How to Break an Undead Heart (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 3)

by Hailey Edwards

  “How can you be sure?” Squinting, the necromancer studied me. “You’re not bonded. Who does he belong to?”

  I blamed his curiosity on his panic and figured telling him would calm him. “Linus Lawson.”

  “Professor Lawson’s back?” His eyes lit up like stars in a moonless sky before crashing to the earth in meteoric indignation. “He loaned you his wraith?”

  The ease with which I chatted openly with this guy about Linus and his wraith drove home how foolish I had been to ignore the early-warning signs with Amelie. There was just too much history there, too much unhappiness. It had been easier to avoid the cracks in the façade of friendship than face what was happening. But there was nothing for it now, and this guy wasn’t going anywhere until I answered his question, judging by the look on his face.

  “Yes, he did.” I lifted the tray of coffees. “Nice bumping into you and all, but I need to get back.”

  “I’ll come with.” He grabbed for the tray and frowned when I didn’t hand it over, but I didn’t want to explain about the empty cup when he tried passing out the drinks. “Where are you headed?”

  “To Professor Reardon’s office.”

  “Have you had him yet?” The guy groaned as he fell in step with me. “He’s a GPA torpedo.”

  “I’m not a student here.” I saw no reason to lie. “Though I did fall asleep listening to him bat theories around with Linus. I fell off my stool and busted my butt, the whole nine yards.”

  “You came here with Professor Lawson?” Any rounder and his eyes might pop from overinflation. “As in, you’re with him?”

  “Well, thanks for chaperoning me.” Ignoring his question, I picked up my pace to a near sprint until the squat building came into view. “I’ve got it from here.”

  “Let me get the door.” He rushed ahead and held it open. Darting in on my heels, he jogged past me on his way to Reardon’s room. With an apologetic look flung over his shoulder, he hammered on the wood. “Your hands are full.”

  “Thanks.” This kid had a serious case of hero worship. He was giving me flashbacks of me at my most obnoxious, when I would have done anything to catch Boaz’s eye. “You’ve done your good deed for the day.” I smiled tightly. “You can get back to what you were doing before Cletus and I derailed you.”

  “Cletus?” The guy divided his attention between me and the door. He was worse than a dog pawing to get out when he had to pee. His focus snapped into place when Linus appeared on the threshold. “Professor Lawson.”

  Arching a brow, he glanced between the two of us. “Do I know—?”

  Linus didn’t finish asking before the guy swung out his arm, metal glinting, and sliced a thin line through the shirt over his chest. Stunned by the sudden violence, Reardon froze. Or perhaps it was the scent of fresh blood that immobilized him.

  Determined not to freeze too, I pried out the tall black coffee, flipped off the lid, and flung it at the back of the guy’s head. He screamed, twisting to look at me, but didn’t lift a hand to stop me as I splashed my mocha latte in his face.

  Arm swinging in protective arcs, he kept Linus back while he dried his eyes on his sleeve, but his face was a mottled red, and his vision was shot. He cranked his head back toward the doorway, squinting to relocate his target, in time to intercept Linus’s fist across his jaw. He took the hit and crumpled to his knees.

  Tossing the tray and empty cup aside, I used Taz’s favorite move and kicked him so hard in the ribs, I felt the reverberation through my aching tailbone. He slumped onto the floor, hand fisting the knife, fingers twitching on the handle.

  I took a healthy step back, not out of fear, but to escape the seething fury in Linus’s limpid, black eyes.

  Strolling forward, he stepped on the guy’s wrist, applying pressure until his fingers flexed open, and the knife clattered onto the tiles. He kicked it away before squatting near his head, forearms resting on his thighs. Black wisps pooled around his ankles, the hem of a cloak that climbed up his shoulders in a creeping fog that had the man babbling for mercy.

  The wasteland of eternity shadowed his eyes. There was no mercy to be found there.

  With the attacker subdued, Reardon turned his back on us and focused on deep-breathing exercises that did nothing to bolster my confidence in his ability to not eat me.

