Don't Rush Me (Nora Jacobs #1)(57)

His thoughts haven’t changed much; he still wants to know how I know who he is, but he’s a lot less annoyed with me. Now, instead, he keeps thinking about how beautiful I am, and he’s wondering how serious Nick and I are. We don’t seem to be that serious, because Nick hasn’t stopped me from talking to Elijah and sitting so closely to him, and Nick’s eyes keep drifting to other girls.

“Oh!” I say, laying my hand on top of his. “Well, that’s a funny story. I met your friend Xavier at Underworld the other night. He was with a friend of mine. He was cool, but he kept hitting on me. He kept trying to get me to come home with him even though I told him I had a boyfriend. I sort of had to glamour him a little to get him to back off.” I make an oops face and giggle conspiratorially.

Elijah perks up at this. “Glamour? You’re fey?”

I bite my lip and try to look nervous since underworlders aren’t supposed to talk about the underworld. Elijah begins rubbing small circles on my bare thigh with his thumb. “You can trust me, Nora. I myself am a sorcerer. I’ll keep your secrets.”

I pretend to consider it while I listen to his thoughts. He’s excited at the possibility that he’s found another underworlder, but he’s not sure he believes me. I seem human to him.

“Okay,” I say, biting my lip again. It draws his gaze to my mouth. “I’ll tell you, but you have to keep it secret. It could be dangerous if the wrong person found out about me.”

He grins and grips my thigh in a gesture meant to be supportive and comforting, but his thoughts say, Oh, honey, I am the wrong person, you just don’t know it.

And then I get images of past rituals. I see him sacrifice a water sprite—a young woman, looking so sickly and helpless, drugged by a dark magic roofie—and he takes her life force by drinking her blood. I want to be sick. I want to kill this jerk.

Nick must see the change in me, because suddenly he’s right there, grabbing Elijah’s hand and taking it off my thigh. I don’t want to know how hard he’s crunching it, but Elijah’s face flushes red and he winces, flexing his hand when Nick finally lets him go. Nick leans in close to him as he hauls me to my feet and says, “Get your own. This one is mine.”

It’s the perfect line, because it challenges Elijah, who is obviously prideful; it clarifies that I am indeed an underworlder; and most importantly, it tells Elijah that Nick only wants me because I’m an underworlder. For these reasons, I don’t kick Nick in the balls for treating me like a possession.

Nick pulls me away from Elijah, but not far enough that he can’t still hear us. “Baby,” he admonishes me quietly, “what are you doing? You can’t tell people what you are. The sidhe are so powerful, especially the Summer Court. You’re fey royalty, baby. People would kill you to get your power.”

Nice. Now I don’t have to come up with a type of fey on my own. Nick’s just given me the perfect cover story. I love that he’s right in sync with me on this mission. He’s the perfect partner. “But Nicky,” I whine. “He’s the leader of that group you want to join. We want him to trust us. I thought if he knew I’m an underworlder, maybe he’d let you in.”

“But we don’t know him yet. We’re just checking them out, remember? We don’t know if we can trust them.”

“Don’t forget I’m powerful, Nicky,” I say in full-on girly pout mode now. “I can take care of myself.”

Nick smiles at me and caresses my cheek. He lets his fingertips linger near the corner of my mouth. I’d be shocked by the move if it weren’t for the thoughts he’s sending me. It’s startling to hear him talking directly to me with his mind. He’s the first person who’s ever done that. You’re a hell of an actress, Spitfire. Too good. I didn’t like the way he was looking at you. Let’s just lie low for a bit. Let them chase us now.

I nod to let him know his message was received, and he lowers his fingers. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go mingle with sorority girls.”

I snort, but we go find a couple of girls in Alpha Gamma Delta T-shirts and start learning about sorority life.

Nick and I kill about an hour chatting with sorority girls and having drinks. Nick even talks me into a dance. The entire time, members of Elijah’s brotherhood keep a close eye on us and start seemingly random friendly conversations with us. We can always tell when it’s one of them, and I’m pretty sure we’ve met all eleven of them now. They’re vetting Nick pretty hard, so I think they’ve decided they believe I’m sidhe, and now they’re just trying to find out if Nick would be willing to play along with their sick game.

They’ve managed to separate us, but we’re still in each other’s sight. Hooptie guy and a couple of his brothers have Nick cornered in the kitchen, where he went with them to get more drinks. The second I was left alone, Elijah reappeared, and now we’re sitting on the same couch as before. He’s got his arm around the back of the couch behind me and is leaning in very close.

He might be trying to seduce me, but his intentions are a lot more nefarious, because from the moment he came over to me, my intuition kicked in, sending tingles up my spine. Elijah means me harm. The feeling that I’m in danger isn’t too bad, so he must not mean to do anything to me tonight. My guess is that he’s decided to let Nick into his brotherhood, and he plans to have Nick sacrifice me on Tuesday during the blood moon. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to get the hell out of here, but I force myself to keep playing my part. We’re so close. We’re going to get Shandra and the others back.