Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

he said with a nod. “That’s bragging, which is what you should have expected from a—what did you call him?—‘petty despot.’”

Milo’s jaw tightened, and his teeth ground together as he forced words between them.

“He was being an ass.”

Ambrose shrugged.

“So?”

“So?” Milo echoed incredulously. “So we just let him think he can keep pulling our strings, keep using us?”

Ambrose tapped his feet thoughtfully, rocking slightly this way and that.

“You think that getting in a staring contest and beating your chest will stop all that?”

Milo forced a long breath through his nostrils and slowly unclenched his jaw.

“It will at least show him I’m on to his game, and I’m not playing.”

Ambrose groaned and raised a hand to mop his face and tug his sideburns in frustration.

“No wonder you were a penal conscript!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Milo bristled, fixing the big man with a withering glare.

“It means stop doing this,” Ambrose explained, letting go of his sideburn and gestured at Milo with a flap of his hand. “This childish posturing and growling, like a cub trying to prove he’s not scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Milo snapped back, flicking the other codex off his lap with one hand.

“Then I take back everything I said about you being smart.” Ambrose gave a shake of his head. “We’re past the edge of the map here, Magus, and you’re being schooled in witchcraft by monsters! If you aren’t at least a little bit scared, you are stupid, and being that stupid will get you killed. Probably me too, thank you very much.”

Ambrose’s words punched through the anger that was swelling inside him, leaving him deflated but unwilling to release his grip. He threw himself back against the couch and raised a fist to grind against his forehead.

“What do you want me to do?” Milo fumed. “Cower and fawn over that parasite?”

A smile twitched beneath Ambrose’s mustache.

“I’m not sure you are capable of fawning over anything,” he said, failing to stifle his grin. “But if you could try to be a touch less confrontational, maybe learn to growl less and listen more, we both might last a bit longer.”

Milo let off his forehead to look levelly at Ambrose.

“I’ve heard you growl plenty.”

Ambrose chuckled and then slapped both hands on his knees.

“That’s my job,” he said before heaving himself to his feet and turning back to the kitchenette. “And the fact is that for what my job is, it works. But your job isn’t being the ruggedly handsome guardian of some upstart, pretty boy wizard. Your job is to be that upstart wizard, and that means you’ve got to try being more sagely and less of a street tough.”

Ambrose retrieved two bowls and filled them with the rice mixture, then snatched up two spoons.

“You really think I’m pretty?” Milo asked in his most delicate voice.

“Without a doubt,” the big man said with a wink as he handed one bowl and spoon to Milo. “Just don’t tell your teacher. Don’t want the poor girl getting jealous.”

Milo dug around the clumps of rice to find the seasoned meat, shaking his head as he remembered the Bashlek’s words.

“I think that more than anything proves how mad Marid is.” He snorted, not wanting Ambrose to see how much he enjoyed the savory smell of the food. “Imrah wouldn’t put me out if I was on fire.”

“I might think about it,” a voice called from the entrance to the apartment. “And isn’t that a human proverb? ‘It’s the thought that counts.’”

Milo nearly gagged on his first bite as he spun on the couch to see a naked woman standing in the doorway.

She was short and shapely, fuller-figured than might have been fashionable, but she would have been quite pleasant to look at had her appearance not been so sudden and she not so nude. After a single uncertain second, she closed the door behind her and strode into the room as Ambrose watched suspiciously. Milo was caught between choking and gawking.

“Who are you?” Milo wheezed, then fought to clear his throat.

Dark eyes turned toward Milo, framed by black, straight hair cut along a severe line. Even through his watering eyes, Milo couldn’t help noting something familiar glittering in her gaze. Something which, until very recently, he’d taken for barely suppressed loathing.

“Imrah?” Milo croaked.

The woman nodded, then frowned at Milo’s bemused expression.

“What is wrong with you?” she snapped, glaring at his stunned expression and then turning to Ambrose. “What is wrong with him?”

“You do look a little different, ma’am,” Ambrose offered. “He might be having a hard time adjusting.”

She who was apparently Imrah gave an exasperated sigh and turned back to Milo, whose wandering eyes snapped back up to her face. His eyes looked ready to pop out of his head, and if they didn’t, his cheeks were burning hot enough to cook them inside his head.

“How in Styx am I supposed to accompany you?” she demanded. “Humans are notoriously oblivious, but I’m fairly certain they will notice if a ghul is with you.”

“I, uh, I guess, um, that makes sense,” Milo muttered. “So will you, uh, be traveling with us, um, like that?”

Imrah raised a hand, and both men thought she was about to slap him until she reached over with her other hand to give the meat of her forearm a squeeze.

“If you’d done your reading, you would know this kind of skin-shawl requires considerable time and resources to prepare. Once it’s put on, removing it will destroy it. So yes, Magus, I will be traveling in this meat suit, though Iblis only knows how I’ll manage.”

“If I may, ma’am,” Ambrose interjected as he cleared his throat with a cough. “I think what the Magus meant was, do you plan to put on clothes before we rejoin the world above? A naked woman might not raise as many eyebrows as a ghul, but it would draw more attention than we’d want.”

Imrah looked down at herself and then shot a glance to Milo, whose valiant efforts at discretion seemed doomed to failure.

“As if this clinging