How to Live an Undead Lie (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 5)

by Hailey Edwards

  For Hood to warn Linus, I must have been in greater danger than I imagined. But I hadn’t felt threatened. Shane hadn’t made me feel like I was seconds away from him spiriting me away to Underhill to play faerie bride for him.

  “I’m not a bauble,” I grumbled, sadly used to people viewing me as a thing to be owned.

  A frown gathered between his eyes. “I know that.”

  “I know you know.” I frowned back at him. “It just bugs me when people treat me like I’m not a person.”

  The creases on his forehead deepened. “I know that too.”

  Unable to help myself, I crossed to him and smoothed my thumb across his brow. “You know everything, huh?”

  “No.” He dropped his gaze to the floor. “I don’t.”

  “I’m teasing.” I slid my arms around his waist. “It was a play on words.”

  “You used to call me a know-it-all.”

  “I also used to wear diapers and eat boogers. What’s your point?”

  “I want to make you happy.”

  “You do make me happy.”

  “No one has ever…” He closed his mouth, thinned his lips, then tried again. “You do more than listen to me. You hear me. I don’t want to drone on until you tune out and I lose that.”

  “You’re a brilliant man, and I love how your mind works. You don’t have to hide that from me. This—us—is your safe place. Our safe place. We can be ourselves when we’re together.” I pressed a kiss over his heart. “I won’t tease you again. Not about that.” I grinned up at him. “Everything else is fair game.”

  The muscles in his jaw relaxed, and he managed a tight smile, but I saw through it.

  After being emotionally isolated his entire life, he struggled with intimacy. His touches were still calculated, hesitant, our conversations stilted at times as he sorted through his layers to find the man beneath them all.

  It would take time for him to trust he could be himself with me, that him—unmasked—was who I truly wanted. He might never initiate touch as often as I did, but that was okay. He had embraced all the broken parts of me, and I was just as willing to love all his jagged pieces.

  “It’s getting late.” He traced the curve of my smile with a fingertip. “There’s something I would like to discuss with you in private before we go to bed.”

  We.

  Go to bed.

  Like…together.

  Gulp.

  With so many extra bodies in the house, I understood his caution. “You want to head downstairs?”

  “We could go to your room, or mine.”

  I wet my lips then made my decision and led him by the hand to mine. “Are you going to set the ward, or do you want me to?”

  “Would you mind?” He extended his pen toward me. “I love watching you work.”

  A pleased flush heated my cheeks. “How can I say no to that?”

  I knelt near the threshold and began drawing a series of interlocking sigils I plucked from the depths of my subconsciousness with barely a thought. Magic pulsed in the air, thickening, and then my ears popped.

  “Would you like to check my work, Professor Lawson?”

  “I felt it seal.” He wiggled a finger in his left ear. “Impressive.”

  “What did you want to discuss?”

  “Amelie.”

  “Ah.” I sat on the bed and pulled my legs beneath me. “The impending deadline?”

  “No.” He perched beside me. “This is about Ambrose.”

  “That’s a fine line, but okay. I’m listening.”

  “Have you considered why Ambrose might have been following you?”

  “Revenge?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.” He rested his hands on his thighs. “I suspect he’s been trailing you, testing the length of his tether, waiting to see how far he could go before Amelie died.” He rubbed his palms across the fabric. “The thought occurred to me that he might be hoping for a host exchange.”

  “Wait until Amelie is on the brink of death, then approach me with an offer to let her live if I agree to bond with him?” I tugged down my hair and massaged my scalp. “But he can’t just flit from host to host. She would have to die for the connection to break. That, or we would have to exorcise him, which would kill her too.”

  “Either way, she’s dead, and he would have your word that you would host him next.”

  “That would mean he doesn’t know that we know separation would kill her.”

  “A dybbuk tells their marks whatever they need to hear to believe the lie.”