  “Who sent you?” Linus demanded, his voice as hollow as a tomb and just as resonant. “Who escorted you onto school grounds?”

  Trembling, looking anywhere but at Linus, at that living fabric, the guy kept his mouth shut.

  “Are you willing to die for your secrets?” His tone hardened. “Who. Sent. You?”

  “Linus,” I whispered, unsure what I was asking, if I was asking anything at all.

  “The punishment for treason against your potentate is death.” He cradled the man’s skull in his elegant hands, the ones capable of producing such beautiful art. “Speak now, or your sentence will be carried out where you lie.”

  Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, but he locked his jaw.

  “Justice is served,” Linus murmured. “May the Goddess grant you peace.”

  The crack of vertebrae splintering was deafening, and my ears kept ringing long after Linus lowered the man’s head gently back onto the floor.

  This violent side of him I had, on an intellectual level, known existed. A new mask. One I had yet to see how well it fit. He was the champion of a city, the Society’s own law made flesh. Enforcing those rules would come at a cost. What I hadn’t expected was the cold light that gilded him the moment he decided the man’s fate or the indifference that smoothed his features as the spark went out of his eyes.

  While Linus arranged for a cleanup crew, a service I shuddered to realize must be on most necromancers’ and vampires’ speed dials, I sank to the floor in the farthest corner of the room. Knees tucked against my chest, I had the phone in my hand before making a conscious decision to call Boaz.

  “Hey, Squirt.”

  “Hey back,” I rasped. “You got a minute?”

  “Sure,” he said, distracted. “What’s up?”

  “I’m having a bad day,” I confessed. “Two bad days, actually.”

  “You okay?” A hint of his usual warmth surfaced. “Where are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” I rested my chin on my knees. “Where are you?”

  “My location is classified.”

  “Yeah.” I exhaled, long and slow. “Yeah.”

  “Talk to me, Grier.”

  The brutal mask of executioner Linus had slipped on moments earlier shook me, and I couldn’t pinpoint why, but that coldness had seeped into me. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

  “Yes.”

  “A lot of someones?”

  “Yes.”

  “During your army days?”

  “And as an Elite, yes.”

  As the tension in me uncoiled, I realized this was what I had wanted to hear. Proof that black and white were myths. That only shades of gray existed. That good people did bad things, accepted malignant stains on their souls, when all other choices were stripped from them.

  Linus was as much a soldier as Boaz, even if his battlefield was defined by city limits, and I had no right to judge either of them unless I picked up arms—made those same life-or-death decisions—too.

  “You sound off.” A throaty horn that reminded me of a container ship blew in the distance. “Where’s Linus?”

  “He’s disposing of a body.”

  “Not funny.” A car door slammed, cutting off the background noise. “I’m serious.”

  Tears threatened. “So am I.”

  “Grier?” Linus called, and I sniffled before lifting my head. “Are you ready to go?”

  Knuckles white, I clutched the phone like a lifeline. “We’re leaving. Call me later?”

  “Sure.”

  I signed off without saying goodbye, not seeing the point when I could hear the lie in his voice.

  “Amelie?” Linus asked after I got to
my feet. “How’s Woolly doing?”

  “Boaz,” I corrected him.

  The cleaners, whoever they were, worked fast. No signs of a life snuffed out marred the tiles. The corpse had been moved, and the floor glistened where it had been polished to a high shine.

  Reardon, the coward, had escaped at some point. Vampires his age, made poorly or not, ought to be in control of their bloodlust. That he wasn’t had me questioning if this was his refuge or his prison.

  “Ah.” Linus locked the office behind us then turned and painted a series of warding sigils on the door.

  My jacket, splashed with coffee, bothered me, so I tossed it in the trash. “We’re done?”

  “You are.” He paid the crumpled jacket more attention now than while I was wearing it. “Are you all right?”

  “You beheaded two vampires last night.” I hadn’t meant to blurt it out quite like that, but there you go. “You executed a necromancer tonight.” I unclasped my red accessories and ditched those too. “Your life here isn’t how I pictured it. You—as this person—is not how I imagined. I’m not sure what to think.”

