Her heart pounded in her chest as she stared at the resurrection manifesting before her, watching as the moon-colored hair sprouted from the head and flowed down his back even as pale brows sculpted into beautiful arches and a fringe of pale lashes framed his eyes. He was inhumanly beautiful, with sharp elven features that spoke of natural elegance and nobility among fae races. He had stopped screaming by that point and appeared almost as a sleeping prince as his body slowly rotated several inches off the ground.
Eventually, he drifted down to lay sprawled out in front of her. Robyn swallowed, her eyes running over the lithe limbs and perfectly formed muscles that ran down to the pane of his belly. A cock that looked almost human but off with its pronounced heart shaped head hung heavily between his thighs. He could be the epitome of desire to her mind’s eye if she were the foolish sort who did not recognize exactly what he was.
A male drow elf, though if he was a soldier or breeder, Robyn could not be certain. Nor was she particularly interested in finding out. Sadly, that may have been unavoidable. She had been wrong—so very wrong—and now it was too late. By her spell, she had bound the creature to her, and now there would be no escape—for either of them.
One long, pointed ear twitched, and she barely stumbled back a pace before he was on his feet and leaping for her in a series of smooth movements that she only just barely followed. A large hand shot forward and wrapped around her neck, the claws pricking the sensitive skin as it lifted her up to dangle in the air before him. Robyn fought back the wave of panic, though she couldn’t stop her feet from uselessly kicking the air as she stared down into a pair of violet eyes wild with surprise and confusion. Gradually, it melted away when a light of understanding filled his gaze, soon replaced by a hard mask of cruelty. With a smile of triumph, his hand squeezed around her neck with every intention of crushing her throat within his grasp.
An instinctive terror set in with the feel of his hand brutally tightening around her neck, and she thrashed uselessly. As pointless as her effort was, she couldn’t help herself as the pain seared deep into her throat, slicing through her in a manner that neither decreased nor increased. Robyn could have wept with relief. It was agonizing but not life-threatening—the failsafe of the spell worked.
Unexpectedly giddy with the knowledge that she wasnotgoing to die, she blinked away the tears that sprung to her eyes and peered down at the elf. She immediately choked back a laugh at the puzzled expression that had fallen over his face. She was not entirely successful. At the muffled sound of her laughter, his gaze cut furiously back to hers, his brow furrowing, and yet the angrier he looked and the more he tried to squeeze, the more she giggled uncontrollably at their situation.
With a single finger, she poked at his closed hand, a wry smile curling her lips. “This isn’t going to work, asshole.”
His brows drew down into a deeper scowl, and he dragged her in close. “What sorcery is this,human?” he snarled. “And how does one such as you know my name?”
Not willing to even touch on the derogatory way he said human, she stared up at him in surprise. “Your name is asshole?” she rasped.
“Ashul,” he corrected with a growl. “Your pronunciation is as terrible as expected for your kind. You will now answer me before I find a blade with which to finish you. Where are my brethren?”
Her lips quirked again, but this time she was successful in holding back her laughter, though she mostly did so because her throat was already raw from speaking from beneath the pressure of his hand. “Good luck, prick, because it’s your lucky day and I’m the necromancer you got. I don’t know what you expected, but your life essence is leashed to me now until I can get rid of you.”
“Meaning what?” he snarled inches from her face.
“Meaning that we’re stuck with each other, and as much as I’m not thrilled with this situation either, at least you can’t kill me,” she shot back with a sneer. “Your murder impulse has been hereby neutered, asshole.”
“It’sAshul! And you lie! No one controls me! I am the prince of Dark Stone, conqueror of Albanhet. Commander of a thousand strong and first warriortrustedby the queen.”
The way he said trusted made her blood curdle a little, but she shrugged—or at least attempted to. It wasn’t easy to shrug with his hand around her neck, but she hoped she pulled off nonchalance well enough.
“Suit yourself.”
His eyes narrowed on her while she waited disconcertedly to see what he would do. He couldn’t kill her, but he sure as hell could still hurt her. Because she could still feel pain, she preferred to eschew any further murder attempts. It was with a rather grim fascination, however, that she found herself staring at his fangs that seem to become even more pronounced as his lip curled fiercely. His head suddenly dived down as if to rip out her throat with his teeth only to have his head blasted back from hers with a psychic shock that sent pain flaring through her senses.
He dropped her rudely on her ass and backed away to clutch his head between his hands. She winced and glared back at him irritably as she tried to not think about the way the graze of his fangs had briefly sent an entirely different message to another part of her body.
“You see?” she snapped as she pushed herself to her feet and dusted herself off. She was surprised that her hood had managed to stay in place. “I don’t know what you thought was involved in being resurrected, but this is it. We’re stuck together whether we like it or not until we can get the bond transferred.”
He slowly straightened, his eyes narrowing at her for a long moment before a sexy smile, one that came nowhere near reaching his eyes, curled his lips “Then do so, little human. I would reward you… Isn’t that what your kind likes? Precious metals and jewels? I can provide much if you just release me,” he purred enticingly.
She laughed outright and stepped away with a shake of her head. “You aren’t getting it. Even if I were tempted to take you up on your offer, I can’t. That skill is beyond my abilities and is one not even taught to students, to keep us from resurrecting and releasing dangerous people back into the world. I dare say for exactly this situation, considering you just tried to kill me,” she scoffed. “The spell of transference is taught only to one person, so if you want to be released from this bond, we will have to go to him.”
A strained expression crossed her face as she felt the first true tug on her psyche from the High Necromancer and Grandmaster of the monastery. “Even if you did not wish to be severed from me, we wouldn’t have any choice but to go regardless. It is a compulsion spell that follows every resurrection so that the resurrected cannot gain influence over the necromancer. So we’re going whether you like it or not.”
“I have no desire to be tied to ahuman,” he spat, and once again she shrugged in response.
“Trust me, the feeling is mutual. The last thing in the world I want is to be leashed to a drow elf of all things. As if I don’t have a big enough target on my forehead. But as I’m not heartless… here.” Slipping off her long cloak, she tossed the voluminous material at the elf and was a little disappointed at how easily he caught it out of the air. “So you can handle the sun a little easier,” she added, giving the cloak and his nude body a meaningful look. “I don’t know what we are going to do to protect your eyes.”
Though he did not even look down at the cloak, his lip curled with disgust. “I am not bred of such a weak, limited species. Unlike you, my eyes have lenses that protect them from the sun. You, however, have the appearance of a white worm,” he hissed. “I might be sick just looking upon you.”
She managed not to flinch at the verbal attack in lieu of his inability to physically harm her and scowled back at him. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had people point out her chalk white hair and skin before with similar exclamations of disgust. She didn’t know why she let it prick her.
“Ouch, that hurts. If you’re done, I’m making camp. Oh, and the name is Robyn.”
She stalked past him to a corner of the room where the hearth still appeared to remain more or less intact and set down her bag of supplies. There were no luminaries in this part of the room, so she hurried to make a fire with her supplies. Chancing a glance over her shoulder, she saw that the elf was crouched a short distance away, his eyes gleaming as they watched her, her cloak still wadded up against his chest. A weary sigh escaped her as she dropped down in front of the hearth and set to work. It was going to be a long night.
ChapterThree
Ashul observed the human silently, uncertain of what to make of her. He did not trust her; he knew that much. And it infuriated him that he was under the complete control of a female, something he schemed all his life to avoid. He studied her all through the night and then the next day as they broke camp and left the sad remains of what had once been a glorious subterranean keep—one he had won by his own sword—before it had been uprooted and deposited in this unfamiliar realm.