  “But he messed up tonight. He got caught before he could put his plan into action.” I dropped my head back and sighed at the ceiling. “That ought to make me feel better than it does.”

  “There’s one more thing worth mentioning.”

  “I’m ready.” I braced for impact. “Hit me.”

  “There’s a possibility your design wasn’t the cause of Amelie’s episodes.”

  Lightness spread through me, a ray of hope, but I shaded my heart against it. “You think Ambrose was testing his cage even then?”

  Reflecting on the first night Amelie collapsed, I had to admit the symptoms fit.

  Ambrose would have had to time each of Amelie’s original fainting spells to coincide with a strike against Woolly to cast blame away from himself, but he was sly. The attack on her wards offered him camouflage, a way to flex his muscles without alerting us to his strength.

  Linus shifted his weight, and the mattress dipped beneath us. “Do you remember what Heinz said when he came to the house to treat Amelie?”

  “That her condition reminded him of when new bonds are formed between necromancers and their familiars. Sometimes the animal pulls too much energy from its master, and the drain knocks the kid unconscious.” There was no polite way to ask. “The drain Amelie is experiencing, is that how it is for you?”

  “I’ve had several years to chart the edges of my endurance, but yes. I must feed, or I can’t function. I learned that the hard way, during the early months when the hunger drove me out of my mind.”

  I flinched before I could school my features, and he covered my hand with his.

  “I didn’t understand what had happened to me. I had to research my condition as best I could, and that’s how I learned how to survive.” He speared his fingers through mine. “Once I understood, I was able to regain control over myself and my impulses. Amelie will be able to build on my experience. The transition to permanent host won’t be as traumatic for her as it was for me.”

  “Are you sure?” Their situations were similar, but they weren’t identical.

  “Ambrose was feeding on ghosts, vampires, and other paranormal energies. With a host to anchor him, he was self-sustaining. Now he’s dependent on her for sustenance unless she lets him hunt, and he’s too dangerous to be allowed off leash. Amelie has no experience with this type of hunger, but she can learn to control it—and him—in time.”

  As selfish as it sounded, I couldn’t stop the thought forming. “This means I might be able to practice.”

  The funny thing was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a practitioner anymore. There were vampires aplenty in the world, if you asked me. Was there a need for truly immortal ones who could spawn even more vampires? I had no interest in birthing a dynasty of purebloods, creating yet another caste to divide their population. I enjoyed using my magic, learning new skills, but I didn’t want the extent of my resume to read makes Deathless vampires.

  Linus had opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities in more ways than one, and I wanted a chance to explore them, to decide what dreams the new Grier would chase.

  “We can’t be certain without further testing, but this gives me a new avenue to research. It’s a promising lead.” His grip tightened. “It’s more than we had before.”

  “You’ll figure it out.” I rested my head on his shoulder. “I’m not in any hurry to procreate.”

  Linus chuckled at that, no doubt remembering Woolly
’s mortifying baby fever.

  “You should get some rest.” He stroked my back. “Tomorrow promises to be a long night.”

  I curled against his side. “Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”

  “Of course,” he said without hesitation. “I’ll go change and pick up a few of my books.”

  “You can use one of those clip-on lights if you want.” Most of his research materials were physical books while he did his pleasure reading digitally. “I don’t mind.”

  “I read well enough in the dark.”

  After he left, erasing the privacy sigil on his way, I dug around in a drawer until I found an old nightlight. I plugged it in on his side then collected a few extra blankets from the hall linen closet. He might not spend the whole night in bed with me, but I wanted him comfortable.

  And then I changed into a lacy pink thong and a low-cut blue crop top because there was such a thing as too comfortable so early in a relationship.

  As much as I want to say he found me in a scandalous pose and fell on me, ravaging me, I was unconscious the second my head hit the pillow.

  Guess he wasn’t the only one who enjoyed the glow of a nightlight and the weight of extra blankets.

