Don't Rush Me (Nora Jacobs #1)(71)

He clenches his teeth and glares at me, but I don’t back down. “I need Enzo to heal me, and it’s not going to be pleasant. You’re still worked up. You don’t want to hurt Enzo for helping me do you, big guy?”

His teeth grind, so I play the only other card I can think of that might work—I give him someone else to think about. “Why don’t you go check on Shandra, and I’ll come find you in a few minutes?”

He narrows his eyes and waits a moment just to be stubborn but finally grunts and walks off. Man, my troll is one adorable big lug.





Removing the knife from my shoulder hurts like a bitch, but I manage to lock my jaw and not scream. Terrance left, but he has excellent hearing and I don’t want to risk setting him off again. “Damn, Spitfire,” Nick says after the deed is done, and I’m left pale-faced and panting. “You’re one tough little woman.”

“Years of practice,” I say, letting out a breath of relief as the pain in my shoulder is replaced with a pleasant tingling sensation. My entire body relaxes, and I grin at Enzo. “You’re my favorite underworlder. Have I told you that?”

Warmth spreads through my shoulder and through Enzo’s cheeks as he works. “Thank you, miss.”

“You can call me Nora, you know. No more of this miss stuff, okay?”

His eyes flicker up to me but quickly drop to my arm again, and he ducks his head once in a nod. “If you’d like.” He lets go, and I roll my shoulder. It’s a little stiff, but otherwise good as new. Seriously, he’s the best.

“Is there anything else, Miss Nora?”

I do a quick internal assessment. “Nothing that a few days’ rest won’t fix,” I say. I’m stiff and sore from fighting Elijah, and a little queasy from the magic-laced drugs Elijah pumped into me, but other than that, I came out of the ordeal relatively unscathed. “Unless you can do something about extreme blood loss from being a vamp’s dinner.”

I’m joking, but Enzo’s face falls. He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I wish I could, but that’s out of my realm of healing abilities.”

“I know. I was only teasing. Sorry.” I give his shoulder an awkward pat, feeling bad for my tactless joke. “Thank you for fixing my shoulder. You’re seriously the best.”

This time, he lets himself grin. “Thank you, Nora.” He bows his head slightly. “If you’ll excuse me now, I must attend to the others.”

“Oh, of course. Go do your thing, rock star.”

Enzo walks away from me toward Maya and her werewolf friend, shaking his head and chuckling.

“You’re the only person in the world who dares tease him. I think he likes it,” Terrance says, joining me again. Thankfully, he seems to be back to his normal self now.

Nobody’s ready for me to leave yet, and I’m too weak from blood loss to get up, so I’m still sitting on the table/sacrificial altar. I have to look way up to see Terrance’s face, he’s so tall. That shiny head and face full of piercings should be frightening, but it’s so comforting I reach out and hug the massive troll. Terrance hugs me back and quickly lets me go, knowing I’m not big on touch.

“Why don’t people ever tease him?” I ask. “He seems like a sweet guy.”

Terrance glances toward the healer. “Respect, mostly. Shamans are revered in the underworld, especially the ones with strong healing abilities.”

“Oh. Crap. I hope I didn’t insult him.”

“No. Like I said, I think he likes it. Enzo isn’t a typical shaman. He’s not so stuffy. He prefers working for the Agency to sitting around in a temple all day. I think he would rather people treat him as a normal person, but he can’t quite shake the title.”

I watch Enzo heal Maya. The woman who was all sarcasm and spunk with me is being very demure with Enzo. “Huh.” I pull my attention back to Terrance. His face and hands are clean now, but the red stains on his shirt remind me I had a question for him. “So…Elijah’s dead, but what about the rest of his brotherhood?”

Terrance grimaces and lets out a sigh. “When Oliver called, I sort of lost it. He was wise to wait until he knew your location, or I may have rampaged through the entire city. The Agency kept me contained for the most part, but while we were trying to figure out how to get past the dark magic surrounding this place, three people exited the warehouse headed for that hideous yellow car. No one could hold me back from actual targets. To be honest, I’m not sure they wanted to hold me back.”

He’s not saying it, but I know he killed whoever the unlucky bastards were. I wonder if I should feel bad about that, but I just can’t seem to muster up any moral conscience over the fact that my kidnappers—who were seriously evil psychotics about to murder a dozen innocent people—are dead. The underworld is a dangerous place with a different set of rules. I’m not sure what it says about me that I seem to fit into this darker new world better than I ever fit into my own, but I’ll save that thought for another day. “And the rest?”

Terrance shakes his head. “I came straight here, so they live. The Agency raided their house and have all of them in custody.” He frowns. “Their futures look pretty grim. The Agency doesn’t take kindly to dark magic or humans who threaten our world. Some of those guys may end up wishing I’d gotten to them first.”