The conversation went nowhere, and eventually Aya left her alone, pushing off the bed and walking back to the door.
Elise wallowed in the memory of Nico, wondering how she could have been so stupid as to fall for a werewolf, and absolutely certain that there was no version of their story that ended well.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Cole was backto his old self. Things were getting back to normal in the pack. Nico should have been happy. Instead, he wanted to crawl out of his skin.
Javi was being kind of a dick to him, and it had taken him several hours to realize why.
Javi was pissed because he thought that Nico had killed Elise. Nico couldn't tell Javi that there was no force on Earth that would cause him to harm his mate.
He couldn't eventhinkthe M word, even if it was impossible not to.
Nico's wolf didn't like the thought of Javi thinking of Elise, of him saying her name. His wolf didn't want Javi to haveanysort of bond with Elise. But Javi just thought she could have been his friend. He thought he could be friends with everyone.
And right now, he was making Nico pay for that.
Reece was even more of a dick to him for the exact opposite reason. He clearly didn't think that Nico had gone through with the murder. Nico couldn't get a read on Hugh.
As for Cole, he seemed to buy it, but Cole hadn't seen Nico and Elise together. He had no reason to suspect that there wasanything more between them than captor and captive, and Nico was doing his damnedest to make sure it stayed that way.
But he could only prowl around the house and the woods for so long before he started to draw attention to himself. And that was the excuse that made him get in his truck and start driving.
Pulling up to the zoo, though, was its own kind of madness.
They said that criminals always returned to the scene of the crime, but Nico thought he would be a smarter criminal than that. Apparently not.
He sat in the parking lot for several moments, expecting a dozen police officers to swarm his car, guns drawn, and take him straight to jail. Shockingly, that didn't happen.
When he bought a ticket and walked in, no one gave him a second look. Maybe they would figure it out when they reviewed security footage later. Maybe not. He didn't care.
He was just here to make sure that Elise hadn't gotten arrested.
He had brought enough trouble into her life, and he didn't need to add any more. He walked the public paths towards the center of the zoo, where the wildlife rehabilitation facility had its offices. He heard the cry of monkeys in the distance—though those were possibly screaming children.
Ignoring the cries of some kind of primate, he sat on a bench outside and watched the front entrance.
He could just go in and see if she was there. They offered tours and education and even had a viewing area where zoo visitors could see some of the healthier animals.
Elise could be inside right now, for all he knew.
But what if she had been arrested? What would he do then? Find out where she was being held and break her out of jail?
Go on the run like Bonnie and Clyde? It was fucking ridiculous.
But his wolf knew they wouldn't let his mate be locked in a cage for long.
There was that word again, the one he wasn't supposed to be thinking.
He promised himself he wouldn't try and talk to her. He couldn't interact with her at all. He'd screwed up her life enough. They both needed to move on, even if it was impossible. He could even just call the rehabilitation facility and ask to speak to Elise and then hang up after she greeted him. That would be enough of a check.
But he didn't pull out his phone, and he didn't get up from the bench.
Several minutes later, the door to the facility opened, and Elise walked out. She was wearing a knee-length green dress and a purple cardigan. Her hair was held back from her face, and she was looking right at him with a confused expression.
"The other girl who works the front desk said there was a creepy dude hanging out here for half an hour and she said she was going to call zoo security if he took one step closer to the office."