  Fourteen

  Wisps of the dream swirled through my head to mingle with the memories Woolly had shared with me. I didn’t wake screaming or on the floor. But I did gasp alert to the sensation of cool fabric under my cheek and faint snores rustling my hair.

  Barely daring to move, I tilted my head back and peered up at my first glimpse of Linus in a restful, natural sleep. His black-frame glasses had slid down his nose onto his upper lip. A book splayed open beside him, his fingers twitching as if turning pages in his dreams. His hair was pulled back from his face, and I indulged in the opportunity to admire the splash of freckles across his cheeks, the soft curve of his mouth, the hard line of his jaw.

  He was beautiful, and he was mine.

  The swell of emotion behind my breastbone almost choked me, and I couldn’t breathe easy until I buried my face in his shoulder. Allowing my hand to roam across the lean muscle of his chest, I slid my hand under his tee and traced the ridged contours of his abdomen.

  Chills dappled his skin, and his chest rose in a great wave. “I fell asleep.”

  “I noticed.” I teased the elastic waistband of his pants with a fingertip. “Have good dreams?”

  The air punched from his lungs when I wrapped my hand around his hardening length. “I’m still dreaming.”

  “Then consider me your wake-up call.”

  I shimmied down his body, ducking under the covers along the way, and straddled his knees. The dark gave me confidence to tug his pajama bottoms past his hips and explore him as he had me, to learn what touches arched his back, how much pressure made him writhe, and how he tasted. Everywhere.

  When he was a boneless puddle beneath me, I climbed up him and flopped on his chest. “Hi.”

  Wrist pinned over his eyes, he grunted. It was the least eloquent thing he had ever said to me, yet I glowed with his praise.

  Five minutes or a hundred later, he grasped my hips, his fingers easing under the scrap of lace. “These distracted me all day.”

  “Good.” I shifted just enough that my slouchy top slid off my shoulder, exposing the top of one breast. “They distracted me too.” The lace itched, and it had crawled into places underwear should not visit. “Next time, I’m going to stay awake long enough to seduce you and then change back into granny panties. These are meant to be seen and not slept in.”

  “Let me help.” He hooked the sides of my panties with his thumbs then slid them down my thighs. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  And it got even better after that.

  A text message burst the bubble Linus and I had existed in since waking. Fresh from the shower, we sat at the bar in the kitchen while I ate, and he read the news on his phone. I set aside the Canadian bacon I didn’t have the heart to explain wasn’t really bacon long enough to check my cell.

  “Amelie is ready.” I swiped my thumb over the rest of her message. “Boaz wants to be there. She’s asking if that’s okay.”

  Attention on me, Linus set aside his phone. “It’s your decision.”

  “I won’t deny her the comfort of her brother unless he forces us to remove him.”

  “All right.”

  Fingers hesitating over the screen, I double-checked with him. “You’re really okay with this?”

  “I stopped caring what Boaz Pritchard thinks or says or does after spending five minutes in his company. I believe I was ten at the time.”

  “Burn.” I chuckled. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “I tolerated him, for you. After his recent behavior, I don’t owe him even that much civility.”

  When he was right, he was right. “I want to check in with Lethe before we head to the carriage house.”

  “I made her a plate.” He collected it from the oven and passed it to me. “Hood bought her a mini fridge earlier. She ought to have milk and orange juice up there.” He flicked a glance at the refrigerator in front of us. “We’re missing a few cartons, and what’s left was strategically placed to conceal their absence.”

  “That sounds like Lethe, all right.” Food must taste better after it’s been stolen. “Back in a few.”

  I hit the stairs and knocked on her door, surprised when she answered it herself.

  “I thought you were on bed rest.” I picked up a piece of sausage and stuffed it in her mouth before she could growl at me. “I don’t have long, but I wanted to see how you’re feeling.”

  “I’m healed,” she muttered between vicious chews. “Shane says so.”

