Nico growled, but Elise nodded. "Yeah, he is."
Serena's expression was not softening, and this conversation was not going to get anywhere.
"Listen, I'm just going to go get some of my stuff," Elise said. "You guys can do whatever."
She didn't wait for them to scream out their objections as she led Nico up the stairs to her room. And she quickly packed a bag while he gawked at everything like he had just been let into Superman's inner sanctum.
"Are you done taking it all in?" she asked when she had her backpack hitched over her shoulder.
"Were you a cheerleader?" He pointed at a picture she had from back when she was in high school taped to her mirror.
"Don't be creepy," she said.
"I'm not being creepy. I just want to know about your life."
She rolled her eyes and pushed him out of the room before he could start digging into all of her history. The coven was still congregated in the kitchen as she and Nico came downstairs. No one tried to stop them from leaving, but Aya did follow her outside. Then came Briana and Serena and Delainey. They all watched as Elise got into Nico's car.
And though it seemed like they'd been in there for a long time, it must not have been because the black utility van was still sitting across the street with the guy in front, so if he was on his lunch break or whatever, they hadn't spent enough time arguing for him to finish his sandwich.
Nico pulled out of the driveway, and Elise looked back at her sisters. Aya at least waved, and then the utility van turned on and pulled onto the street behind them.
"Drive faster." Elise's instincts were screaming at her that something was up.
Nico didn't question it, but they only made it two houses down before another vehicle pulled onto the road in front of them, and Nico had to slam on the brakes to keep from T-boning it. The seatbelt locked hard across Elise's chest, yanking her back against the seat as the truck's tires shrieked against the asphalt.
Two men dressed all in black jumped out of that car and came straight for them. Elise was in the process of putting up a defensive spell when one of them lobbed something straight for the windshield and it shattered. Glass exploded inward in a spray of shrapnel that peppered her raised arms.
A concussive pulse shot through the truck, and everything went black.
Chapter
Thirty-Four
Delainey knewsomething was wrong the second the black van took off after Elise and her stupid werewolf boyfriend.
She was already running down the street by the time a dark blue sedan pulled out from the Jennings house and blocked the street. Then a pulse of magic broke the windshield of Nico's truck. It blew her back a few feet, leaving her sprawled out on the ground. She scraped her palms bloody on the asphalt as she skidded backward.
By the time she was back on her feet, two men dressed in black were pulling Elise and Nico out of the truck. They moved with trained efficiency, forcing their captives forward. And they were definitely werewolves. But that had definitely been a magic blast.
What the hell was going on?
Delainey was pissed at Elise, but that didn't mean she was just going to let her get kidnapped. She threw a burst of magic at the wolves, the energy crackling from her fingertips in a white-hot arc. She sent a slightly half-hearted one at the wolf trying to take Nico, because she was pretty sure Elise would be pissed if her boyfriend got kidnapped and she didn't.
But before she could do more than that, she heard the growling of more wolves. Delainey turned to see four oversized werewolf assholes cornering her sisters on the driveway. Their lips were pulled back from sharp fangs. Delainey ran back to the house, she couldn't face off against whoever had Elise and Nico, not right now.
Fighting the wolves was a challenge of its own.
That was the problem between their two kinds. Wolves were great in the moment. They were aggressive, they were violent, and they could jump at you and tear your throat out. But a witch who had time to prepare could counter that, as they had when they cornered Nico a week ago and took him out like it was nothing.
But today, they had no time for preparations. All the coven had right now were the defenses they had reinforced around their house.
Briana and Aya were already backing up the stairs towards the door, with Serena doing her best to hold off the wolves with bolts of magic that would make them yelp and flinch back but didn't do any major damage. She smelled the stench of burning fur, but the wolves kept circling closer.
Delainey did her best to blaze a path between the wolves and the house. She stood right next to Serena, fighting them off as best they could. Her fingers ached and started to tremble as she burned through her reserves of power. She couldn't fight forever.
It didn't take long for the coven to retreat back into the house as the blue sedan screeched down the street, successfully having taken Elise and Nico.
Who the hell were these wolves? And why were they staking out the coven house, like the coven had done something to them?
