Page 83 of Reap & Sow

Eda had been looking at Kit without really seeing him, lost in her own ferocious thoughts, and he hadn’t said a word. She blinked. Refocused.

His pupils were huge and round, black pupils swallowing all but a thin ring of fire. Exactly as he’d looked when they sat in the shadows of the Maiden’s Lyre. This time there was no disguise concealing his ashen skin or knifelike ears.

Kit said slowly, “Just when I think it impossible, I continue to be surprised.”

“By the foolishness of mortals?”

“By the bravery of you.”

She searched his face for jest. “I’m not brave.”

“You are.” He looked almost angry about it. His eyes skittered across her face.

“What will you do, when our Pact is done?” She swallowed. “Will I—will I ever see you again?”

He stilled. “Would you want to see me?”

“Suppose that I did.”

His gaze dropped, distant with thoughts beyond her ken. “I could tell you that I don’t know. It would be a lie.” Tentatively, Kit’s knuckles brushed hers—a deliberate touch. A question. An invitation. Eda stopped breathing. “Once our Pact is fulfilled, nothing ties me to you. And yet.”

His fingers spread with sudden greed, coiling around her wrist. His claws pricked without hurting as he drew her hand close. He turned it this way and that, loitering over the thin pink scar on her palm. His eyelids lowered, half-mast. Slowly, as though he anticipated she might pull away, he bent to place a featherlight kiss there.

A burst of heady warmth rushed through her. Eda hardly dared to breathe, afraid of breaking this strange spell. “Tell me the truth, then,” she whispered. Am I trembling?

“The truth?”

She nodded.

He shut his eyes. Brushed his lips again over her scar. “The truth is that since the moment you broke into my home, I’ve thought of nothing but you.”

Eda might have made a noise. She couldn’t be sure. Kit squeezed her hand and talked faster, as if a dam had broken. As if he’d never get another chance.

“I could tell you that when you take my hand, I already dread the moment you’ll let go. How I want to listen to everything you say, even when you rabbit on about the most asinine drivel. That I crave your laughter. Want to show you plays and music and art, if it will make you smile the way you did at that playhouse.” He looked up at her gravely. “Tell me to stop talking.”

Eda’s heart leaped in frenzy. His black hair had fallen over his brow—she itched to push it back. “There’s more?”

“Much. And I’ve no right to say any of it to you. I took your years. You should despise me. Maybe you do. But sometimes, I think you don’t despise me at all. And it drives me to distraction.” His tail curled around her calf. He mouthed at her knuckles.

“Would—would you give my years back? If you could?”

“Yes.” He didn’t even hesitate. “A poor demon that makes me, but I would give you many things. If I could.” He placed a soft kiss on her inside wrist. Then harder. Then another, farther up her arm.

“Kit,” Eda gasped. She waited for him to look at her. “Keep talking.”

He froze. She’d only ever asked him to shut up.

Suddenly he pulled her close, until she was practically in his lap. “What else would you have me confess?” he rumbled. “How I despise every moment your eyes aren’t on me? How low I would prostrate myself, just to earn another measly crumb of your attention?”

His nose trailed down her cheek, her jaw. When he planted an uncertain kiss just beneath her ear, Eda stopped breathing. Her silence he took as acquiescence, and he did it again, open-mouthed. Liquid heat bloomed between her legs. She gripped his shoulder.

“I’ll take any of it,” he said between fevered kisses. “Your anger, your disgust, your scorn. Anything but your apathy. That’s the problem with demons. We’re too damn greedy.”

She snuck a hand into his hair and gently pulled. Kit’s head tipped back obediently. He was panting, though she’d hardly done a thing, eyes like smoldering coals.

Eda hesitantly nuzzled her cold nose to his jaw—an exploratory touch. He made a sound decidedly unlike protest. “Would you take my affection?” she whispered.

Unable to resist, she placed a kiss upon his warm throat, smiling at the way his pulse leaped.