Page 21 of Stolen By the Necromancer

I looked at him in disbelief.“I will. I’lldie before taking another person’s life!”

“Just watch.” He walked past me and into the kitchen. He grabbed a knife from the block and brought it over to me. I took a step back, keeping a solid five feet between us. Turning his hand palm up, he winced as he slid the knife across his hand. As quickly as the knife pierced the flesh, it healed up as if it had never happened.“I’venever met anyone strong enough to handle the magic in those books – until you.”

His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, with one powerful jerk he pulled me toward him as he plunged the knife into my stomach.

I gasped as I felt the blade pierce the flesh and into my stomach. There was an overwhelming urge to vomit as I looked down the length of my body to see the knife buried into me – to the hilt. Blood saturated the t-shirt where the knife went in, but when he pulled the knife back out, I yanked up the hem of my shirt to see aside from a smear of blood, the wound was gone – as if it was never there.

“Welcome, my love, to immortality.” When I looked up and into his eyes, he winked.“We’re going to have a hell of a time together.”

Epilogue

Six Months Later

Genevieve

A showdown.

That’s what it was.

I was returning home just as the sun was about to set, elongated shadows spread long and dark from the tombstones in the graveyard. A long dark carpet of darkness cast by the spire above welcomed in. I pushed open the heavy oak door to the sprawling gothic house I now called home.

I sensed him long, long before I saw him. I felt his presence, his simmering energy, before I even reached the driveway. When I focused on him, I could sense him from much greater distances, but when we were close it was not just a vague sense, it was overwhelming. We fully enveloped each other in blankets of our mystical power, weaving them together, uniting our energies.

But this night, Nero did not greet me with red roses, nor black ones. The air was not filled with the heady aroma of perfectly-seasoned steak and roasting vegetables. It was the atmosphere that sizzled, not the meat.

My magical guard strengthened immediately. I was much stronger, much more powerful now than I had been even a couple of months earlier. I could now wield a mighty strength I never knew existed until Nero first came to claim me.

Now, perhaps, I was nearly his match.

When we met he wanted to take everything from me, suck it out until I was an empty husk to be discarded like hundreds before me. But then, he fell for me. Or so I thought.

He stepped from the shadows, grim determination on his face. He was barefoot, wore black jeans, and was shirtless. The last crimson light of the day shone through a window high above, bathing him red with sun-blood.

A chill shimmied down my back as I took in the sight of him. His perfectly sculpted torso in the glowing red light made him look deadly-beautiful.

And he was.

In his hand he grasped a knife, an ancient artifact he picked up in Europe centuries before I was born. I knew this weapon, it was a magical blade, and unlike the ones in the kitchen, this one could seriously hurt me. It could kill me, drain me, destroy me.

“Welcome home, my love.” Hisonyx eyes danced and his voice was thick with an other-worldly timbre.

The last rays of the sun disappeared, his body was shadowed, and we became wraiths in the twilight. I boosted my magical shield until it was thick as molasses as his welcome became a vicious assault.

Nero flew across the floor far faster than any natural being could, knife raised, eyes focused on his target:me.

Was this it? Was he finally going to drain me as he had once planned to do? Would he carve through my shields, knife me in the heart, suck my lifeforce away, and make him the most powerful he’d ever been? The most powerful being on the planet, perhaps?

He was fast. So, so fast. A flashing blur.

But I was even faster. While he flew at me, I darted to the side so quick that to any mortal observer my movement would have appeared a mere flicker, a teleportation.

He knew my speed and anticipated my move. Even as his body reached my former position, his knife hand hadswung out wide, the blade carving through my magical shield, and slicing through the black t-shirt I was wearing. I danced to the side, shrugging off the shirt which had been cut neatly from neck to bottom.

We were both topless now and his eyes feasted on my form. His attack exposed my body and left him distracted enough that I could whip my own hand out, magical tendrils exploding from my fingers and driving into his wrist, forcing his fingers to spread wide open. His grip on the knife was released and the magical weapon dropped gently into my waiting palm.

I danced behind him, far quicker than he could even comprehend. I wrapped one arm tight around his neck and with my other hand I pressed the magic blade against his exposed carotid artery. I breathed in his ear as I slowly drew a line across his neck, releasing blood.

He gasped, and so did I as my breasts pushed into his gorgeous back, my nipples hard.

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