Page 6 of Mischief Maker

Chapter Five

Faela

I wonder if I offended Kireth in some way. I was just grateful for what he did—for using his magic to benefit me—but touching him seemed to have set him off, and his demeanor was like a door slamming closed.

Shit. I wish I hadn’t forgotten myself that way, just when it seemed like things were going better between us.

Still, after seeing what his magic was able to accomplish in the field, I’m overcome with a lightness, an optimism that I barely recognize.

I haven’t felt this way in years, not since before Mother died.

Things were falling apart then, too, it simply wasn’t in free fall.

This, though, reminds me of being a child, when Father was still around and would pick me up and swing me in his arms in a wide circle, letting my legs fly through the air.

There is hope after all.

That night, I pause at the open door leading into Mother’s old room, where an immortal sleeps like the dead on the bed. He’s beautiful, yes. I wasn’t lying when I said that before. Ravishing, really, if I separate who he is from what he looks like.

But he is a god, an immortal, a demon. One does not think thoughts like that about gods and immortals and demons.

Yet I’m thinking them anyway as I go into my bedroom and light a candle, then lift off my dress and replace it with my slip.

There is an ache somewhere deep inside me that thinks intently of Kireth’s face, of his lips opening and closing with each sleeping breath, and wishes for one thing.

More .

Knowing that he is unconscious in the next room, my hand slips down my belly, under the skirt.

It’s not often that I feel a need to touch myself, but tonight, I am burning between my thighs.

I remember the softness of Kireth’s skin and the hardness of his lithe muscles as I threw my arms around him, and my hunger grows.

I run a finger over my sensitive bead, and my body twitches in response.

Oh, am I tense with need. Another few strokes and my legs are shaking, my hips lifting off the bed into my hand.

When I slide my palm down, wetness coats my fingertips.

I imagine Kireth touching me there and my pleasure builds, the ache growing stronger.

Rubbing myself furiously, I bite back a moan, and it takes only a few more moments for me to reach my finish.

I collapse to the bed, spent, feeling utterly filthy at how I’m behaving. A god would never touch me that way. I must banish it from my mind.

The seedlings have sprouted even taller the next morning, and I cannot help but cry out my excitement.

Something is growing again, and I’m filled to bursting with hope.

I give Kireth a specific chore to do—milk all the animals—and he does it without complaint.

That night, I find the pails all stacked up in the barn in the shape of a penis, but that was the most mischief he caused today.

For dinner, I bring out lots of cheese and the rest of the bread, and afterward, I ask Kireth to join me while I work on repairing the tiller.

“Do you know what’s wrong?” he asks, plopping on the ground nearby while I fiddle with a joint.

“I’m figuring it out. I’ve never fixed anything before, but I understand how all the pieces work, so I should be able to do it with some experimentation.”

He hums, leaning back on his hands to watch as I mess with each connection point, testing as I go.

As the sun goes down, Petal joins us, and she seems to have taken a shine to Kireth, sprawling across his lap.

For a moment, everything feels right, the god’s wild hair and curled horns bathed in orange light, the sheep and cattle all bundled up tight for the night.

The air is fresh and warm, not hot, and I wish this could last.

“It’s not that bolt,” Kireth says after a while, his voice irritated.

Petal rolls over and whines as he gets up and approaches my project.

“It’s this one.” He snatches the wrench from me and applies it to a different attachment, tightening the nut.

When he pushes on it, it no longer wobbles but holds steady and firm.

He didn’t have to do that. No one asked him to, but he helped me anyway, without even requiring me to use a task.

“Thank you.” I resist touching him again because he didn’t seem to like that much last time. “Your help means a lot to me.”

With a scoff, Kireth returns to his former position, just observing. “I got annoyed watching you trying to fix the wrong thing.”

Of course, that was all. But I can’t help wondering if there’s more to him than a mercurial, immortal spirit.

Kireth

I was partially telling the truth. It grated on my nerves to watch her try to fix the wrong problem.

