Chapter 4

Angelina

This just won’t do! I didn’t understand what had happened but, at some point, it was as if I’d been switched off from the outside world. I have never fainted. it's pretty safe to say that this loss of consciousness was no accident. It was the work of the stranger.

“Why am I lying on a pile of branches in some lair? And why’re you smiling in such a way?” I gasped in embarrassment.

The man didn’t even think about explaining himself. He only smiled more broadly. I felt so uncomfortable my throat suddenly dried up.

It’s bad enough that this brazen guy brought me who knows where, without having him strip. He was only wearing something like a jacket or a long coat with shiny silver buttons over his naked body. His black hair down to the shoulders had a sheen to it and framed his fine-featured narrow dark face. His dark chestnut eyes were shining impishly under thick eyebrows, and his full lips curved ironically.

To my regret, those lips were bit of all right. And his unclothed body under the jacket opened wide arrested my sight. Good that this shameless guy had done up his lower buttons.

“Did you have a good look?” he asked boldly.

Like a blow on the head. I just opened my mouth, gulping for air. A witty reply didn’t come to my mind.

“Did you swallow a dead moth?” I snorted, turning away and pretending I hadn’t noticed anything. And I absolutely didn’t stare at his six-pack abs.

I felt the stare of his dark chocolate eyes even with my skin.

“Where are we? Is this a bear’s lair?”

This last question sounded a bit too squeaky.

“Well, yeah. And what, you have something against bears?” the man asked unfazed.

“Why, why against?” I breathed out. “I don’t have anything against them.”

“Well, that’s just fine.” he smiled.

Obviously he was taunting me.

“The bear might come back!”

“Don’t worry, little one. There are worse things than a bear.”

He was still smiling strangely. And the way his mouth turned up at the corners seemed to me predatory.

“Well, I’m leaving,” I said confidently, but starting to get nervous and anxious.

“Stay here,” he said calmly, as if he already had a plan I didn’t know about. “I have delicious roast meat. And soon, we’ll have something to wash it down with.”

I didn’t even want to think about what he had in mind. Would there be a waiter who would come to serve us in the bear’s lair?

“Hey, are you nuts?” I asked. But my nose had already picked up the smell of roast meat, and I quickly changed my mind to run away.

After all, I hadn’t eaten since morning. The Academy no longer gave good-for-nothing graduates a bed in the hostel and meals. It was bad enough having nowhere to go, without having nothing to eat. So, I made up my mind: nothing terrible would happen if I stayed a little longer.

The man was observant enough to notice the change in my behavior. At once, he put three twig-skewers with pieces of meat on them on burdock leaves for me, then, sat down cross-legged beside me.

“What’s your name, little one?” he asked, while I was biting into the juicy and unbelievably delicious pieces of rather chewy meat.

“I’m not a little one,” I answered with a snarl, but not so categorically. Anyway, a full stomach isn’t a hungry one. Or something like that. “My name’s Angelina. And you, half-naked stranger?”

The man smiled, “I’m... Reive.”

“Reive?” I asked, stopping chewing for a moment and took a closer look at the man.

Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? I took him for the Undead King,called Reive. But he can’t be the very... Or can he?

I tossed my head and seized another piece of meat. What stupid things came into my head when my brain lacked food! The Undead King died so long ago that I didn’t believe he’d ever existed. Well, how could one man raise a whole army of the dark forces? Nowadays, even the strongest necromancers couldn’t revive a single dead man.

Of course, necromancers weren’t much in fashion right now. Well, completely out of fashion. And all the resurrection invocations were destroyed half a millennium ago. But could someone restore the lost knowledge? No, they couldn’t. It wasn’t that simple. That was impossible.

“So, who’re you and where’re you from?” I continued the conversation.

Well, maybe, Reive wasn’t such boor? Anyway, he fed a girl. And he kept his hands to himself.

A pit opened in my stomach. As if I’d wanted him to get a little handsy. What a fool I am! I get turned on by two pieces of fatty meat. A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears. Am I a man?

“I’m a necromancer like you,” he answered calmly.

“Oh, really?” I was surprised. For some reason, I didn’t wonder how he figured out my field of study. Only high-level mages could see the color of a person’s anarel. Black’s for necromancers. You can’t mix them up. “Well, you’re as lucky as me then. Sorry for you.”

Frankly speaking, after this confession, I liked the man even more. As if we’d been two brothers in arms.

“Sorry for me?” he raised an eyebrow in surprise. I saw that he didn’t get it. “Are you kidding? I’m happy to be a necromancer.”

I frowned. He was nuts anyway. Who in their right mind would be happy for such a gift when they couldn’t get a proper job and make any friends? Nobody liked necromancers. In everyday life, we were almost useless. None of us could lay to rest the undead anymore. As for setting protective traps and totems to scare the uncalled dead, every healer or even an elementalist could do that.

“And what’s your specialty?” I decided to tone down my line of questioning, hoping that it’d become clear why Reive was happy.

“Specialty?” he didn’t understand.

“Well, yeah. A necromancer-philosopher, mentalist, psychologist, spell-weaver, maybe a historian, like me? A philosopher studies the attitude to necromancers in literature and art, a mentalist specializes in all sorts of troubles, and a spell-weaver’s the most in-demand profession. He can remove corruption spells both laid on purpose and those caused by chance at places where people have perished. And a historian studies the theory and the chronology of the events and knows the roots of the Ashgenrian language.

It seemed to me that there was laughter in the man’s eyes. He put his hand to his mouth and coughed, hiding his eyes.

“I’m a practician, little one. A practician necromancer.”

“Never heard of it,” I frowned. “What does it mean – a practician?”

“I mean I can do everything a necromancer has to do. Spells, the language and many other things you haven’t listed.”

“Come on,” I snorted. “By the way, maybe you’re a polyglot Master?”

A cold shiver ran down my spine when I looked into his dark eyes and saw the devil glint.

Had I guessed right? Was Reive a Master of Necromancy?

I gave Reive the once-over again. He looked around thirty. What kind of Master could he be? Masters are usually around fifty.

I calmed down and put aside the oily burdock with the wooden skewers. We’d eaten all the meat, and I was ready to forgive this self-satisfied man a little lie. If he wanted to make out he was clever, let him!

However, the next moment, a faint sly smile flashed on Reive’s face. He tenderly thrust out his hand to me, sliding his fingers along the back of my hand.

The hot touch licked me like fire, blowing a wave of sparks under my skin. I held my breath, feeling how his dark chocolate eyes drew me into their depths.

“Look, I can prove you I’m not kidding,” he said in a smooth, almost purring voice. “Trust me, I’m full of surprises.”

He moved closer. His warm caressing breath touched my skin. It slid along my cheek, making me feel the nearness of his lips. It came down to my neck, burning, carrying me into some whirlpool where I began to forget who and where I was.

“What are you doing?” I gasped and closed my eyes, feeling a strange calm just being next to him. As if he wasn’t a stranger at all, but a man whom I had known for a long time. As if he simply couldn’t do me harm.

“Nothing you wouldn’t like, little one,” he said, breathing softly. And I clearly heard how his voice broke at the words “little one”. How it became constrained and hoarse. It became hotter.

My mind was about to become alert again and my lips – to say something like “I’m not that kind of girl, get lost”, but at the next moment, something terrible happened. Something expelled the air from my breast and my throat compressed in a terrible spasm. My teeth clenched, and I almost bit my tongue.

My body started shaking uncontrollably.

Dark gods! Can’t you see I’m choking?!