My Demon Husband novel · Chapter 9 of 32

Chapter 9: The Bond Doesn't Vote

I slept for fourteen hours.

When I woke up on Wednesday, all three hounds were on my bed.

The runt was across my feet. The middle one was on my legs.

The big one had his head on my pillow, breathing hot air into my ear.

"Off," I said.

Nobody moved.

"You're not allowed on the bed," I told them. "He has rules."

The big one licked my whole face from chin to hairline.

"Okay. Fine. Rules are overrated."

Something was burning in the kitchen.

I pulled on a cardigan and followed the smoke.

Malphas stood at the stove in his shirtsleeves, holding a frying pan at arm's length.

There was something black in it.

"What is that?"

"Eggs."

"What did they do to you?"

"I followed the instructions," he said. "Opal said 'medium heat.' Medium is not a temperature."

I took the pan away from him and scraped it into the trash.

"Sit down. I'll show you."

"You should be in bed."

"I've been in bed since yesterday. Sit."

He sat on the stool at the counter.

He was very bad at sitting. He did it like a man waiting to be sentenced.

I cracked two eggs and turned the heat down.

"You stir it slow. You take it off before you think it's done."

"Why?"

"Because it keeps cooking. Everything does."

He watched my hands like I was doing surgery.

I put the plate in front of him. He looked at it.

"I don't eat," he said.

"You don't eat, or you never tried?"

He picked up the fork.

He took one bite and went very still.

"Well?"

"It's warm," he said, like that was the whole review.

He ate the rest.

That night, the Larkspur came up to 5C.

Nobody asked. They just knocked.

Opal came first, with a pot of chicken soup and a loaf of bread under her arm.

The nurse from 3A brought pie. The two old men brought beer and an argument about baseball.

The boy from 4D brought me a drawing of me setting a lawyer on fire.

"I didn't set him on fire," I said. "Just his paper."

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