But a steadily growing, deeper part of me wanted to see her succeed.

To accomplish something she’s set out to do, and get that big, wide smile on her face that speaks of a time before, when her life was easier and sweeter.

Still, I didn’t use a task. That was a mistake. I cannot let her think that my help comes for free, that I will step in and save her when she needs it without her making that sacrifice.

I have been taking it much too easy on her.

The next day, I mention to Faela that blackberries are coming into season. She gives me a careless task: go pick blackberry bushes .

I had hoped we might go looking for them together, spending a day traipsing through the woods like fauns on an adventure. Maybe I would sneak a peek up her skirt while I helped her get out of a tangle of brambles. Instead, she is sending me off like a servant to gather them for her, all by myself.

Hmph. And this is how she repays me for helping her last night?

I could carry two baskets with me and pick out pounds and pounds of fat, delectable blackberries, but instead, I take the cart, pulling it along behind me as if I were an ox.

I use my claws to rip out big blackberry bushes whole, tossing them into the cart and then moving on to the next bush.

Luckily, my skin is tough and the thorns do nothing to me.

Once I’ve nearly cleared the area out, I pull the cart back to the farm and wait for Faela to finish her chores.

When she approaches me, sitting atop my pile of bushes, her mouth falls slack.

“What are these?” she asks, brows creasing in worry as she stops in front of the cart.

“You asked me to pick blackberry bushes. I did what you requested.” I carelessly lean back on one hand, surveying her from her brown eyes with the long lashes, down to her threadbare shoes.

What will she do this time? I watch curiously as she looks over what I’ve done again, expecting her to finally lash out, to yell at me for decimating the bushes. To call me a fool or an idiot or a cretin. Now they won’t grow back next year.

It would be delightful to see her let loose on me.

Instead, Faela sighs and rubs her face like she can wish away what I’ve done. She turns around and strides off, without saying a word to me, and I wonder if she’ll give me the cold shoulder again and lock me out of the house.

But then she returns moments later, her hands wrapped in ancient leather gloves. Armed, she picks through the branches of the bushes for berries, plucking them off and dropping them into a bowl at her feet.

She says nothing to me as she proceeds, picking one berry after another, until one whole bush has been cleared. Then she leaves again, and I follow along curiously as she grabs a shovel and heads off to the far edge of the property.

There, she digs. She digs and digs, until she’s dug a hole about two feet deep.

Dropping the shovel, Faela marches to the house once more and wraps her arms around a huge blackberry bush, squeaking with pain as the thorns bite into her skin.

I’m tempted to jump in and stop her, but she perseveres, dragging it down the hill toward the hole, where she tries to plant the torn roots of the bush in the ground.

She refills the hole with dirt, then stands up and dusts off her hands.

There are tiny puckers of blood all over her arms and neck, and even one on her cheek from the thorns.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I grouse as she begins digging another hole.

“What would you have me do?” Faela leans against the shovel, propping her other hand on her hip.

“Leave them? Burn them? At least I can replant them here, and maybe in the future, they’ll grow right on the property.

I won’t have to travel as far to pick them.

” She offers me a wan smile. “Maybe you helped me.”

I stare at her as she digs the next hole. When she returns to fetch another bush, I grumble as I take it from her, because she is too soft-skinned. She offers me a smile as I carry it down for her and we plant the bush together.

When we’re finished picking and replanting, we take the bowls inside with us. After so much exertion, we both dive in, stuffing our faces with the little purple berries. I suck each of my fingers to clean them off, which makes Faela laugh with scandal, and a little blush rises in her cheeks.

Full and happy, I watch her hips swing as she heads up the stairs to get ready for bed, her dress swaying in time. I lick my lips as she vanishes, drunk on the berries and tempted to follow her.

Eventually I make my way to my own bed, where I stroke myself to the memory of her rear end as she bent down to plant a bush.

I have never met anyone who was a match for me, and here she is, in the strangest of places.