He really didn’t want to talk to the witches ever again, but if Lacey needed them, Nick would steel his nerves and approach the damn coven. They scared him more than the leprechaun or any of the shifters in the city, mostly because he didn’t understand how their magic worked or what they could actually do. Everything had limits, but he hadn’t seen the limits of what the coven could do. The wolf didn’t like it. The witches smelled wrong.

Lacey, however, smelled very right. He couldn’t sleep, not with his arms around her and her sleep restless with dreams. Nick stared into the darkness. Tomorrow she would want to call Eloise and figure out how to make things up to the djinn, and he’d be dragged back to the real world. The city. And Kaiser would be waiting to lock him in the little room to make sure he wasn’t completely crazy. The wolf growled in anticipation, though he cut off when Lacey stirred and made a questioning noise in her sleep.

He liked the idea of her leaving the damn hyenas behind. The cutthroat politics of their pack would have changed Lacey too much. He could see how it already had, from the way Eloise and some of her friends talked about Lacey. She’d been hardened, ground down by the hyenas.

Nick rubbed his forehead and untangled himself just slightly from Lacey, lying on his back so he could spread out. Maybe it was better if the hyenas just assumed she’d died. Maybe it would be better if the bears believed he died, lost in the woods. It would hurt Kara, but she would get over him quickly with her mate and the new baby. Then he and Lacey could melt away into the past and start over in Europe. No more leprechauns, no bears, and definitely no witches.

For once, he drifted to sleep on a comforting thought and didn’t wake until Lacy elbowed him in the gut as she climbed over him to get out of bed.

She muttered, “Gotta pee,” and kept fumbling, her other hand landing on his face, and eventually dragged herself and half the sheets out of the bed.

Nick yawned and didn’t bother looking at the clock; it was after dawn, he knew that. The wolf could sense it just in the subtle shifts of light in the cabin. He didn’t want to get up, but that damn internal clock got him up anyway. Plus he didn’t want to miss another opportunity to feed Lacey.

By the time she stumbled back into the cabin, he had the water boiling to make coffee and scraped a few cans of corned beef hash into the pan to warm up for breakfast. She crawled back into bed after growling something about morning people, and didn’t emerge again until he’d had a cup and a half of coffee and started another pan of hash.

Her hair stood up in odd tufts, she didn’t bother opening her left eye, and pillow marks wrinkled one cheek—and she looked completely fucking stunning. Nick gazed at her, a little bemused at his own shift in thinking, and Lacey glared at him more with her good eye. “What are you smirking at?”

“You look frightful,” he said, and leaned to hand her a fresh cup of coffee. “No cream or sugar, so you’ll have to sweeten it up with your personality.”

“You don’t look so hot yourself,” she muttered, though he thought the twitch of her mouth meant amusement and not rage. He couldn’t tell for certain; he needed more practice reading her expressions. She was too good at hiding. “Do you have a truck near here or something, or are we walking?”

“Walking, unless you want me to call the bears.” Nick arched an eyebrow as he handed her a bowl piled with a mess of hash. “And how do you propose to tell Eloise you’re fine but not have her blurt that out to her mate? That lawyer is the worst secret-keeper in the entire fucking city.”

Lacey frowned as she looked at the food. “I haven’t figured that out yet. And I need to speak to my second-in-command, Savannah. I just need to make sure everything is fine with Cass in control. Once I know the cackle will be taken care of and things will go on, I can walk away.”

He didn’t like that part. At all. What if the second told her things weren’t fine and Lacey decided to stay? What if she challenged the new alpha for control and ended up in rank fights? Lacey could be hurt or killed to get something she didn’t even really want. And then he’d have to get the witches to intervene even more, and he didn’t even want to think about how much it would cost him to do that. He didn’t even know if the witches could pull someone back from the dead. It was worth finding out, just in case.

“Did you hear me?”

Nick blinked, looking over at her. “What?”

“I asked if you knew who we needed to see to figure out how to free Ray and deal with the djinn.” Lacey put the empty bowl aside and made a face as she sipped the strong coffee. “Since that’s first on my list of things to do.”

He had other ideas of what should have been first on the list. But Nick kept those for another day. “I can give them a call, but they won’t want to meet right away. Maybe tonight. You should probably deal with the cackle first. And call Eloise.”

“What, are you afraid of her or something?” Lacey arched an eyebrow in challenge.

“You bet your ass I am,” Nick said. “She turns people into stone with her eyes. I’m not trying to piss her off.”

Lacey muttered something about cowards under her breath, then shoved to her feet and stretched, making groaning noises that turned Nick on way more than they should have. “I’ll call her on the way. How far is it to the road? Can the bears pick us up, or should I have Eloise? I’ll protect you from her scary eyes.” Lacey rolled her eyes as she said it, clearly underestimating her crazy-ass friend.

Nick picked up the battered cell phone, debating the wisdom of both approaches. “The bears are closer. But you’ll have to help me convince Kaiser I’m not crazy and don’t need to be locked up. Otherwise you’re on your own and I won’t tell you how to find Ray.”

“Great.” Lacey looked doubtfully at the flimsy flip-flops, then shrugged and got up. “Let’s get moving.”

He definitely regretted giving her the coffee. It would have been a much better morning if she just wanted to snuggle back up in bed.

He regretted it even more after the hour-long forced march through the forest at a breakneck pace, without stops or water or anything. Nick considered himself in pretty good shape, but Lacey moved with a single-minded determination that left him huffing and puffing for breath in her wake. He grumbled and complained, but she hardly looked at him.

Kara made fun of him for being out of breath when he called her, after she got over being relieved he wasn’t crazy, and even Owen smirked by the time Nick dragged himself out of the trees and up to the road where they waited next to a giant SUV.

The bear chewed on a long grass stem, eyeing Nick as Kara handed Lacey better clothes than the ragged sweats. “So are you crazy or not?”

“I’m not crazy,” Nick said. “Ask Her Majesty.”

Lacey snorted, reappearing in a much nicer combination of jeans and T-shirt, and handed Nick the sweats. She glanced at Owen before reaching for the door of the SUV. “No, he’s out of his fucking mind. I tried to screw his brains out last night and he wouldn’t let me.”

Owen stared at her as Lacey jumped into the back seat of the SUV, and Nick felt his heart stop for a good ten seconds.

Kara looked at him from over the hood of the SUV, her nose wrinkled. “Dude. Ew.”

She climbed into the front passenger seat, leaving Owen and Nick staring at each other in silence. Owen finally shook his head, searching for something to say, then shrugged. “We’d always tell the Marines, never stick your dick in crazy. So I guess... you did the right thing?”

“I couldn’t tell you.” Nick still couldn’t believe Lacey blurted that out, right in front of his sister. What the hell kind of game was she playing?

“But you’re the dumbest fucker in the city,” Owen added under his breath, then got in the driver’s seat.

Nick had never agreed with him more.