Don't Rush Me (Nora Jacobs #1)(69)

“I trusted you.” I giggle, as if I’m completely drunk. “Now help me. We need to get the werewolves out, Nadine wants to eat me, and I can’t lift Shandra by myself.”

I blink my way back to reality and look around. A soft groan rings out, and Maya shouts, “Hurry, Nora! He’s coming to!”

“Shit!” I grab Parker’s wrists and jump to my feet.

The second I do, everything goes sideways. Parker catches me with a curse. “Damn it. You shouldn’t have fed me after Elijah took too much from you yesterday.”

“Whatever. Let’s just get the others.”

Parker shakes his head as he scoops me into his arms. “I don’t think so. The Agency will come back for them. I’m getting you out of here.”

“No way.” I struggle to get out of his arms and point to the wolves and Shandra. “I’m not leaving without Shandra! I promised Terrance. Get her out of here while I unlock the wolves.”

“Not a chance.”

“PARKER!” I push away from his chest hard enough that he drops me to my feet. “I’M NOT LEAVING HER!”

His eyes meet mine, and I shake my head. “Please, Parker. Just get her first.”

Whether he decides I’d just run right back in here—which I would—or he just wants to get on my good side, Parker nods, then runs to Shandra’s cage. I head for the cupboard with the keys to the silver cuffs, and by the time I find the key, Shandra and Parker are gone.

I run to Maya, but before I can get her free, Elijah is there. “You shouldn’t have done that, Nora,” he says, dragging me backward out of her cell by my ponytail.

I fight with everything I’ve got to escape his grip, but I’m weak from blood loss and he has some kind of inhuman strength. I toss Maya the keys as I’m dragged from the cell, but they don’t quite make it to her. “I’m sorry! But Parker will come back, I promise!”

She shakes her head at me, as if her safety doesn’t matter. “Be careful!”

“Nora will be fine,” Elijah says as he throws me down onto a large table in the middle of the room. “However, Parker won’t be back, because no one can get back in through my wards.”

When I notice the shackles attached at both ends of the table, I start to think this is less of a table and more of an altar. My heart stops and then starts beating in overdrive. Adrenaline surges though my body, making me come alive with the need to fight back or flee.

I amp up my struggling when he grabs one of my wrists and locks it to the table. I manage to punch him with my free fist, and he falls backward. “Damn it, Nora! Stop it! You already broke my nose on the cell bars!”

“Good!”

I scratch and claw at my locked hand, and I yank at the cuffs so hard my wrist quickly rubs raw and starts to bleed. But I can’t break the lock. I’m stuck.

Elijah grabs my feet next, and though I kick and buck so hard I feel like I might dislocate something, he manages to lock both of my feet to the table.

Fear pulses through my veins. Raw terror seizes my lungs. “Please don’t do this,” I gasp.

I’m so scared my whole body starts shaking. Tears prick the corners of my eyes. Elijah smiles as he grabs my last free limb. I try to pull away from him, but my adrenaline is starting to leave my body, and I’m just plain not strong enough to fight him.

He smiles down at me with some kind of cracked out affection, and something deep within me responds to it. A feeling starts to bubble up in my gut, and my instincts start battling my fear. Something is telling me that I am stronger than this man.

When he holds a chalice to my wrist and lifts his knife as if he means to bleed me, my instincts take over and I call out his name. The word leaves my lips, sounding musical, and Elijah pauses. His eyes lock in mine and his pupils dilate. Satisfaction swells in my chest at his response. Elijah is my prisoner. Not the other way around. “Release me.”

Elijah sets his knife and chalice aside and robotically starts to unlock my chains. He frees one of my wrists and then seems to shake himself from his trance. His eyes flash to mine, burning with anger. “What did you do to me, you little vixen?”

The power inside me is starting to slip away, as if retreating back to its hiding place where it will go back to sleep. I reach desperately for it and tug it back to the surface. “Let me go,” I command.

Elijah flinches, as if being punched by my power. His eyes widen, but then he narrows them and grits his teeth. His jaw clenches tight, and he refuses to break my stare. “I don’t know what you are,” he hisses, “but you are not stronger than me.”

The tingling sensation of magic washes over me, and I start to feel sleepy. He’s putting me under a spell. I steel my resolve and thrust all that power inside me outward. It crashes against Elijah’s magic, and for a moment the two of us are locked in a battle of magical wills.

Our concentration is shattered by a huge boom that sounds like an explosion, but nothing has blown up as far as I can tell. The building shakes, though, and Elijah’s eyes go wide. “Impossible,” he breathes.

“What?”

He blinks at me. “Someone broke through my wards. They were infused with dark magic.” He shakes his head. “No one in Detroit is powerful enough to do that.”

A goofy grin spreads across my face, and I start screaming my head off. “Oliver! Oliver! I’m in here! Oliver!”