  “I warned you.” Disappointment rang out loud and clear. “I explained there was a cost.”

  “You did.” I owed him that much. “But this…” the killing, the darkness, “…it’s not you.”

  “How can you be sure?” His honest curiosity made my heart ache. “Maybe this is who I am.”

  “No.” I refused to believe this was the core of his apple. “This is a thing that you do, not who you are.”

  “The city is unsettled.” The abrupt change in conversation left me no wiggle room to get us back on topic. “Part of that is due to my absence.”

  “And the rest is my presence.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t sugarcoat the truth. “Whispers about a goddess-touched necromancer are spreading faster than the Society can contain the rumors.”

  The elegant neckline of my blouse might as well have been a noose. “I won’t be locked in a cage.”

  Confinement made the most sense. It would be the next logical step once the streets became too dangerous for me to roam freely. Though Cletus negated that. Free wasn’t free when you were watched and reported on every second you spent outside your house. Still, it was a pretty illusion.

  “It won’t come to that,” he vowed, and I believed him.

  Holding tight to that hope, I had to ask, “Why did he attack you and not me?”

  Hindsight, as always, brought clarity. The shadow near the amphitheater. Goddess, I should have asked Cletus to investigate. Going for coffee had given the would-be assassin a few precious minutes to bump into me. But there had been no time to mention the incident to Linus. Everything had happened so fast.

  “I’ve been asking myself the same thing. He isolated you. He could have taken you at any time. There was no reason to confront me. Unless he was afraid of the wraith. But it doesn’t track that he wouldn’t fear me more. And yet he did escort you to the classroom.” Linus touched his chest, where blood stained the front of his shirt. “Incapacitating me appeared to be his top priority. Any designs he had on you were secondary.”

  The bull’s-eye was still painted on my back, though. Not his. “He went out of his way not to harm me.”

  “I wish I had a better answer for you,” he said, sliding a look at me, “but I don’t know.”

  Unable to glance away, I couldn’t hide the truth from either of us. “All these deaths are on my head.”

  Linus stopped in his tracks, and I paused at his side, glancing around the quad to see what he’d spotted that I hadn’t, but he turned to me and framed my face between his cool palms.

  “None of this is your fault.” His thumbs stroked my cheeks, and I should have cringed away, the death still so fresh on his hands, but I couldn’t move. His open expression, all masks removed, held me rapt. “I killed those people for the choices they made, the actions they took. Their blood is on my hands.” As if realizing he meant it in the literal sense, he dropped them to his sides and left my face tingling. “The Society wants you seen as untouchable. For that to happen, an example must be made of those who try and fail to obtain you.” His dark blue eyes held mine. “I’m happy to provide that example.”

  Heart crumbling around the edges, I linked my arm through his and led him to the parking lot in time to watch Tony cut off two cars and bump his passenger-side wheels on the curb. He raised his eyebrows and mouthed what before turning up his can of energy drink.

  Linus and I didn’t speak during the drive back to the Faraday, and I hoped the silence wasn’t becoming a habit with us. He helped me out onto the curb, and I eased around him while he tipped the driver. I was making time toward the entrance when the spectacle unfolding in front of the building pulled me up short.

  A frazzled man was being assaulted by one heck of a pissed-off woman. The pair blocked the front door, and Hood, who peeled from the shadows where he had been content to watch, seemed to notice this too.

  “Take your domestic issues elsewhere,” he growled. “You’re blocking the entryway.”

  “He pays your salary,” the woman sniped. “We can fight wherever we damn well please.”

  A warning rumble pumped through Hood’s broad chest.

  “Vi,” the man soothed. “This isn’t the time or the place. Let’s go upstairs and talk.”

  “Upstairs?” She jabbed a finger toward one of the higher floors. “I saw that hussy napping on your bed. Naked. How could you? You better not have bought her that collar. Those were real emeralds, Ian.”

  Oh, goddess. There had to be more than one collared hussy in the building, right?

