Page 66 of Cookbooks and Demons

“I guess I never thought about it much, but to be fair, I don’t think too much about what life was like for 1600 France.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised they stopped mid coitus.”

“Wow.”

Rafferty shrugged and turned onto his back so he could put a hand underhis head.

“But I guess, how is it not different between the age gap of you and me? I mean, you’re hundreds of years old.”

“No, I’m not,” he said. “I died,remember?”

“Yeah, but you still exist,” she countered.

“Aging only happens in this reality. My existence elsewhere, there is no measure of time, which is why it’s thought of as eternity. Timeisbut it doesn’t progress. Only being here is there a linear change, and I’m here for such small slips of time at most. But elsewhere, we all stillexist.”

Helena struggled to take all that in. “So you’re saying we… all of us… we’ve all always existed?” she asked.

“As far as I understand it, yes,”he said.

Her mind blew at that bit of confirmed information. “So… from that perspective, you and I are about thesame age?”

Rafferty shrugged. “You could think of it that way. If youneed to.”

“How old were you when you died?”

“Nineteen or twenty, about. I’m not exactly sure.”

That surprised her even more. “So if we’re measuring by time spent in this existence, I’m twenty-six, so you…”

“Would still be younger than you, yes, if we add all of the little slips of time of my being in this reality together,” he agreed.

Helena flopped back onto the bed. “And the hits keep coming. That’s justamazing.”

Rafferty turned again to lie on his side facing her, this time his hand propping up his head so he had a downward view. “Helena, may Ikiss you?”

“Oh!” she said, sideswiped by the request. “I…”

Her hesitation was the wrong answer, and he pulled back from his slight lean forward. “My apologies for asking. But you said I should ask. But I shouldn’t have—”

“No, no, don’t pull away,” she said, reaching for his face. “You just caught me by surprise. It’s been a roller coaster kind of dayfor that.”

And she moved in to press her lips to his, closing her eyes. First he froze, then his hand came around and cupped the back of her head gently. His lips were firm under hers, like he didn’t know what to do with them, but she massaged gently, showing him what she wanted him to do. When he had relaxed enough, she slipped her tongue just within the edge of his mouth. He groaned in his throat and broke the kiss. He didn’t pull away far though, setting his forehead against hers as he gasped for breath.

“God, you are merciless,” hewhispered.

“What? What’s wrong? Didn’t you like it?” she asked,worried.

“I loved it,” he whispered and pressed his lips to hers again, returning it more boldly this time. Somewhere on the edge of Helena’s awareness, as they kissed over and over again, she was conscious of the flutter of leathery wings behind him, but it wasn’t until his tail curled around the leg she had thrown over him like a snake that she became aware he had shifted.

She made a surprisedmewsound in her throat, and his eyes flew open. A second later, he shifted back to simply a man.

“Dammit,” he cursed and rolled over to sit up, his back facing her.

“It’s alright,” she tried to say, but the damage had already been done.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t… I couldn’t hold it,” he said, disgusted withhimself.

“It’s alright,” she insisted. It didn’t seem to doany good.

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