Chapter 28 - Reap and Sow

Waking to birdsong and a warm embrace, Eda thought, was a rare pleasure—but waking to kisses even more so.

The first time, the windows were still dark blue in the hours before dawn. Too early. But any protest she might’ve made against the mouth that roused her died a quick death. Kisses feathered along her neck, slow and lazy. The warm hand resting over the curve of her belly slid higher, traced the undersides of her breasts. Half asleep as she was, Eda thought she might have been caught in an exceedingly pleasurable dream. But the gentle drag of claws over skin was a sound reminder of exactly who curled possessively around her. She rather felt like a hoard of gold beneath a greedy dragon.

Kit nibbled at her ear. The sensation of his canines—so sharp yet so careful—sent little sparks of excitement through her. She found herself humming in delight as she pressed back into him. By the feel of it, he’d been up and wanting for a while.

“Did I wake you?”

“You know you did,” she scolded, not the least bit annoyed. His hand cupped her breast. She arched into his touch, suddenly hot all over.

“Shall I leave you be?” He kissed her shoulder.

Eda answered him by grabbing his hand and moving it beneath the bedcover. They were both breathless and heavy-eyed by the time he took her again, laid exactly as they’d woken, with his fangs latched upon her neck and her arm thrown back, clinging to his horn for dear life.

The second time, day had broken in earnest. Sunlight filtered into the dim room. Dust motes played about them in a buttery glow as Eda shoved Kit back into the mattress. He was far too strong to be pushed about if he did not wish it, but he must have wished it, for he fell easily. His eyes were roaring bonfires as she straddled him, his hair an inky nimbus about his head.

He tried to pull her where he wanted her. Eda batted him away. “Patience is a virtue, Lord Ansellis.” She hadn’t forgotten his expression the first time she called him lord that night they danced around the bonfire.

As she’d hoped, Kit again looked vaguely drunk. His pupils swelled, black and fathomless. She thought she could fall into them if she only stared long enough.

His hands slid up her thighs. “Come here.”

That dangerous rumble was reminiscent of the first time she’d seen his real form, when he’d unfurled before the Blades and told them that “their god wasn’t here.” It made her shiver from head to toe.

Eda steadied herself with one hand on his chest and reached between them with the other, gripping him. He hissed. She stroked, and a string of heated Infernal was her reward. Dangerous he might be, but more dangerous still was the heady rush of power at having a creature so deadly prone beneath her.

Heavy eyes flitted from where she touched him, to the swell of her breasts, to her face; hungry and inhuman as she’d ever seen. “Eda.”

“Kit’rath,” she teased. “Surely all those clever words haven’t fled you so soon?”

His gaze sharpened. Eda was yanked up the bed with startling ease—she yelped and grabbed the headboard for balance. Kit was already shimmying down the mattress.

Her throat ran dry. “What are you…?”

He pulled her down until she felt his warm breath against her center. “Showing you where all my clever words have gone.” And then he did, writing unknowable phrases against her with his tongue until she flew apart, like so many bursting stars.

They did not sleep again, but neither were wont to leave the bed. Drowsy with pleasure, Eda indulged herself in playing with his claws, testing their sharp points. Kit kissed her spine as though he might count each vertebra. At some point his tail curled about her ankle. Eda wasn’t sure he even realized.

They shared what was left of yesterday’s bread. She demanded he teach her more Infernal insults, and he pressed his face to her neck, laughing, when she recited them badly. She still liked vhesak’din best—fuck you was so versatile! Kit tried to distract her by biting her ear. She compared him a louche philanderer from an adventure novel she’d once read. He asked her about other stories, fascinated, for there was no such fiction in Infernus, and he’d explored more human poetry than prose.

Eda tried, but she’d only read novels that came into the shop, and they were few. It occurred to her how small her life was. She didn’t know how to gather herbs, or when hunting season was, or the name of a single poet. Embarrassment reared.

Eda traced the pink scar on his arm where Tenelle had stabbed him, trying to think of a change of subject.

Kit noticed. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s silly.”

“Tell me anyway.” He kissed her palm.

Eyes averted, she mustered the courage. “You’ve lived in this world as long as I have, but you know so much more about it. Plays and books and markets halfway across the world…I don’t know anything. My entire life was the shop and the mirror. Sometimes I—I don’t know who I am outside of that.”

Kit was quiet for a moment. Then he scooped her into his lap as though she weighed nothing. His hot, bare skin was a balm against her own.

“I know who you are,” he breathed. “You are kind.” He kissed her cheek. “You are brave.” He kissed her brow. “You have terrible fashion sense.” This evoked a laugh, and he nosed at her neck, smiling. “You like too much honey in your oats, and you’re secretly vain about your hair. As you should be.” He ran a reverent hand through it. “You like theater and stories with happy endings, and you’ve a curious mind that shines whenever faced with something new.” He drew back to look at her. The expression he wore was unbearably tender. “Lack of experience or education does not equal lack of ability. You can be whatever you wish, Eda. The world is yours. You need only decide to seek it out.”