  Surely Meiko didn’t spend her days amusing herself by popping up in bed with Linus’s neighbors.

  Then again…

  “Ah, excuse me.” I hated to butt in when things had gotten so heated. “About the naked woman?”

  That was as far as I got before the crazy lady whirled on me.

  “Are you another of his girls?” Her fevered gaze swept over me. “How many are there?”

  “Move aside,” Hood ordered, lumbering toward us. “Or I will clear her a path myself.”

  Reaching the end of her rope, the woman swiped out with her arm, claws shining on her fingertips.

  Our proximity allowed me to knock her hand aside without Hood getting shredded in the process.

  Taz would have been proud of my quick reflexes.

  Gently, he ushered me out of his path until he loomed over the woman. “This is your final warning.”

  Sucking in a lungful of air, she screeched, “Bite me.”

  Magic washed up his legs in a red wave that splashed onto his shoulders, climbing until it tickled his jaw. When the viscous liquid drained away, Hood did too, melting into a muscular form that was half bull mastiff and half Komodo dragon. His rust-colored fur gave way to heavy scales in strategic spots. Needlelike teeth filled his mouth, and his bloodcurdling bay as he challenged her raised chills down my spine.

  The man turned on his heel and ran faster than any necromancer had a right to move.

  I took one step back but froze when Hood swung his blocky head my way, and I rasped, “Good boy?”

  Snorting out what might have been a canid laugh, he resumed his hunt.

  After knocking the shrieking woman onto the ground, he clamped his wide jaws on her thin shoulder and bit down until crimson stained his mouth. He slung her between his paws until she fainted from sheer terror. With a disgusted huff, he released her then padded over to me.

  A cool presence materialized at my elbow, but Cletus made no move to intervene. I was hoping that was a good sign.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Linus, but he too remained still. Tension lined his face, but he was absent his tattered cloak, telling me he hadn’t hit panic mode yet.

  Ignoring the wraith, Hood snuffled my palm where it rested against my thigh until I lifted my hand. I gave his massive head a hesitant pat, and he licked me, smearing gore
and drool from the wrist down to my fingertips.

  “Oh, ick.” I flung my hand. “Are you serious?”

  Chuffing under his breath, he walked off wagging his tail, leaving the woman to bleed out on the sidewalk.

  An ambulance pulled curbside within seconds, and Hubert exited the building in a huff. Two paramedics jumped out with a stretcher hung between them. They checked the woman’s vitals, scooped her up, and vanished all in the time it took me to remember how to shut my mouth.

  “Hubert would have called them once Hood got involved,” Linus told me. “A precautionary measure.”

  “Hood savaged that woman.” I held up my arm, crimson drool stringing between my fingers. “He could have killed her, and no one came out to stop him. No one told him no. They just watched.”

  I had watched, too terrified I might be next to intervene. But as the adrenaline ebbed, the excuse felt flimsy to me.

  “The Faraday has its own laws, and she broke them.” Linus cast the darkest shadows a wary glance before guiding me into the lobby. “I’ve seen Hood do far worse with much less provocation.” His cool fingers brushed the small of my back, and he guided me into the lobby. “I’m not certain why he finds you so interesting, but it’s for the best that we’re returning to Savannah tomorrow.”

  Savannah, not home. This—this topsy-turvy mess—was his haven.

  “Thank the goddess.” I wiped my hand on my pants. “I take back what I said about wishing I had never come here. I’m glad I did. I was chafing against the bonds holding me in Savannah, and this cured me of that. I’m more of a homebody than I imagined.”

  This side of Atlanta was not a facet I ever needed to see again.

  Linus shuffled me into the elevator. “Do you still want to tour the campus before we go?”

  “I’m good.” I waved away the offer with a sticky hand. “Maybe some other time.”

  “I ruined this for you.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I wanted to show you the best of my city, but it seems determined to only show you its worst. My worst.”

  “Hey, I meant what I said.” I caught his eye. “We can try this again after things calm down.” I smiled to make sure he understood I wasn’t laughing at him when I added, “But next time I’ll be getting a hotel room across town.”