Page 109 of Reap & Sow

A loud pop broke the stalemate.

Eda knew that sound. She yanked the cover up in mortification.

Tripp sat by their feet, eyes bulging.

“Get out!” She threw a pillow at him. The imp lacked the presence of mind to dodge; he was knocked straight off the bed.

“My eyes!” he wailed from the floor. “My poor eyes be damned! She has ensnared my Lord Ansellis!” He peeked over the edge of the bed, glaring and tearful. “The bush-haired sorceress must pay for her hubris—”

He ducked another pillow, this one thrown with considerably more force. Kit rolled his shoulder. “Be silent, Tripp, or I will have your tongue.”

“B-but…”

The answering glare crackled with black power.

Tripp crawled back onto the bed, prostrating himself. “Apologies, m’lord.”

“From now on, you will treat Eda Shaw with the same respect you reserve for me.”

Kit might as well have spat in Tripp’s face. The imp stiffly bowed in deference nonetheless. “Apologies, my lady.”

Eda suspected he kept far more creative names for her in reserve. And we were just starting to get along.

She asked Kit, “What’s to stop him from appearing right in the middle of…you know!”

“He’s instructed to only come to me when asked, but he has apparently forgotten his manners.”

“Not so, m’lord! You also stipulated that Tripp might call upon you in times of great urgency! Of life and death!”

“And who exactly is at risk of dying right now?”

The imp’s bulbous black eyes shifted toward Eda.

Dread rose like the tide. “What is it?”

“Your brother has come into the city looking for you…my lady. The boat witch came downriver. She threatened to place a curse upon Tripp, if he did not help the boy find you.”

“Ben? He’s here?”

“Yes.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

Tripp glanced at Kit, then her. “Better to ask him yourself.”

Eda dressed in a hurry.

All the warmth and comfort and fragile, fizzing happiness nurtured in that bedchamber was blown away by Tripp’s ominous reappearance, sure as a cold wind. The rumblings of the oncoming storm gathered at last.

She plaited her hair. Her fingers were dumb and graceless as she tied it off with Robin’s pilfered twine. The second time she failed to make a knot, she cursed. A long-fingered hand stopped her.

Kit took the twine without word and tied a neat bow, as though he’d done it a hundred times before. After everything they’d shared, this somehow felt incredibly intimate. “There,” he rumbled. His fingers lingered on her hair. With his mortal guise in place, there were no claws to snag it.

“Thank you.”

Eyes of flame snapped to hers. The real world had come surging back, but they were not the same woman and demon that left it two days prior. The tenderness between her legs was a pleasant reminder. But then, perhaps it was only Eda who felt changed. Kit might have swept many a lover off their feet just like this.

He’s rather good at charming mortals, Mr. Night told her.