Page 21 of Mischief Maker
“Every day, you must put a few drops of this around the farm,” he tells me firmly, handing me the bowl. “Everywhere that’s been affected by this plague.” He takes out a drop with one finger and brings it to the creaky, splintering wooden floorboards.
“Even inside the house?” I ask.
He grins. “This place isn’t falling apart because of your caretaking. It’s falling apart because a curse is killing it, as it is killing everything on this land.”
“A curse?” What did he discover while he was gone? Where did he go that he found this solution?
When Kireth touches his finger to the floor, the droplet of potion sizzles. He draws his hand away quickly, and the spot emanates a soft glow. As soon as it began, the glow fades, and I wonder if it’s just my imagination that the floor now looks cleaner in that spot.
“There.” Kireth hands me the bowl. “Go spread some around. We will do this every day until the curse starts to loosen its hold on the farm. Once we have it on the run, we must capture it.”
That is all very curious. I didn’t know curses were the type of things to get up and run away.
“How did you find this out?” I ask. “What is the nature of this curse?”
The pleasure and mischief fades from his face. “You should go take care of it right away.”
I note his dodge of my question, and pledge to myself that I’ll bring it up again later. I wonder if Kireth knows what we did to earn this curse, what my parents might have done to bring this wrath down upon us.
I do as I’m told and sprinkle the potion around the field, then the livestock pens. Once I’m finished, I return to the house to find Kireth gone. Instead, laughter rolls up the hill from the nearby river, and I would know that sound anywhere.
When I reach the riverbank, he is in the water, loincloth lying on the ground just at the edge. He lets out a whoop when I appear and splashes water in my direction.
“Come in,” he purrs. “I thought I could use a bath after all that travel.”
“I don’t need one.” I can’t imagine taking my clothes off in front of a god. It would be uncouth.
Kireth arches an eyebrow. “Oh? Are you modest, dear human? As if I haven’t already seen many young maidens’ bodies before.”
I dislike the sound of that. Other maidens whose naked bodies he’s partaken in? My expression must show, because Kireth sighs and swims closer.
“But none of them were as fair as you,” he says with a wide grin.
“I bet you say that to everyone.”
He has surely pleasured many women in his innumerable years and probably made them all feel quite special.
Instead of answering, Kireth rises from the water. Now he’s naked in front of me, and my eyes are drawn against my will to the place between his legs. A long, gray penis hangs there, the rounded head covered by dark skin.
I gasp. Though I’ve never touched one, I have seen them before when I bathed with the village boys many, many years ago—and those were nothing in comparison to this.
A fiery inferno lights in my belly. I know where an object like that fits, and that place inside me is throbbing.
With one deft arm, Kireth reaches out and catches me. He draws me in closer, until I’m just inches away from his face, our chests almost touching. After inhaling a long breath of me, he lets out a sigh of relief.
“My sad girl,” he says quietly, and lifts his hand to run it through my hair. His touch is so soft and inviting that I instinctively lean into it, and I feel his claws tighten around a thick lock. His breathing shallows, and it’s not until he leans toward me, holding me up with one arm around my back, that I realize he’s going to kiss me.
“Kireth?” I ask, uncertain. What is the price of this touch? As much as I crave him, for his clever mouth and lithe, flawless body, I cannot—and will not—use my tasks to suit my own carnal needs.
He pauses, and I can feel his breath on my lips.
“What is it?” he asks. Those red eyes of his bore into me. “Don’t you desire this, too?”
Oh, I do. More than anything, I do.
“I can’t pay,” I say, drawing back. His arm doesn’t release me. “I won’t use you that way.”
Kireth’s curious expression doesn’t falter. Instead, it shifts into a kind of regretful smile.
