nico worried that the answer was probably yes.
She hadn't held his hand as they walked back inside, and it made him feel like a middle schooler to think about that. But he had found himself reaching for her more than once. He didn't know if she was doing it subconsciously, but every time his hand reached out, her own jerked back.
And once they were inside, she made up an excuse about checking on Cole. That was her purpose for being in the house. She was doing her job, not trying to get away from him. But it sure felt like it.
Javi had been passing by in the hallway and offered to do a round of babysitting. He gave an easy smile at Elise and a warning look at Nico, as if he could possibly know Nico had taken Elise outside, as if he could smell the sunshine on her.
Nico was tempted to growl at him and force him away so he could stay with Elise. But he forced himself to nod and leave.
Clearly, Elise didn't want to be with him right then. Clearly, he had made some sort of misstep.
A little distance could do them both good.
She wasn't his girlfriend. They weren't dating. There was no future for them.
One day soon, Cole would be better, and Elise would be gone. Safely returned home, he assured himself, because he wasn't going to let any harm come to her. He had gotten her into this mess, and he wouldn't repay her hard work with violence, no matter what Cole or the others said.
Nico went back to his bedroom and leaned against the door, allowing himself to bang his head against the wall exactly twice. It was a nice, sturdy wall and gave a satisfyingthunkthat reverberated through his skull and the room.
This was a fucking mess.
It was a little funny that she thought he was in a cult. Now it was too late, but he realized he should have taken the bait.
Of course a human would think that a group of thirty people living in the middle of the woods in one big house, with an aversion to doctors, had some interesting ideas about the world, but it was too late now.
Maybe he could make up a pamphlet to give her later. Something to sell the idea. There was a certain cultiness to life in a werewolf pack, he could agree.
Despite his frustration, he smiled. Cole would get a kick out of thinking he was some sort of incarnation of a god, or whatever it was cults believed, when he got better.
On the bed was the pile of blankets and pillows that made up the DMZ that lay between them every night. It was a foot high now and getting more ridiculous by the day. Did Elise think it was doing a thing to protect her? Nico bared his teeth at the offending fabric like it could fight back or challenge him. Every night, Elise lay less than two feet away, but there was a mountain of cotton and down between them.
He yanked one of the pillows off the bed and threw it to the floor, and then another. He almost ripped into the third butrestrained himself at the last moment and threw that final pillow against the wall. It hit with barely a whisper of contact and slid to the floor.
Then came the blankets. It was only a minute or two of work, and then there was nothing lying in that space to offend him. The bed was wide and covered in only the comforter and pillows they'd both been using.
The outburst didn't help anything, and almost as soon as he was done, he realized he shouldn't have done it. Elise would walk into the room and see it, and she might get the wrong idea. He wasn't trying to force her into anything.
Of course not. He wouldneverdo that.
