Page 64 of Necromancers Don't Raise

If his boat’s bedroom looked like this, what did his actual one look like?

With a rapidly beating heart, I searched the nearest chest of drawers until I found a black silk shirt that smelled like Mercury. Not that I cared. It was dry, and that’s all I wanted. Other than Mercury’s heat, and touch, and heart.

I shook my head, trying to not be like this. I had more important things to think about than Mercury’s bare chest. But maybe I could forget about everything just for a little while.Mercury wouldn’t mind if I used him to block out the rest of the world, like he hadn’t minded me kissing him at my own funeral.

I climbed into the exquisite bed, curled up in a ball, and tried to get warm. I couldn’t think about Mr. Good, my mother, or the murderer. I was too tired for reality if it was going to be that miserable.

“Mercury?” I called out, and the next moment, he was there, stepping out of the shadows on the gently rocking boat, still wearing his swim shorts and sunglasses.

I patted the bed beside me. “My feet are cold.”

He took off his sunglasses, and his eyes were so soft and concerned. Those beautiful eyes. Why did his eyes have to be so beautiful? He leaned over and reached beneath the blanket to capture my feet in his hands.

I tugged on his arm until he slipped beneath the blankets beside me, still holding onto my feet.

“Mercury, tell me something ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? I think it’s ridiculous that you didn’t spend more time in the tub. You barely dunked.”

I shook my head soberly. “No, that’s not ridiculous. Tell me why you don’t like octopi and make it impossibly farfetched. There should be mermaids involved, as well as a jealous sea-witch or two. Oh, I know. You were kidnapped by the sea witch’s octopus familiars, because you’re like catnip to them. Also, you should put on a shirt before I accidentally capture you and handcuff you to a cliff so I can sell tickets to all the goblins and sea witches. Your chest is unearthly beautiful, you know.”

“Ah, that kind of ridiculous.” He scooped me up against him so he was spooned against my back and my feet could be tucked between his bare calves. “Nova, I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Sick?” I tried to turn, a new alarm growing in my chest, but he pinned me in place and brushed his nose along the side of my neck, sending a different shock through me.

“The thought of bringing you back to life makes me sick. Mad. Absolutely ridiculous. You see, raising an army of dead in the harbor, preparing to invade Apple City and the surrounding countryside, perhaps the entire country, since the President allowed you to enter the domain of a sick and twisted…At any rate, my reaction was and is utterly ridiculous. I would devour worlds for you. Is it because you’re one of my pathetic undead, as you declare with so much certainty? Or is it because you bring my heart to life, filling it with fire and longing I thought were past my capacity to hold? I touch you, and there is nothing else. I am not your master, but you are mine. You have my heart, my soul, my body, and you may do what you will with me.”

I stared at the flickering flame in its sconce while my heart flexed and soared in ecstasy, but then I remembered that I’d asked him to tell me something ridiculously far-fetched, and my heart twisted and crumbled to dust. “Oh. That is a pretty ridiculous story. Good job out far-fetching me with the sea witch nonsense.”

He growled and bit my ear, not hard enough to break my skin, but I yelped mostly from the shock. “You’re impossible. How do you not see me raising an army of dead as a sign of my unhealthy obsession with you?”

I gulped and slid my hand over his, where it was resting across my stomach. “Mr. Good says that I take after him, with an ability to read everyone clearly except when it comes to personal feelings.”

“He’s not capable of personal feelings.”

“He tries not to be, but apparently my mother…” I frowned as I considered Mr. Good’s words. If he was really my father, if he’d actually known my mother, then maybe she’d actually gotten her surgery to become someone else. Or he’d tucked that lie in there to confuse me. Or it was all lies. But if she’d had another identity, maybe that was the key to this whole mystery.

“Your mother…” he prompted, brushing his nose against my neck again.

I shivered and gripped his hand tightly. “I’d like to talk to her, but I don’t think she’ll ever tell me anything. At any rate, she was his weakness, like you’re mine.”

He inhaled sharply and tightened his arms around me. “I’m yours. Yes.”

I smiled into the darkness and exhaled some of the tension and misery this day had brought. “Are you serious about being unhealthily obsessed with me?”

“I still have an army of undead just waiting to invade something. You should probably run away from me.” He tightened his hold on me. “Although, it’s probably too late since you bathed in my tub. Also my shirt. It’s soaking into your skin at this very moment, making it so I’ll be able to hunt you down if I ever lose you again.”

“Oh. That does sound serious.”

“Yes, undead armies usually are.”

“So, you’re serious about me even though I’m just some dull, unconventional beauty who’s far too young and inexperienced to tempt you?”

“Hmph. Using my own words against me. I make a point to stay away from young, idealistic women with goals and aspirations that I would only muddle. I’m a terrible, horrible, evil, wicked, unconscionable sorcerer, you know. I’m not interested in corrupting anyone, but you were sweeter than I could resist from the first moment I found you. I should have known you were that paragon of virtue and beauty they called the Saint as often as they called you the Blue Diamond. I’ve never come across an undead who arose with a full-blown conscience before.”

“Bones was only half-blown?”

“Bones had no conscience at all. He was a ravaging monster who…At any rate, we all mellow in time, but you were fresh-born a delight of intelligence and sweetness.”

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