“Come now,” Nikolaos practically purrs in my ear. “Let them have their fun while we have ours.”
Nikolaos starts to pull on me, but I stiffen every muscle in my body and resist him. “I’m not leaving her here.”
Making a soft growl of impatience, Nikolaos twists me around in his arms until I’m looking at him. “Is that so?”
Meeting his blue eyes, my first instinct is to not piss him off. To continue to behave like a ‘good girl’ to keep his guard dropped…
But my gut is telling me I’ll never see Charity again if I walk away.
If I don’t act now, then when?
Stiffening my spine, I hold his stare and say, “Yes.”
Nikolaos’s eyes fill with angry confusion, and I get the impression he’s not used to being told no before my world spins.
A strong wave of vertigo rolls through me and my brain struggles to grasp what the hell just happened.
The light is suddenly darker and there’s something hard and unyielding against my spine.
No longer holding me but looming over me, Nikolaos says, “Funny, I don’t remember giving you a choice.”
Forcing myself to overcome the urge to puke, I look over his shoulder to see that the place I’m in has suddenly changed.
Gone is the bar, booths, and dance floor.
There’s a wall behind Nikolaos, and I quickly realize there’s a wall against my back.
He must have moved me to a hallway, away from the others.
Away from Charity.
Grinning at my distress, Nikolaos dips his face close to mine, forcing my eyes back to him. “Be a good girl, Chloe.”
The tug, the pull, to obey is there, and I’ve given into it so many times tonight to survive I almost give into it again.
But being a good girl won’t get me or Charity out of this mess.
Taking it for granted that I’m going to do as he commanded, Nikolaos leans back and grabs my hand.
I let him lead me for a few steps, obediently following after him.
The second he walks up to a door and opens it, I slip my hand out of his grip.
Spinning, I look in the direction we came from.
And like earlier tonight, outside the church, it feels like I only blink and I’m instantly down the hall.
Unfortunately, there’s a two-way split.
Before I can decide which way to go, Nikolaos is on me, moving almost as fast as I did.
“What the fuck?” he snarls and slams me into the wall.
All the air leaving my lungs, I gape at him as he pins my hands above my head.
“How did you do that?” he demands.
Struggling to suck in oxygen, I can only stare at him.
Impatient for an answer, he repeats his question as a command. “How did you do that, Chloe?”
I squeeze my eyes shut against the twinge behind my ribs to obey, noticing it’s not quite as strong this time.
“Chloe,” he practically hisses and gives me a hard shake. “Answer me.”
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve already resisted the other three commands, but the tug is even weaker now.
So weak my heart starts to quicken. The unnatural calmness I allowed myself to feel earlier becomes apprehension.
Growing angrier and angrier the longer it takes me to respond, Nikolaos’s starts to crush my wrists in his hands and roars, “How the fuck did you move so fast?!”
The pain and the roar in my face awakens the lizard part of my brain.
Without really thinking about what I’m doing, I somehow rip my wrists out of his hold and shove him away from me.
Screaming, “I don’t know!”
Nikolaos staggers back, his pale face going even whiter with shock.
I take a stumbling step forward, fully intent on making a run for it again.
But my entire world flips upside down.
All at once, every single one of my senses intensifies, knocking me on my ass.
My sight, hearing, and sense of smell go into overdrive, overwhelming me with stimuli.
The things in front of my eyes become so vivid and sharp, I might as well be blind. The lighting no longer dim but too bright.
My head swims as the smell of my own cinnamon oil fills and burns my nose.
My heartbeat pounds in my ears, drowning out all other sounds.
The worst thing, though, is the hollow ache in the center of my chest.
The ache of being incomplete…
It’s a pain like no other pain I’ve ever known.
So agonizing and all-consuming, it’s utterly debilitating.
Time becomes meaningless as I struggle to survive my own senses.
It feels as if days pass, days trapped, twisting in agony, before everything begins to wane.
As fast as it came, everything begins to slow down and weaken, until I once again have a sense of self.
I can feel my body again.
The first thing I become aware of is that my eyes are squeezed shut. The second thing is that I’m no longer sitting on my ass.
No, I’m lying prone in someone’s arms.