Page 55 of Necromancers Don't Raise

“I don’t give lectures. Perhaps in the future you’ll be more careful with your health and safety. If not, I’ll kiss you again.” He nodded thoughtfully, with a slight smile on his soft mouth. “Yes, I think that will do nicely.”

I grabbed his arm and ran my hand along it until I got to the break. I stared at the gashes and the odd angle of his arm beneath it. “You took my broken arm? Why would you do that?” I still didn’t believe it. Magic couldn’t work that way, could it?

“I hurt you unintentionally. I am too dangerous to make such careless mistakes. You need better body armor designed specifically for you instead of a goblin. It’s good armor, truly well-spelled, but you require more. I’ll have my tailor see to it.”

I sputtered as I shook my head. “No, your tailor won’t. That serpent was after me, but you took the brunt of the attack. And then instead of us both being injured, you took mine too? Why would you do that?”

“You are mine to protect. You know this.”

“I know that you really are a terrible, horrible, evil, wicked, unconscionable sorcerer to make me feel worse about the attack, which was all my fault.”

“Your enemy is mine.”

“No, he’s not! And my pain isn’t yours any more than your business is mine.”

I glared at him while my eyes burned from holding back angry tears.

He peered into my eyes, then nodded. “You’re hungry. Bones, we’re going to stop at the nearest place to get Miss Nova something to help her blood sugar stabilize.”

I gasped at the sheer nerve of him, dismissing my anger as hunger. “I’m not hungry. I’m angry.”

“Perhaps you’re both.”

I hit his shoulder with my fist. “Stop trying to fix me and make me all better. It’s infuriating.”

He studied me intently. “You have empathy and feel my pain worse than I do. I forgot that humans are sometimes miserable about another’s pain. In that case, I’ll contact the Grand Sorcerer. She’s very good at surgery, potions, and will know exactly what I need to expedite the process.”

“You could have asked her to heal me instead.”

“But her husband might not like her kissing you.”

“That wasn’t a kiss. It was theft.”

“I stole a kiss.”

“You stole my broken arm! Why would you do that if you feel no empathy? You have all the empathy for the dead, but I’m not dead anymore, Mercury. I’m a live girl. I can heal all by myself.”

“You’re mine to protect.”

I shook my head and looked out the window while misery crowded around me. “You’re only the master of the dead. I haven’t been dead for a long time. At this rate, you’re going to die before I do, and I’ll come back.”

He rested his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged him off.

“Bones, drive fast, and make sure you hit every pothole in town,” I snapped.

Mercury’s low rumble of laughter made my skin prickle, and I wanted nothing more than to turn around and wrap myself around him and try to press my worry into his skin.

But I couldn’t take his pain with magic or anything else.

Chapter

Fifteen

Icalled the sushi place, the Cat’s Pause, and asked if the Grand Sorcerer was there.

“Who?”

“The grand…You know, lady with a scarred face and a fedora.” I was trying to make it sound like official business, but the grand sorcerer didn’t have business hours.

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