Bury Their Bones (Wicked Fortunes Book 2)

by AJ Merlin

  “If I’m foolish, then so are you,” I accused rather boldly, unsure if I was even correct in my thinking. He was offended that I hadn’t wanted him here. And now that I had let it be known that it was because I cared and not because I didn’t want him, he was kissing me and pressing me into the bed.

  If he wasn’t getting attached as well, then I really needed my head checked.

  “I…” He jerked back, like I’d slapped him, and seemed lost for words for the first time. “You don’t want that,” he argued, but the words held very little conviction.

  “You may be able to get into my dreams and into my mirror, but you can’t see into my thoughts,” I promised. “You don’t know what I want.”

  His fingers stroked my still-bruised jaw that was beginning to ache with all the talking-and kissing-we’d done.

  “I’m cashing in one of your debts,” Merric announced suddenly, and my heart skipped a beat or seven in my chest.

  This couldn’t be good.

  Before I could panic, though, he went on brusquely. “You don’t get to tell me not to help or to leave like you just did again. I decide where to go, George. And if I want to help you, then I will help you. Without any input on your end.”

  I almost smiled. Was that even really a debt? “Okay,” I agreed. “I can do that.”

  “You will do that,” Merric corrected. He leaned down again, eyes searching mine and his breath hot on my lips. “George–“

  The door creaked open very loudly and very pointedly.

  Merric jerked upward, his tails bristling behind him. I looked past him, expecting Cian.

  It was Akiva.

  The lich leaned in the doorway, hands over his chest. “I’m so sorry,” Akiva drawled in his deeply accented voice. “Truly, I had thought to give you another few minutes, but then it got boring. If you’re well enough, George, would you join us downstairs?” His eyes leveled on Merric. “You were supposed to already be there.”

  Merric didn’t look at all ashamed. He grinned wickedly at Akiva, his hand still at my jaw. “You interrupted because you were jealous,” he accused. “Not because you got tired of putting your ear to the door.”

  “Oh yes, I am just so jealous,” the lich agreed. “Of your half-assed debt collecting and your adorable promises. You need practice.”

  The kitsune’s face fell to something like surprise and bafflement.

  “Enough,” I sighed, getting to my feet. “Do you have any clothes for me? I’m getting a little tired of being half-naked.”

  “Why?” Akiva blinked. “None of us will complain. Including your fox.”

  I expected Merric to jump on his words. Correct him in saying that he wasn’t mine at all.

  But the nogitsune just eyed Akiva with something like irritation and got to his feet.

  “Clothes?” I prompted when the two of them just looked at each other.

  “Here.” Akiva lifted my running shorts from the dresser. “We washed everything for you. Get dressed, if you must, and come to the living room.” He looked at Merric and opened his mouth to say something else but didn’t get the chance.

  The kitsune snorted and evaporated into thin air.

  It took me a few minutes to change, and I rubbed my jaw when I was finally done. My legs ached, as did my whole body, and a very large part of me wanted to sink back down on the bed.

  Instead, I dragged myself down the stairs, happy that no one was around to see that it took me almost double the time as usual.

  At least I was mostly healed. Though, I wondered how my ribs would fare if I did something stupid like taking a deep breath.

  I resolved to hunt down some aspirin in this Goddess forsaken house. Did hellhounds, liches, or vampires ever actually have the need for pain medicine? The thought almost made me laugh.

  The others were not in the living room, where I’d half expected to find them, but it was easy enough to follow their scent and the sound of their voices into the kitchen.

  The wooden floored kitchen was as pristine as always. If there’d been any kind of mess when the trio brought us back, the white marble countertops and shiny white cabinets had been wiped clean now.

  An island stretched along the length of the long room, and while normally it was only used to toss food on or toss the mail at. For the first time ever that I’d seen, it was being used as its intended purpose.