  Telltale prickles burned my nape, but I worked to keep my expression neutral when she mentioned him.

  “He hit on you.” The wonder in her voice made me cringe. “Shane wants in your pants.”

  “He was a gentleman about it,” I deflected, edging past her to set her plate on the nightstand.

  “Don’t sweat it.” She adopted a bland expression. “If he didn’t know there’s no room in your pants before, he knows it now.”

  “Lethe.”

  “Oh, Linus.” She fell back on the bed and writhed, arching her back. “Oh, goddess. Yes. Yes. Yes!”

  I could have cracked an egg on my face, and it would have sizzled. “I don’t sound like that.”

  “You two got busy a few doors down from gwyllgi. Trust me. We all know how you sound.”

  Thanks to my body’s insistence it make up all the sleep I had been doing without the past several months, I had forgotten about warding the room before I put the moves on Linus.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” Hood appeared in the doorway, eyes on his wife. “Are you two watching porn?”

  “I was just showing Grier how I imagine her O face,” Lethe said sweetly. “Based on what I heard, anyway.”

  Wiping a hand down his face, he looked between us. “What is wrong with you two?”

  “The list is long, and my time is short.” I patted him on the shoulder on my way out. “Take care of our wife.”

  “Our—” A snarl rent the air, but it was hard to hear it over Lethe’s cackling.

  He made a grab for me, and I suspected he would have tickled me to death, but I flew down the stairs like the hounds of hell—or a really pissed-off dog-lizard thing—were on my heels.

  The laughter in my throat died when I spotted Linus waiting on me. He carried a bag of supplies slung over his shoulder. It wasn’t his usual necromancy gear, but I could see jars of ink bulging in the pockets. This was his tattoo machine and supplies.

  The lightness of the evening drained away like I had never teased him under the covers or tormented Hood with my friendship with Lethe.

  “We should go,” he said when I couldn’t find any words to encompass what was about to happen.

  “Okay.” I pressed my palm against the doorframe on my way out. “Hold down the fort.”


  Woolly’s presence glided through my senses, leaving calm in her wake.

  The walk to the carriage house kept my mind looping on the trips I had made through the garden to visit Linus, how each of those interactions had chipped away at my heart until he had carved a niche all his own.

  Linus let me take the lead, and that meant I got to experience the joy of Boaz opening the door firsthand.

  “Grier,” he rumbled. “Come in.”

  Blinking in surprise at his nearly polite tone, I stood frozen on the threshold.

  “I owe you an apology,” Boaz said gruffly. “Both of you.”

  Amelie entered the room, and her amazement mirrored mine.

  “There’s no excuse for what I said and did.” He told this to the trim in the doorway above my head. “Adelaide ripped me a new one after I explained the bruises.” His jaw tightened, drawing my eye to the heavy purple and green mottling on his skin. “She deserves better than to hear I got beat up for showing my ass. She deserves better than me, but I’m what she chose.” He lowered his gaze a fraction, to the level of the peephole mounted in the door. “I’m going to do better by her, and that means we’re getting out of Savannah for a while after the wedding.”

  “Okay.” That checked one item off my to-do list. “Space sounds like a good idea.”

  “Linus…” He bit the inside of his cheek. “I’m an asshole, I’m always going to be an asshole, but I could be less of an asshole to you going forward.”

  Linus had the grace not to rub salt in the wound. “I accept your apology.”

  “Is that what that was?” I wasn’t so graceful. “It sounds more like a list of his shortcomings to me.”

  “I swear to the goddess,” a feminine voice muttered from the office. “He’s hopeless.”

  Adelaide stepped out wearing jeans and a pink top with her blonde hair up in a ponytail.

  “Hey, Grier.” She glared at Boaz. “I threatened to send him out here with notes on index cards, but he convinced me he could handle it.”

  “I apologized,” Boaz gritted out. “He accepted.”

  The frown lines bracketing her mouth deepened. “What about Grier?”