Reap the Wind (Cassandra Palmer 7)

“We need to have an argument,” I corrected. “Profanity may be used.”

“I don’t care,” Rhea said staunchly, glaring at him. “I need . . . that is, I would like to request an audience.”

“With who?”

She looked at me.

“Oh. Right.” I wasn’t used to being referred to like some kind of royalty. And didn’t plan to get used to it, either. But that could wait. “In a little while.”

Rhea curtsied again, and then just continued to stand there.

“He isn’t going to hurt me,” I assured her, and she finally left, still shooting Marco evil looks. And a second later the other boot came off.

The rug promptly went from filthy to unsalvageable, but I didn’t care. I lay back against the bed with something between a sigh and a groan and wriggled my poor toes in relief. Along with his other failings, Rosier had gotten my boots two sizes too small.

“Oh God, that feels good,” I said fervently.

The door slammed shut.

Uh-oh.

I didn’t bother getting up. Experience had shown that I could be yelled at lying down just as easily. Of course, I didn’t need to get up, I thought sleepily. I needed to get back. But even assuming that Pritkin’s soul hadn’t already flitted off somewhere, that the various Pythias had dispersed, and that we could get close enough to lay the spell without getting hexed, it still wouldn’t do any good.

Because I was pooped.

And a jump of more than two centuries was tough enough even when I wasn’t.

Marco’s handsome, if alarmingly large, face appeared in the space over mine. “If you fall asleep on me, I may trash the room,” he warned.

“Too late.”

And look, it seemed like I could sit up, after all, I thought, as I was jerked back to the perpendicular. I would have protested, but Marco was busy relieving me of some of the god-awful wool, so I didn’t. “I don’t suppose this could wait?” I asked as he stripped off the high-necked jacket.

“You know, that’s funny,” he told me, slinging it across the room, where it squelched wetly against the wall. “That’s what I said to myself, just this morning. ‘She’s sleeping. Let the kid get some rest. There’s plenty of time to find out what the hell happened last night!’”

“Last night?” I was fuzzy on last night. Maybe because, for me, it had been several nights ago. Or days. Or . . .

Time travel was hard.

“I can take my own skirt off,” I told him, although not for modesty’s sake. Being undressed by Marco was akin to being stripped by a rabid wolverine.

Might as well have saved my breath. But at least I had on four layers of petticoats, or crinolines or whatever the right term was, under there. Hell, I could outfit a whole house.

Which might be just as well, since I didn’t see any luggage.

“Where’d you put the girls’ stuff?” I asked, after Marco rolled me out of the skirt and almost off the bed.

“They didn’t have any.”

“They didn’t have—”

“They said,” he told me viciously, “that it was blown up!”

Oh, right.

That last night.

“Um. Well, see—”