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“Why?”
“They seem to want you dead, buttercream,” Eli said. “If they were his family, that’s an odd response.”
A bullet hit the stone across from me. Shards of gravestone pelted me. Oddly the adrenaline surge was welcome, even if the bullets weren’t. Nothing like a shot of rage to get the sleepiness out.
“Not whythat.” I nodded toward the men who were staying crouched behind graves. “Why go through the hassle? Why not simply shoot me themselves?”
“Dearest, can we ponder thatafterthey are not shooting at you?”
I felt my eyes change. As my rage boiled over, my eyes reflected it. They were my father’s reptilian eyes,draugreyes. The only useful thing he’d ever done was accidentally augment the magic I inherited from my mother. Unfortunately, the extra juice came with a foul temper—one that was even worse the last few weeks. After I’d been injected by venom, my moods were increasingly intense.
I wanted to rip limbs off.
I wanted to shove my thumbs into their eye sockets and keep going until I felt brain matter.
Before the urges were more than images, I was moving from one spot to the next.
I couldflowlike adraugr.I could move quickly enough that to the mortal eye it looked like teleportation. Iflowedto the side of the shooter and grabbed his wrist.
Eli was not far behind. He didn’tflow, but he was used to my movements and impulses. He had his sword to the shooter’s throat a moment after I jerked the gun away from the man.
“Dearest?” Eli said, his voice tethering me sanity.
I concentrated on his voice, his calm, and I punched the other shooter rather than removing his eyes. Then I let out a scream of frustration and shoved my magic into the soil like a seismic force.
The dead answered.
Dozens of voices answered my call. Hands reknitted. Flesh was regrown from the magic that flowed from my body into the graves. Mouths reformed, as if I was a sculptor of man.
“You donotwake the dead without reason,” I growled at the now-unarmed man who dared to try to shoot me.
Here, of all places. He tried to spill my blood into these graves.
I stepped over the man I’d punched and ignored the cringing, sobbing widow and the other woman who was trying to convince her mother to leave.
And I stalked toward the shooter in Eli’s grip.
“Bonbon, you have a scratch.” Eli nodded toward my throat.
“Shit.” I felt my neck where Eli had indicated. Blood slid into my collar.
I stepped closer to the shooter. “What were you thinking, Weasel Nuts?”
“Would you mindcoveringthe wound?” Eli asked, forcing me to focus again.
His voice was calm, but we both knew that I could not shed blood in a space where graves were so plentiful. I’d accidentally bound twodraugrso far, and blood was a binding agent in necromancy. Unless I wanted to bring home a few reanimated servants, my blood couldn’t spill here.
I had to focus. And I didn’t need an army of undead soldiers.
“Take this.” Eli pulled off his shirt with one hand, switching the hilt between hands to keep the sword to Weasel Nuts’ throat.
I stared.Not the time.
Eli’s lips quirked in a half-smile, and then he pressed the blade just a bit. “And, I believe you need to answer my lady.”
I shot Eli a look--hislady? What year did he think this was?--but I pressed his shirt against my throat. I did not, absolutely didnot, take a deep breath because the shirt smelled like Eli.
Eli smiled as I took another quick extra breath.
