Page 39 of Which Witch Is Wicked?
She was getting ahead of herself. First things first.
“So zombies are wreaking havoc and I don’t think the problem is going to get any better.” She shifted gears back to the problem at hand. “What do you think we should do? Do you know how to kill a zombie?”
That thoughtful, unhurried silence would be considered rude in this day and age, but Aerin understood that he had the patience of an immortal, not to mention the memory of one. That was a lot of files to flip through in the ol’ noggin.
“I don’t know that there’s anything that can be done. Permit me to consult some texts. There exist manymanymyths about the dead coming back to life. The problem is, these are stories of those who conquered death himself and thereby become deities, or at least immortals. We’ve had this conversation before, you and I… Pantheons of your people. Demi-gods and luminaries who may or may not be deities but are supposed to have risen from the dead. For example, the Egyptian’s Ra and Osiris. The Nordic God Baldr. The Greeks had Adonis. The Babylonians had Ishtar. And a myriad of others, Ba’al, Bacchus, Hermes,
Dionysus, Mithras, Orpheus, et cetera. Even the son of the Christian God rose from the dead and the argument could be made that he’s a zom—”
“Dat!– stop right there.” Aerin held up a hand, forgetting that he couldn’t see her through the phone line. “I might not be religious, but being raised in a Judeo-Christian society I still expect to get hit by lightning every time you wax so blasphemous.”
That chuckle washed over her again, and the warm vibration made its way through her until it landed in her panties. “Lightning.” Amusement made his voice a little deeper. Even sexier, if that was possible. “That’s so charming coming from you.”
“Why?”
“You’ll find out, soon, I expect.” A deep breath expelled too close to his side of the mouthpiece, and it made that unpleasant noise that wind did over the phone. “I’ll look into this, Aerin de Moray. But this means I’ll have to see you again.”
Implications she dare not identify dripped from his cultured voice like expensive wine.
“You could call me,” she ventured.
“You could meet me,” he countered.
“So you can kill me? Please.”
“What if I gave you my word that I wouldn’t, this time?”
“Pff. Real romantic there, Casanova. But you have three brothers who’d love nothing more than to see my head on a spike.”
“I won’t tell them we’re meeting. And I won’t allow them to harm you. I—”
Aerin waited while he waged a silent battle with himself.
“I must see you again,” he said darkly. “I must… touch you again… just to remind myself that it’s possible. There’s nothing so soft as your skin, Aerin. Nothing so beautiful as your face.”
She snorted. “Except three other identical faces.”
“They’re not you,” he insisted. “Their eyes don’t flash liquid silver. Their mouths aren’t hard and cynical. Their tongues are not so sharp. Their clothes are not so fine.”
“Sycophancy.”
“Not at all,” he argued. “I want to feel your mouth soften. I like to think it only does that for me.”
And she’d be goat-fucked if he didn’t speak the absolute truth.
“Where?” she breathed. Suddenly feeling the damsel to his lord.
“The cliff where we kissed.” His voice sounded breathier, as well. Husky with anticipation.
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Midnight.”
She ended the call with a shaky breath. Of course it would be midnight.
The witching hour.
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