Page 78 of Necromancers Don't Raise

The elevator doors opened, and he stepped inside. Another man came towards the elevator, then stopped abruptly when he saw the rats, and possibly also Mercury, with his intense gaze. The doors closed, leaving us alone in the elevator. That is, other than the seething undead vermin.

He dropped my legs and then kissed me, holding me by the waist and tugging me closer and closer. He was so strong, so urgent, like he’d die if he didn’t kiss me breathless. That’s how I felt, like I would die if he ever stopped tasting me, pressing his soft lips against mine, filling me with more warmth and happiness that I’d gotten from anyone else. I needed him. His taste, his touch, his everything.

Too soon, the elevator opened on my floor, and Mercury broke away to pick me back up and carry me to my door.

“How do you know which apartment is mine?” I asked, sliding my fingers through his hair, and then rubbing my thumb over his silky bottom lip.

He nibbled on my thumb while his eyes flashed as he gave me a look that made me five kinds of flustered. “I have no idea how I could find the only apartment on this floor. I guess I’m just lucky,” he growled and then bumped noses with me. Every contact was a shock of electricity and honey. He felt so good, strong, capable. I completely forgot about the zombie rats until he set me down on the floor.

He gestured at the door. “If you would be so kind. I need to see your apartment before I raise an army of dead and start building fortifications around this apartment building with the bodies from every cemetery in a hundred-mile radius. Moose would not appreciate the smell.”

I opened the door and gestured him inside. It was a lovely apartment, warm woods, greens and peaches, with dozens of plants hanging near the missile-proof glass windows.

I walked directly to the wall opposite the windows, ran my fingers over the lever, so the wall slid apart, revealing my beautiful gun closet.

“You seem to have quite a collection of firearms,” he said after a beat of looking at racks and racks of my collection.

“Absolutely. Ah. This is the one I wanted.” I picked up a large shotgun that was almost as sleek and stunning as my new pair of pistols. “This is for vampires. You can’t kill them with little bullets, but this will blow the head off Salina if she happens to feel like visiting. Most of my apartment is a firing range. Would you like to shoot with me?” I looked at him hopefully while I held the large piece of destruction in my arms.

He studied me for a long moment before he ran his fingers down the side of my cheek and then picked me up in his arms, gun and all. “You are very seductive, wearing a gun.”

I gulped while my heart beat rapidly. “Three guns.”

“Where is your bedroom?”

I inhaled sharply, because I’d never had another person in my bedroom before. I mean, housekeeping came in every day, but I wasn’t there. “My bedroom?”

“Unless you have several. I can try every door until I hit on the right one.”

I shook my head. “Only one bed. I don’t have any live-in servants, so I just have a few extra empty rooms.”

His eyes narrowed fractionally. “Then I shall use my brilliant necromantic skills to deduce which one is yours.” He shook his head slightly and then walked directly to the linen closet. He opened it, peered in suspiciously, then closed it, all without putting me down. He tried the next door, the powder room, then the next, the laundry, then the next, the kitchen, almost like he wasn’t trying to find my bedroom.

Finally, he hit the right door, the cream wood with elegant carving, and opened the door and walked in, then placed me onthe edge of my bed with its apricot duvet. He knelt in front of me, rested his hands on my knees, and gazed up at me. “Miss Nova, would you aim your lovely weapon slightly to the left?”

I did so and noticed that it was pointed at the door. “Mercury, are you taking advantage of me?”

“No. And don’t sound so delighted at the prospect of being taken advantage of. You’re Cassandra Clarence, virtue’s shining golden girl. I’m making a point to not offend you.” He smoothed his hands down my leg to my foot, frowned at it and then slipped my shoe off, setting it on the floor next to me. “I’ll remove your holsters as well once I’ve gathered my resolve. You’ll need a maid that can assist you with the removal of enchanted accessories.”

“Do I? Or you could come and help me undress every night.” I winked at him and wiggled my eyebrows while he removed my other shoe and studied me expressionlessly.

“Only once we are safely married. Do you insist on long engagements like the one you had with our dear Philip?”

I blinked at him and then wrinkled my nose and gripped my weapon more securely. “Are you using your infamous sex appeal to lure me into a quick and dirty marriage with you?”

He smiled blandly. “Quick and dirty marriage? I don’t think those three words go together.” He kissed my nose and slipped my jacket off my shoulders before he started on the holsters. “No, I’m not opposed to the marriage itself being a long affair. Sometimes they last days, weeks, and in the case of elves, decades. It’s the engagement lasting years that I object to. If you need a long engagement, it’s probably for the best. You only know the pretty side of me. I wanted you to like me from the very first moment my zombie rats found you.”

I nudged him with the butt of my gun. “You mean you saw how delicate and freaked out I was by the zombie rats and didn’t want me to have hysterics every other afternoon.”

“Sometimes I have hysterics, and I am the necromancer. Seriously, it’s not a pretty work flow.”

I snorted. “Work flow? Also, I get that I was Cassandra Clarence, surgically molded into perfection, and therefore more than slightly superficial, but that was the old me.”

“You couldn’t even look at yourself in the mirror, even though there wasn’t anything horrifying about this face.” He brushed my cheek with his powerful hand. “You’re still just as beautiful as you were. Not as symmetrical, but just as breathtaking. More, because you’re unique, real, and frankly, horribly sexy.”

I giggled. “Horribly? Wow! Um, speaking of horribly sexy, do you want to go to a cemetery tonight and dig up a corpse?”

He blinked at me. “I am not a necrophiliac, just a necromancer. I don’t actually find digging up dead bodies particularly exciting. Perhaps when I first started, before the glow of the dead had waxed pale.”

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