Page 77
Story: Till Death and Daisies Bloom
Old wood, soaked in magick, heavy with age and rot, groaned as I braced myself beneath it. My shoulders screamed. My back wailed. My everything protested. I was Sloth, for fuck’s sake—I wasn’t built for this.
But her wing twitched again.
And I kept lifting.
Because the world was waking up.
And—for once—so was I.
“I need you to scoot back,” I said through gritted teeth. “Just a bit, alright?”
She whimpered but nodded. Brave little thing. Her tiny foot caught on a hunk of masonry. She gasped, her body trembling.
Screw this.
I shoved harder. A crack split through the air as the shelf shifted. I jammed my shoulder beneath it and heaved, stars dancing behind my eyes.
She crawled free.
I dropped the shelf with a loud thud and collapsed beside her.
“I hate this,” I groaned. My arms felt like noodles. Burnt ones.
“You saved me,” she whispered.
“Unfortunately,” I muttered.
She crawled over to me, still shaking, and threw her arms around my middle like I was some kind of divine savior.
Hugs. Ugh.
But I let her stay. Even patted her on the back. Once.
“You’re safe now,” I told her, as awkwardly as humanly—or sinfully—as possible. “Sloth’s got you.”
She looked up at me, eyes wide. “Are you one of the heroes?”
I snorted. Loud. “Gods, no.”
“But you’re helping,” she insisted. “I’m Kiva.”
Kiva. The name hit something soft in my chest I didn’t like to think about.
“I guess...sometimes even lazy people get tired of watching everything fall apart,” I said.
I looked down at her, gazing up at me in adoration. It made me uncomfortable, and I searched for an immediate change in topic.
“How the fu–er, how did you end up here?” I asked.
She held her arms up to me, and I bent down and picked her up. She was dreadfully thin. Good thing G had just restocked the house on crisps and biscuits.
“The bad men had me. I didn’t like where they were. So I wished to be somewhere else,” she said, as if it were all perfectly logical.
Fae magick was powerful, yet unpredictable, especially a child fae in danger. We’d have to be very careful.
I took her back to the manor, her weight pressed against my side.
“Where are you parents?” I asked.
Table of Contents
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