  Three stools had been dragged out of somewhere. One held Indra, another Merric. His shoulders were hunched very slightly, the dark circles under his eyes still looking a touch too deep for my liking.

  Was he really as well-healed as he’d said he was?

  The kitsune barely glanced up at my approach. The third stool was empty, and I gratefully slid onto it, my arms resting on the cool, shiny top of the island.

  Akiva leaned on the island across from me, his eyes fixed on my face as I tried to get comfortable.

  “My face isn’t going to heal any faster just because you’re glaring at it,” I informed him, raising my eyes to his. He snorted but didn’t look away.

  Cian and Yuna leaned against the counters on the walls, both of them wearing unhappy frowns of the same intent. I snuck a look at the cecaelia, happy to see that she looked much better than Merric and I did.

  When no one started, I let out a long breath and spoke. “Cian tells me that the necromancer got away.”

  “He distracted us,” Akiva corrected. “He let us take his pets, and he left in the chaos.”

  “There was too much blood for me to track him,” Indra added. “My nose isn’t as good as yours, George, but I doubt you would’ve been able to either.”

  I didn’t tell him that I had tracked the killer by the scent of the magics he carried, not what he actually smelled like. I doubted any of them could track magic by scent the way I could, and I wasn’t sure how they’d react to that fact.

  “Those pets of his were too strong to be fueled by just one necromancer,” Merric said in a grim voice.

  “They weren’t fueled by just his magic,” I pointed out. “He even said so. And–“

  I’m a secret.

  That’s what he’d said. That was the answer to one of his riddles. He hadn’t seemed satisfied when Merric had guessed it, though. He’d seemed disappointed that I hadn’t found some deeper meaning in it.

  “And?” Akiva prompted.

  “I don’t know,” I folded and unfolded my hands on the countertop. “Just the way he spoke…” I shook my head. Had he been just crazy, or had there been something more there?

  “If you have me, you want to share me.” Merric quoted, his words precise. “If you share me, then you haven’t got me. What am I?”

  “You’re a secret,” Cian answered.

  I’m a secret. The words felt like there was something more to them. There had to be something I was missing.

  “When is a door not a door?” I asked, remembering the other riddle he’d asked.

  “When it’s ajar,” Merric said, answering before the others could. “That’s a child’s riddle.”

  “I hate to be the one to point this out, but why do we think he was anything more than crazy?” Yuna drawled. “I only came face to face with him once, but it seemed like not all the lights were on upstairs.” She shifted, pressing her hip into the counter.

  “Did he say anything to you? After I passed out?” I looked around the group.

  “I did not hear him say anything before I lost track of him,” Akiva denied.

  “He stayed far away from us while we took care of his mounters,” Yuna agreed.

  My eyes landed on Merric. He didn’t speak. Didn’t offer an opinion of his own and very carefully looked at his hands.

  Something felt off about his reaction.

  And apparently, I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

  “Do you know something we don’t, Merric?” Cian asked, his tone neutral. He didn’t sound accusatory. Not even suspicious. If I hadn’t been looking at the kitsune as well, I would have thought he jus
t wanted more input.

  “I think…” There was that look again. He was unsure. Wavering, like he couldn’t make up his mind.

  My fingers clenched, and my heart rose in my chest, sudden anxiety blooming inside me.

  “I think you should just chalk it up to him being crazy,” Merric said finally. “And not worry any more than that.”

  “Something happened. You saw something.” I was accusing him, unlike the vampire behind me.

  “I don’t think it’s worth mentioning.” He said quietly. “It would distract us from focusing on the important things.”

  “How do you know it’s not important?” Yuna pressed.

  “Four hundred years of experience,” he mumbled, almost too quietly for me to hear.

  “You’re four hundred?” I yelped, unable to help my surprise.

  He glared at me. “I told you at the gala I was older than Cian,” he reminded me.

  “You also said Cian was only like, three hundred. I thought you were just a little older than that.”