Her heart swelled with an affection she’d never known. That greedy desire for connection lived in him too; she felt it in the way he held her. Two loose threads pulled together.

When she captured his mouth again, it drew a low, satisfied sound from deep within Kit’s chest. Eda endeavored for a long while to make him do it again.

“Do your horns ever get in the way?” she asked later, running her fingers over the grooved curve.

“On the contrary. I have it on good authority that they make excellent handles.”

“I meant when sleeping.”

“Hm, no. Got them caught on a branch when I was young once.”

She laughed at that. “Perhaps it’s a good thing these aren’t silk pillows. What if you’d gouged them open?”

He made a humming sound, distracted by the side of her breast. “I would have you know the feeling of silk on your skin. If we were in Infernus, I could make my suit properly. Jewels, clothes—anything you wanted.”

Make my suit properly. Eda’s pulse jumped. He said it so easily. “You mean…courting? You have courting in Infernus?”

“We do. A male must prove himself in all sorts of ways.” His voice deepened, tail brushing over her thigh. “I’ve not done enough to make my intentions clear, it seems.”

Eda made herself push him back. “In this world, courtship ideally starts because you care about someone deeply. I would accept no less than that.” She searched his eyes. You haven’t actually said how you feel.

Kit drew up, guarded. He was right to be wary. What good could come from admitting to anything beyond lust? Theirs would not be a courtship to end happily.

But saints, how she wanted to know that she wasn’t alone in her heartache. Kit had hinted at the depth of his regard, that night atop the standing stones—I want to listen to everything you say, I crave your laughter, I despise every moment your eyes aren’t on me—but it was not enough. Not enough and far too much.

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.

She tugged the plait free. “We subjected the boar to even more debauchery. I’m sure he won’t mourn our leaving.”

“Indeed. I only wish we’d more time to traumatize him.”

Eda’s chest constricted. More time. Strange, how little she’d cherished it when she thought she had it to spare. Nothing was so precious. Even demons knew that.

She pulled him down to kiss her. It was meant to be a brief thing, but he deepened it at once. The slide of his lips awoke every nerve in hers. Her blood rose at his call. Was it usual to want someone this badly? To embrace, skin-to-skin, and still be too far apart?

Kit made a pleased animal sound. He crowded Eda, tugged her against him—

Behind them, a short huff. Eda pulled away.

Tripp had returned. He glared disapprovingly. “The Shaw boy is here.”

She spared Kit a sheepish look and ran to the balcony.

It was drizzling, clouds blocking the autumn sun. Standing in the shade of the house was Ben, holding his hood close as he tilted back to look at her. Eda waved awkwardly. Ben’s dour expression did not change. “I’ll—I’ll let you in,” she called.

Eda hurried down the narrow oak stairs and across the foyer, heaving back the arched front door. “Ben, what are you—”

“Lawrie is ill.” He pushed past, eyeing the dark house. “Worse than before.”

Eda paled. “But Robin was treating him. Does she think he’ll lose his leg?”

“She didn’t think it necessary at first. Now she’s not sure it would do much good anyway. He’s…he’s dying, Eda.”

Eda’s thoughts stilled. She searched Ben’s face for a sign of jest. “No, he isn’t. He’s not dying, Ben.” She laughed—a high, unsteady sound. “Lawrie’s had infections before. He just needs time to rest, and maybe a proper healer. Robin did say she wasn’t a physician.”

“This is no ordinary infection. The fiends are not of this world. Lawrie’s body can’t fight off a demonic infection.”

“Then…remove the leg! We’ll cut it off if we have to—”

“He’s too weak. It’s in his blood now.” His voice trembled. He was trying to hold himself together. Eda could not remember the last time Ben had been this close to tears. “Robin says he has days.”

She gripped the wall for support. No. Her ears rang, belly flooding with ice water. Eda suddenly felt very far away. “What do we do? Ben, there has to be something.”

“The infection is magical. Robin said that there’s nothing to feed it when cut off from its source. Destroy the source, destroy the infection. That’s the only way.”

It was just as Kit had described. A demon entirely cut off from his homeland’s magic is weaker for it. Hope flared behind her ribs. “Infernus, you mean, where the fiends came from. The Gateway. Then we’ll destroy it! Both Mr. Night’s and Severin Lich’s—”

“The fiends draw their power from the one who commands them. That’s what Robin said, at least. It’s the only reason they can cross through Gateways at all.”

“Then…Florian Fane. We need to kill him?”

“Fane isn’t the one bringing the fiends here, Eda. That power is borrowed.” He met her eyes. “We need to kill Mr. Night.”

We need to kill Mr. Night.

Ben’s bloodshot eyes said more than a thousand words. Cloying dread crawled up her throat and veiled her eyes, making it hard to see through unshed tears. Kill Mr. Night. How? To even attempt it would violate the terms of their Pact. If they harmed him, he would be free to harm them, and Mr. Night would surely slaughter them in retaliation. They would need to strike a killing blow before he had the chance. How could they possibly—

“We’ll find a way,” she heard herself say. “We have to.”

“No.”

