Glancing over at the messy-haired brunette, my heart skipped a beat. He was incredibly handsome, and the glasses he wore seemed to enhance his bright green eyes rather than hide them.
“Thanks for being here when I woke up.”
His cheeks blushed as he nodded, sliding over and sitting next to me on the floor. The warmth from his shoulder against mine was comforting, and I couldn’t help but lean my head on it.
“Oh,” he squeaked. “That’s fine. I’m glad I could do something for you. People don’t really let me help a lot.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, and he bit his lip. “Please, humor me. I don’t know why I passed out, but I just need something else to occupy my mind.”
“Well.” He fidgeted with his fingers in his lap. “I guess it all narrows down to me being a necromancer who values life.”
“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you value life?”
His breath hitched as his heart rate picked up. “Um, necromancers are a division of witches and warlocks who can reanimate anything we want. Which is really cool, don’t get me wrong. I like my powers. Necromancers don’t ever truly know loss... at least, that’s what everyone back at my village says.”
“You don’t agree?”
“Not at all. Reanimation is a tricky process. You can reanimate the dead, but I don’t believe the soul comes back. Some of my kind believe a scrap of the soul is still in there, but when I look into the eyes of the dead, I see nothing.”
“Then necromancers experience death in an even more morbid way than the rest of us,” I clarified, moving my hand under his arm and placing it on top of his.
“You want to touch my hands?” The question came out as barely a whisper, and his lip quivered.
“Yes, I do.”
He paused before closing my hand in both of his trembling ones and squeezing. “Most other supernaturals refuse to touch a necromancer, let alone their hands. They think we’re cursed. Death follows us. My village isn’t welcoming of the living if they aren’t part of our kind.”
My tongue darted out to wet my lips. “What do you mean by that? Does it have to do with you valuing life?”
“Yeah.” His voice cracked. “I have always loved animals. They’re just so innocent and full of life. Their souls are so pure.”
“I like animals too, but big predator animals usually scare me,” I admitted before my tongue kept rambling. “They sense my fox side and try to attack. But the little prey animals seem to like me instead of fear me. My favorites are foxes. Since there aren’t anymore arctic fox shifters, I’d always wanted to meet an actual arctic fox.”
A sad smile spread across his lips. “Arctic foxes are sweet. I met one once. Up in the mountains. I brought it back to the village when I was just a boy. I was so excited to show him off.”
“What happened?” My heart lodged in my throat.
“The other kids thought it was stupid. They killed him. Used their magic to make his organs explode.” He sniffled, and tears dripped down on his hands, slipping through his fingers and wetting mine. “I felt horrible. That fox was the first animal I reanimated, but when it came back, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t full of life. It was death disguised as a puppet.”
“Oh, Kian.” I brought my other hand over and put it on top of his.
“That’s not even the worst part. I tried sneaking animals into my village until I learned that I wasn’t capable of protecting them. It took the loss of five little lives for me to realize it. I didn’t bother reanimating the last one. I knew it wasn’t the same.”
“Traumatic doesn't even describe what that must’ve been like.”
He let out a weak chuckle, and I lifted my head from his shoulder to look at him. “The kids were awful, but the adults were worse. The only time I had to be around life and not death was when I snuck out of the village to meet up with Lachlan. We met up in the valley between the werewolves and necromancers.”
“I can relate to that a lot, actually. I snuck away from my village to meet with Thorn ever since I got there,” I said with a sad smile. “He was my only escape. No one ever actually did anything horrible to me, but they were apparently all under orders to never speak to me. Both my peers and the adults. My mom’s best friend, Alice, was the only one I could talk to. She took me in after everything.”
“What happened to your parents?”
Tears flooded my eyes as my throat burned. The memory was stillsofresh.
“They were murdered by humans. Hunted like game. I—” I crumbled forward, and Kian pulled his hands away to wrap me in his arms and move me against his chest.
“Take your time,” he whispered, his hands running soothing paths down my spine.
The rise and fall of his chest was everything I needed to grab hold of my emotions and I continued. “I saw every bit of it. My dad told me to run. I was only five. The laughs these monsters had when their bullets pierced my parents will ring in my ears forever.”
