BLOODSHOT . . . piper mclean

82.

EDEN COULDN'T BELIEVE how hard it was to find deadly poison.

All morning she, Piper, and Frank had scoured the port of Pylos. Frank allowed only Eden and Piper to come with him, thinking Kaleidoscope's charmspeak might be useful if they ran into his shape-shifting relatives, and she wanted Eden to come with, and that was that.

As it turned out, Eden's prowess in fighting was more in demand. So far, they'd slain a Laistrygonian ogre in the bakery, battled a giant warthog in the public square and defeated a flock of Stymphalian birds with some well-aimed vegetables from Piper's cornucopia.

Meanwhile, Piper's biggest challenge in Pylos was the ads plastered all over town for her dad's new movie. The posters were in Greek, but Eden knew what they said: TRISTAN MCLEAN IS JAKE STEEL: SIGNED IN BLOOD.

Eden had tried not to laugh every time she'd seen one. There her girlfriend's dad was on the poster, his shirt ripped open to reveal perfect abs, an AK-47 in each hand, a rakish smile on his chiselled face. She understood why Connor had the hots for him. She teased him about it constantly.

Around one in the afternoon, Piper finally put her charmspeak to work. She spoke with an Ancient Greek ghost in a Laundromat and got directions to an ancient stronghold where the shape-shifting descendants of Periclymenus supposedly hung out.

After trudging across the island in the afternoon heat, they found the cave perched halfway up a beachside cliff. Frank insisted that Eden and Piper wait for him at the bottom while he checked it out.

So they went the beach, and Eden had convinced Piper to let loose a little.

"Come on, just put your feet in the water!" Eden laughed, holding out her hands to her. "Please?"

"Won't Frank be back soon? And people will notice when you're not getting wet."

Eden pouted. "Family reunions take a long time, baby. Take it from someone who's met at least ten relatives on my godly side for the past five years. Besides, princess, it's my feet. I'm wearing shorts anyway, and it's not like we're gonna go in until we're submerged in water. Please?"

It was one of the most convincing arguments that Eden had pulled on Piper. Factual evidence, the shorts, ( Piper had been staring at her the entire day, and she could see why. These shorts were her favorite ) and the pout.

"Okay," Piper decided, taking Eden's hands and going into the water, squealing at the coldness.

The moments would've been way better at night, when they would be alone and the water would be dark and the sun would have almost set, but Eden took it for what it was worth. She twirled Piper, helped by the water under her, then dipped her, and her hair almost touched the water.

"Don't you dare!" Piper craned her head up, so that their foreheads collided. Eden ignored the spike of pain and leaned into the contact.

"You don't trust me enough to not drop you?" Eden laughed. "How many times have I done this to you? Besides, I can just make you dry."

"But it's so cold!"

Eden pulled Piper back upright, and they stared at each other. Piper went in for a kiss.

God, she was addicting. Eden was drunk off her, and would be for the rest of her life. She'd do anything for her princess, as long as she would be her soldier.

"You're amazing," Eden murmured.

"You're amazinger."

"That's not even a word."

"You can't even read."

That made Eden pull away and huff. "You've crossed the line, darling. I'm going to the bakery again and buying coffee and a cake and you're not stopping me."