Standing at the foot of the stairs, as if he’d been there the whole time, Kit glared at them. His human guise was convincing, but the glowing orange of his eyes and his preternatural stillness made him an unnerving sight. He stood vaguely hunched, as though a crushing boulder weighed upon his shoulders. Tripp crouched farther up the banister, watching.

Eda ran to him. “Kit! You have powers. Could you heal Lawrie?”

His jaw flexed. “I possess no such ability.”

“Please, there must be something you can do. How—how many years do I have? You can have them. Whatever’s left.”

Ben made a noise of outrage. “Eda!”

“No.” Kit’s voice grated like shifting ice. “Even if I could help the boy, I would not take your years to do it.”

Frustration sparked. She gripped his arm. “Is Robin telling the truth? Is killing Mr. Night the only way to stop the infection?”

He was stiff as a board beneath her fingers. Before, he’d yielded to her touch like butter in the sun. “It’s true that the fiends are here by my brother’s will. And a fiend’s bite is magical in nature. Killing Baelion would stop the infection’s power at the root. However,” he snapped at her brightening expression, “it does not mean your brother would be saved. The magic in his blood may die out, but he is still badly wounded.”

“But the injury would be a mortal one, nothing more,” she argued hotly. “This is the only chance he has.”

His expression crumpled. “I can do nothing, mir’han. I’m sorry.”

“That’s not true. You’re strong, Kit. You said it yourself: Your people favored you to rule. They saw your worth, as I do, and you should not run from it. Here’s your chance! Show Baelion who you are.” She steeled herself. “Kill him.”

Kit’s face fell, stony. He was slow to respond. “You have no idea what you’re asking.”

“I know he’s powerful. I know you don’t wish to fight him. But you’re the only one who can. Aren’t you tired of hiding? Of living in the shadows, playing at being mortal, when Baelion rules over your kin in your absence? After everything he did to you growing up, all the ways he hurt you—”

He reared as though slapped, eyes flashing toward Ben. When Kit looked back at her, there was hurt in his gaze. “I confided in you. Now you mean to use my shame against me? To wield my secrets like a weapon, compel me to do your dirty work?”

Eda flinched. “You never said your past was a secret.”

His voice dipped. “You think I make a habit of revealing myself to any who ask? Against reason, against judgment, I told you, and I don’t—” He looked away. “I don’t even know why.”

“Kit—”

“You demand that I act in lieu of your own strength, like a common dog.” His lip curled. “Who are you to command me?”

Eda shook her head in disbelief. He’d not scorned her like this since their first meeting. “I’m not commanding you to do anything. I’m asking you, as your—” She stopped herself. As his what? The way he looked at her now, she feared she was nothing to him at all. “I’m just asking you.”

“You ask too much.”

Her temper flared. “I’m scared to face the thought of killing him too. I admired Mr. Night’s strength, his freedoms. Fooled myself into thinking that he cared about me. But he doesn’t care. His words are poison, drip-fed over so many years I became numb to what it does. I reserved all my hatred for my father and my brothers. But it won’t happen again.” She struck out her chin, glaring. “All of this could be over. My family’s Pact. Lawrie’s suffering. This city’s suffering. Your own. Yet you refuse…why? To be contrary? Pride? No.” She set her jaw. “You’re afraid.”

He bristled.

She heard Ben step closer. “Eda…”

“I thought demons were stronger than us. But you’re all just so afraid. Mr. Night too. That’s why you make Pacts for human years, isn’t it? You fear mortality. Your kind pity us for our short lives, revile us for so freely giving up that which you covet. But I see now. We die quickly and easily, and that makes living all the more precious. A demon will never understand that.” She curled her fists. Her eyes were wet. I will not cry. “You hoard our stolen years to stave off your own end. Live for centuries or more, all to avoid what humans face every day. And you know what I think?” She prodded his chest. “I think it’s pathetic.”

Kit’s visage shimmered between forms. He was breathing heavily, eyes narrowed to slits.

“You play at being a man, but you will never know what it is to be mortal until you can face the inevitability of your own death,” she continued. “And that’s the irony, isn’t it? If you have nothing to live for, you’re dead already.”

His hand shot out. She was hauled against him, nose-to-nose. In an instant, the illusion was gone. Only the demon remained—ashen and fanged and otherworldly. His body vibrated with something violent and raw.

Ben moved toward them; Eda held out her hand. She stared into Kit’s eyes and wondered if this was what heartbreak felt like.

“Stop it,” he snapped, leaning his brow to hers. His voice shook. “Why are you saying this? Why do you have to ruin it?”

Eda ignored him. “Will you fight?”

Will you fight for me?

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t.”

Her heart sank. She observed every feature: the slope of his cheek, his fine brow, his silky lashes and the way his hair fell into them just so. Committed it all to memory.

“Then run away, Kit’rath. My life is too short to waste it on cowards.”

He stiffened. Slowly, mechanically, he let her go. Stood back and looked down at her with an expression as featureless and blank as a fresh field of snow.

Kit burst into a riot of black mist that stirred Eda’s hair, and a sleek crow flew straight through the open door.

As brief and breathtaking as a comet, he was gone.