"The beta?" Elise sounded surprised.
"He's my friend, and he liked you." The last bit came out a little too much like a growl, but Nico would have to live with it. "If we can get anybody to understand, it'll be him. Maybe he can soften Cole up. Everyone else is kind of pissed at me right now.He's kind of pissed at me too but actually calling him now could fix that."
She looked very doubtful. "Uh, how?"
"So, funny story." It had slipped Nico's mind. What with being wrapped around his mate all night, but there was the little fact that … "The pack thinks you're dead." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I might have implied,"or stated outright,he added mentally, "that I killed you."
"Your alpha is okay with killing humans?" Elise squeaked.
"Not usually," Nico held up his hands in verbal defense, "but he is when one of his betas is stupid enough to bring one to the pack house and reveal too much about the situation."
Elise was still shaking her head. "I'm not sure calling your pack is a good idea," she said. And then she added, "But I don't have any other better ideas. Do you want to use my phone?" The phone, in its pink sparkly case, was sitting next to her coffee on the nightstand.
"I think it's better if I use the hotel phone."
He called Javi and told him where he was and gave him his room number, but Nico didn't give Javi any other information. This was a conversation best had in person.
Twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Nico answered it. Javi took one step inside the room and then froze. He breathed deep, and his eyes widened.
"Those damn wi—" he cut himself off, jaw clenching, "bitchesdid something to you."
Elise took that opportunity to step into the little entrance area, and she waved at Javi. "Hi," she said. "So, uh … those bitches are my coven. I know you're a werewolf. I'm a witch!"
And if Javi had been shocked to catch Elise's scent in the hotel room, that confession nearly sent him into a coma. His mouth dropped open, and he stared at Nico like he had grown a second head.
"A witch?" Javi demanded, glaring at Nico.
Nico stepped forward, positioning himself between Javi and Elise. "You better watch your tone, man. She's my mate. You lay a hand on her and you die."
Chapter
Thirty
The conversationwith Javi probably could have been a phone call. He didn't hang around much longer after Nico declared that Elise was his mate.
There were a few exclamations ofReally? Really? Her?involved. Nico got all growly. Javi ended up grinning, which suggested that he was probably teasing about the whole thing in the first place.
Elise chose to take that as a good sign.
If Javi could accept them, even if he didn't quite understand it, maybe others would be able to too. Aya, perhaps? Elise hoped she could find a way to make her best friend accept this whole werewolf-boyfriend thing because she didn't want to gain a boyfriend—or a mate, whatever that meant—and lose her closest friend.
Elise was tempted to ask Nico what he meant by calling her his mate.
It felt like a big word. She was pretty sure it was important to shifters, but she'd been really brave over the past few weeks, and that bravery had run out. She was a little too freaked to figure out exactly what it meant.
Their whole relationship was so new, so fragile, and so prone to break at the next sign of trouble that she didn't want him to start making insane declarations that might send her running for the hills.
Not that anything had sent her running for the hills yet. If there was mystical, magical werewolf bullshit going on, maybe she could just roll with it.
Javi had gone back to the pack house to talk to Cole. He promised to give them a call one way or another to tell them how it went and either invite them there or tell them to run for their lives. The anticipation was doing a number on Elise's nerves, and Nico had already almost paced a hole in the hotel's carpeting.
When her own cell phone rang, she nearly jumped out of her skin. But Javi would be calling the hotel phone. Her shoulders sank when she read the caller ID.
"What is it?" Nico paused his stalking around for a second to ask.
Elise flashed the phone screen at him, but she couldn't put this off forever. Knowing her coven sisters, she would just be barraged by phone calls if she swiped to ignore. She answered the phone.
Delainey started talking before Elise could even greet her, voice tinny through the speaker. "Get your ass down here and talk to me right now, woman to woman, before I start knocking out windows of this cheap ass motel."
