Page 65 of Necromancers Don't Raise

“Hmph.”

“Honestly, you don’t know how many people I’ve raised who try to eat my face off the second they scent me, or hear me, or whichever sense kicks in first. Instead, you were warning me to be wary of you.” He chuckled, low and rich, sending goosebumps down my spine.

I wriggled, trying to turn around, but he wouldn’t release me. “Why won’t you let me turn around?”

“Because you’re in my bed. I’m not a gentleman of any kind, and you are in my bed.”

“You said that twice.”

“I meant it even more times than that.” He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer. “Relax and soak in my warmth. Death magic generates a good deal of heat. That’s why I’ve gone to war so much in the winter with my undead armies, just because I get too hot otherwise. Cold winters also help preserve the flesh, so there’s less upkeep.”

“Win-win.” I shivered and pressed into him, soaking in his delicious heat until I was perfectly warm. He felt so good. Did I ever have to move? I could die happy like this. “Mercury, the next time you want to rescue me, would you please not try to kill me in the process? Your magic was out of control. I thought we were all going to die.”

He took an unsteady breath and held me tighter for a moment. “You were with one of the most noteworthy up-and-coming magic users in the world. That she didn’t put a shield spell on you and her entire entourage wasn’t careless, but calculated. She is capable of much more than that, but she did nothing except throw you off the bridge. I may have to kill her for that. If she takes you somewhere that dangerous, the leastshe can do is protect you.” His voice rumbled with anger, but his touch was incredibly gentle.

I frowned at the thought. I’d never been in actual danger? Gabby could have shielded us the entire time? Was she trying to kill me or were sorcerers always insane?

I sighed heavily. “I suppose I was never in any real danger.”

He nibbled on my ear and I shivered again, but not from the cold. His voice was low, dangerously delicious. “Really? After what you just saw, after that terrifying experience, you’re in the grasp of a dark sorcerer in his bed on a boat surrounded by the seething undead. What is that if not dangerous?”

I hesitated. It was a peculiar situation, but he’d found me in the sewers and brought me home as a corpse before he knew me at all. “I know that you’ll never hurt me.” I swallowed hard. I was sounding too romantic about him, wasn’t I? I mean, I was in his bed, and he had said that he was obsessed with me, but it just didn’t seem real. It felt like a magic spell that would fade in the morning. “You’d rip apart the world for Bones, too, if he were in a situation where you felt he was threatened.”

“And then we’d snuggle in bed,” he growled and nipped my shoulder through his shirt. “No, my precious heart. I wouldn’t snuggle Bones, however adorable he was.”

I shivered theatrically, even though I was already toasty warm. “Well, he can’t get colds, can he? You just don’t want me sneezing on you, so you have to let me have your body heat.”

He humphed. “It’s very generous of me to let you have my body heat.”

I hesitated and then rolled away from him, breaking his hold and ending up facing him with a foot between us. He looked at me like no one had ever looked at me before, maybe because of the lightning in his eyes, maybe because Mercury could look at something and be fascinated by its artistry, maybe because he seemed to see me and know who I really was.

“Mercury, you really considered raising an army of the dead because I went to prison?”

He shook his head, but didn’t take his eyes off me for a moment. “No, I truly did raise an army of the dead because you were taken by a powerful sorceress somewhere I couldn’t reach.” His eyes were so intent, focused on my eyes, my face, but then moving to my throat, my mouth, his gaze so fierce, I could practically feel it running over my skin like a caress.

I cleared my throat and tried to focus on something other than the way he was looking at me. I failed. “Next time, perhaps you shouldn’t put on such a public display of your power. It’s going to ruin your reputation as a practically civilized member of society. Your business will suffer.”

He smiled lazily as he reached out and captured my hand in his, threading our fingers together. His voice was a low rumble. “I don’t give a fig about my reputation or my business. Not even half a fig. Although, to be honest, I never liked figs. Have you ever been stalked?”

I shrugged, still staring at him, the lines of his shoulders, his chest, his waist where the blankets camouflaged the rest of him. I’d been protected from anyone who gave me too many gifts, and my mother was very good at stopping anything she considered dangerous, but while Mercury was dangerous, I had no intention of ever stopping him.

“I’ve had a few admirers that my mother made a point to discourage. Have you had a lot of stalkers? Goblins, right?” I tried not to feel weird, because I didn’t want him to know that I was this close to wrapping him in police tape and declaring him off-limits to everyone who wanted to watch him sleep. I cleared my throat and smiled. “I imagine it’s because your kissing is so impeccable. You’ll have to watch out or I might start stalking you.”

He made a sound in his throat. “Impeccable? How dreadful. Kissing should be anything but ‘according to the highest standards of propriety’. Impeccabili translates as not to sin. Kissing should at least inspire some impurity.”

I stared at him while his dark eyes peered into my soul, searching for all my secrets while his lips parted slightly, soft lips that certainly inspired all sorts of things.

My mouth watered. “Should it?” My voice squeaked, and I cleared my throat, then looked away. “I don’t know very much about sin. They called me ‘the Saint,’ you know.”

“I know. Looking at me like that, with those enormous eyes rippling with emotion and trust, it’s very uncomfortable, as I want to take advantage of you very thoroughly. I suppose I’ll need to court you properly, appropriately, and I’m possibly the least appropriate dark sorcerer you’ll ever meet. I’ve been known to sell tickets while I raise the dead without my shirt, just to make enough for ice cream. Will you?”

I stared at him until I realized that it was getting awkward. “Will I help you sell tickets? No. Or, if I were an heiress, I would absolutely help you sell tickets, because I’d buy them all, but I will absolutely not assist you in making yourself even more desirable to other people. I have a streak of self-interest, you see.”

He shook his head. “Will you allow me to court you, Miss Nova? If you refuse, I will behave for at least a year before I ask you again.”

“What does behaving look like? Would there be hugs? Cuddling?”

“I suppose behaving would be whatever you wanted it to be as the word relies on your measure of such things, not mine. Well?” He frowned at me while I stared back at him.

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