“We have a lot of work to do and things are going to be busy,” she said. She still watched him from her eyelashes though, and it seemed like some of her confidence returned. A spark turned the air heated between them. “Deirdre and I can figure out what Rocko did to Silas, and we can fix him.”
“You and Deirdre?” He grinned, squeezing her tighter. “I like that you didn’t just assume she would do it alone.”
“Well, I know how Rocko thinks.” Ophelia shuddered and made a face. “I don’t like that we don’t know what happened to him, or where he went. He wouldn’t just die that quietly. It’s not like him.”
A sense of relief rolled through him when they finally stepped onto Deirdre’s property; he couldn’t have said why—magic, probably—but the moment he set foot on that block, everything felt calmer and more controlled. Henry eased onto the porch and elbowed open the front door, just in time to let Cricket escape with a disgruntled mrowr. Apparently they’d taken too long to defeat the evil sorcerer and get back to let him out or throw him more tuna to appease the master of the house.
“Ungrateful feline,” he muttered, then headed for the stairs.
“You can’t be serious about going to sleep,” Ophelia said, laughing. She didn’t start struggling as he climbed the stairs and turned toward his room, though she heaved a dramatic sigh. “There’s too much work to do.”
“There’s a lot of work to do,” Henry said, since he agreed with her. “But you need to rest. Whatever you did to that guy—it looked like it took a lot of effort. A lot of magic and whatnot. So stay here and rest and recharge.”
“Magic and whatnot,” she said, musing, as he dropped her on the bed and stood over her. Ophelia raised her eyebrows, some of that saucy attitude coming back. “I like that. Deirdre and I can name our coven that.”
He snorted and squeezed her foot before turning to his closet to retrieve real clothes. He couldn’t look at her in his bed for very long without getting entirely distracted, and she was right that there was still work to be done. He was about to suggest that Ophelia go back downstairs with him to distract Mercy or Fran, but when he turned back, still pulling on a T-shirt, he found her completely asleep.
Henry shook his head but thanked the universe she was safe and unharmed, and headed downstairs to see about taking care of the rest of the pack.
He checked on Ophelia every hour or so, but she stayed fast asleep. The only thing that changed was the volume of her snoring. And it wasn’t just her—apparently Deirdre passed out right in the middle of haranguing Evershaw about his deal with Smith. She was snapping fire and fury one moment, started yawning, and then slumped against her mate’s chest like someone turned off a light switch. Henry would have paid good money to see that, particularly the part where she handed Evershaw’s ass back to him, but he focused on getting Nola right first while Todd, Mercy, and Dodge focused on Silas.
They still struggled with the half-mad wolf by the time Henry and Evershaw approached the storm cellar where they’d dragged Silas after Smith finally maneuvered the wolfman onto Deirdre’s property. The fae hesitated at the boundary before edging through whatever magical barrier he sensed. Mercy, sweating and red-faced, stepped aside as Dodge took a turn trying to reason with the half-wolf, half-man monster who prowled the confines of where they’d trapped him.
Mercy looked on the verge of tears. “What if we can’t help him? No one can figure out whether he’s still there in his head.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Henry said. He caught her shoulder and pulled her against his side in a half-hug. “Once the witches are back to full-strength, they can take a crack at fixing all of this. We just need to keep him calm and prevent him from hurting anybody—or himself.”
Evershaw grunted, his gaze dark as he watched Silas stalk and pace on oddly contorted human legs. “This is fucked up. I want to know what happened with that fucking sorcerer, and I want his head on a goddamn pike outside my den.”
“We’ll get him,” Todd said, tone grim. He folded his arms over his chest. Dodge tried to tempt Silas with whiskey and cigarettes, two of his favorite things, but the half-wolf kept moving,