Briana was still standing in the doorway of the kitchen.
Elise turned to face her fully. "Am I missing something?"
Briana shook her head. "You're not missing anything." She left without another word, which was strange.
Everything about this evening was strange.
Elise's gut was screaming at her that something was wrong.Seriouslywrong. She was pretty sure that whatever it was, it had to do with werewolves.
Delainey and Serena especially had been beyond pissed since their confrontation with the Iron Runner pack. They'd been scheming and plotting to get back at them, but it had all been fantasy. None of them were stupid enough to actually try and fight the biggest werewolf pack in the Tri-State area.
Elise didn't have the gift of prophecy or clairvoyance or anything that would magically give her insight into what was going on. Most days, she was grateful for that because those were heavy gifts to bear.
But she had good instincts, and something was up.
No one was in the living room, which was another mark in the strange column. Briana's bedroom door was closed. Strange again, because unless she was asleep, that door was normally open, and it was very common for members of the coven to stick their heads in to ask her questions or shoot the shit whenever they wanted.
And Briana wasn't the type to go to bed at nine-thirty at night.
Aya's door was closed too, but at this point, Elise wasn't going to let that stop her. If anyone was going to crack, it was going to be Aya. She placed her hand on the doorknob and turned gently, thankful it opened. She found her coven sister sitting on her bed, legs crossed, head tilted back, and eyes closed tight as she meditated.
She visibly stiffened as Elise shut the door behind her with a firm hand.
"I'm meditating, please leave me to it." She kept her eyes squeezed shut.
"You're not." Elise positioned herself fully in the room and leaned back against the door. "You're fake meditating because you don't want to talk to me."
Aya made an offended sound, and her eyes snapped open. "That's rude."
"Well, maybe I need to be rude to figure out what the hell is going on. Why were Delainey and Serena down there acting like the cat that ate the canary? Everyone is acting weird tonight, and no one's talking to me. Please just tell me I'm being paranoid and that y'all didn't go out and do something that could get us all killed. You guys didn't go and challenge the Iron Runner pack, did you?"
Aya bit her lip, and Elise's stomach sank.
"I, uh … it wasn't the Iron Runner pack." She bunched her fingers in her comforter. "We were definitely not in Iron Runner territory. We were very careful about that. I, uh …"
Elise's heart started beating faster as panic set in around the edges. "What did you do? Oh god, did you guys kill anyone? I told you I didn't need revenge for this whole thing. It was fine. Why aren't you listening to me?"
"Because Delainey and Serena—" Aya cut herself off. She scrunched up into a ball and buried her head against her knees. "I knew this was a terrible idea. We never should have done it, but it's done now. So just pretend you don't know anything, and it's all going to be okay. Alright?"
"Idon'tknow anything." Elise leaned in, planting her hands near Aya's feet and staring her down. "And we're changing that right now. What thefuckhappened?"
Aya rolled back and forth slightly and groaned into her knees. She mumbled something that Elise couldn't quite make out.
"What did you say?" Elise demanded, leaning forward farther.
Aya groaned again. "There's a werewolf locked up in the basement."
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Nico struggled against his bonds.
He'd been in the basement for several hours at this point, but he still hadn't seen whoever had captured him. He expected a witch to come in at any second.
Was this payback for his kidnapping of Elise? If so, he had earned that, but that didn't mean he was going to go down so easily. Even if it was, he couldn't bring himself to think that she was in on it.
Elise had plenty of opportunity by now to tell her coven everything about the Southern Basin Pack headquarters, but they hadn't faced any magical incursions in the weeks since he let her go. He hoped she'd kept their secrets. He hoped she felt the bond between them just as strongly as he did.