  “Cian doesn’t know how in the world you even know that,” The vampire commented airily, referring to himself in third person. “And my three hundredth birthday is a couple of years off, if you must know.”

  I still couldn’t wrap my head around Merric being four hundred years old.

  “Anyway,” Yuna began pointedly. “I think, for the time being, you should stop trying to find this necromancer, George.”

  I whipped around to look at her, protests ready on my lips. The too-fast motion made my still injured body ache, but I set my teeth against the pain.

  I didn’t want them to see just how much time it was taking me to bounce back.

  “Alone,” she added. “Unfortunately, as I’m sure you know by now, Merric and I aren’t the greatest companions for this.”

  Akiva leaned across the table, wagging his eyebrows dramatically in invitation.

  I stared at him. “What if the two of you aren’t available?” I asked, addressing the lich and Indra. “Last I heard, the three of you were neck deep in vampire business.”

  They traded a look with Cian.

  “Is it too much to ask that if we can’t, you’ll wait for when we can?” Indra murmured. “We’ll do our best to make sure we’re available, but you’re not wrong. We can’t abandon Cian.”

  “No, but there is another option,” the vampire at my back said.

  Akiva looked down as if he was trying to hide the sudden scowl that was plain on his face.

  “Niall’s companions would be able to help. And they aren’t in the middle of…problems, like I am,” Cian pointed out.

  I could feel my own lips curling into something like distaste.

  I didn’t trust the triplets. Not even Tisiphone, though I liked her just a bit more than the other two after she’d been relatively helpful at the crime scene.

  Nor did I want anything to do with their Bokor, Uriel.

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I demurred, eyeing the way Indra nodded in agreement with Cian. “We’ll figure it out. I won’t go looking for trouble without you.”

  Akiva was still silent and didn’t look as if he agreed.

  Was there dissension in the ranks? Was Akiva unhappy about something to do with Cian’s friends?

  “At least you know what’s killing your voodoo priests now,” Yuna shrugged. “That was the challenge. Dealing with him might not be easier, but at least you can stop chasing your tail around the city.”

  Something felt wrong about her words. Something rang…untrue.

  There was something I was missing, and I had a feeling that I had most of the pieces already.

  I just didn’t know how to put them together.

  “You’re right,” I agreed, leaning more heavily on the counter. “Now we just have to trap him and hand him over to the Loa.”

  “Why not kill him?” Indra inquired. “One of us will do it, if you’d rather.”

  Merric spoke before I could. “Because none of us can make him suffer as the Loa can. I promise you, handing him over to them is not mercy. Killing him ourselves would be the easy way out.” He met my eyes, and something invisible seemed to curl between us. “So let’s make sure he goes to them still very much alive.”

  Chapter 24

  I was getting accustomed to Merric catching me in the shadows and telling me things he didn’t like to say in front of the others. It was his nature, I knew, and something I’d come to expect.

  This time, I didn’t give him the chance. I followed him back upstairs when he went to grab his phone, saying that I’d forgotten something as well.

  When we got to the office he’d slept in, I followed him in and shut the door behind me pointedly.

  The kitsune sighed and sat down on the sofa, leaning back until he could look up at me.

  “You're welcome,” he said sweetly. “Though, you could’ve come up with something better than that rushed ‘I forgot something too.’ We’ll come up with better excuses for you.”

  A shiver of surprise trailed up my spine. “You knew I was going to follow you up here?”

  “I gave you the opening to follow me somewhere in the first place.” His grin widened. “We’d have to spend a lot more time together for you to start outmaneuvering me. A few centuries worth.”

  The statement struck me oddly. Kitsune were as immortal as one could be if they reached the state of having nine tails. I was only twenty-four, with four more centuries to my name if I didn’t die of shock or necromancer.

  I really could spend that much more time with him.

  If he allowed it. I shook my head, silently chastising myself to stop taking his joking comments so seriously.

  “I can’t wait to see the look on your face when I do outsmart you,” I warned. “Because it’ll happen.”

  “Sure,” Merric agreed. “If something cuts off my tails, blinds me, and strikes me dumb, I have no doubt you’ll be able to outsmart me.”

  Sometimes, the hoops he went through to insult me were just astounding.

  “This is the part where you demand for me to tell you what happened after you passed out,” the kitsune prompted.

  “Do I have to demand?” I wandered over to sit beside him on the couch, sinking onto the leather.

  “I suppose you don’t have to,” he shrugged. “But it would add some flavor. Some intensity to the conversation.”

  “Merric.” My voice was flat. “I almost died. I had to deal with the Riddler with his creepy pets and you getting impaled. I can say to you, without hesitation, that I don’t need any more flavor or intensity today.”

  “It’s probably not that important,” Merric warned.

  “Liar. If you thought that, you would’ve told the others.” I met his eyes boldly.

  “I could make you stop asking,” the kitsune pointed out.

  “That’d be a waste of a perfectly good life debt, wouldn’t it?”

  He blinked, his yellow eyes dark and full of something I couldn’t identify. “Clearly, you’re right, George,” he said in a brittle voice. “I should do something better with it like make you walk to the bottom of the lake.”

  His words didn’t frighten me. I just shrugged and waited for him to continue.

  “The others weren’t near us.” His voice had grown quiet, and he leaned forward until his mouth was close to my ear. “They took his pets and went to burn them. It took all four of them to do it.” He reached up to brush his fingers along my throat, pulling a shiver from me.

  “The necromancer looked at you after you’d passed out, and he was…worried almost. He knelt a few feet from where you lay.” His lips brushed my ear.

  “He spoke strangely, George. I like riddles, but even I didn’t understand what he meant.”

  “What was it?” I whispered, trying to scan my mind for any riddle I might have heard in my life that could give me some assistance here.

  “He told me to tell you that if you don’t pull out the pins, he’ll uncrown the mother-saint
.”

  I pulled away, eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Uncrown the mother-saint?”

  Merric nodded slowly.

  “Pull out the pins?” I didn’t know what that meant, either.

  “I think it’s meant just for you,” the kitsune admitted. “I’ve been trying to puzzle it out for you all day–“ He met my eyes suddenly, searching my gaze as if he thought I might say something.

  I wasn’t sure what he was looking for and didn’t speak.

  Finally, Merric went on. “But I can’t figure it out. How do you uncrown a saint?”

  “A mother-saint,” I corrected. “If he said it like that, then it has to have meaning.”

  Would he kill this ‘saint’? And who in the Goddess’s name was he talking about?

  “I think–“ Merric looked up, then got to his feet. He pulled me up as well, ignoring my whispered protest as he pushed me against the closest wall and crushed his lips to mine.

  The door opened just as he growled and bit my lower lip, sending my heart to hammering.

  I looked over as it swung open, seeing Akiva there. He looked rather unamused, and his mouth was pressed into a thin line.

  “I figured I would join the party,” the lich said, striding inside and closing the door behind him as well. He crossed the room without stopping until he could sit on the sofa we’d just vacated, stretching out his long legs and crossing them at the ankle.

  “We were kind of in the middle of something,” Merric told him sweetly, his tails visible and writhing at his back.

  Akiva snorted and eyed us. “Maybe, but not that. This is ‘share secrets with George time,’ isn’t it?”

  Merric and I traded a look. I spoke first. “Akiva, I’m not sure what you–“

  “I don’t need to hear what he told you. For all I know, he was confessing his burgeoning feelings for you. Though I very much doubt it.” He blinked and looked at the ceiling.

  When neither of us moved, he spoke again. “You can sit. I don’t mind.”

  As if we had been waiting for his permission.

  Merric huffed but sat, taking the seat furthest from the lich as he could.

  I settled in the middle of the sofa, dragging my legs up under me and looking between them.