Page 3 of Mischief Maker
Kireth’s grin returns abruptly. He’s as mercurial as my mother always told me.
“Faela.” His tongue savors my name, and my eyes are drawn to his lips and tongue. Somehow it’s sensual, the way he says it. “A poor girl, all alone, seeking the help of a forgotten myth. A demon. An immortal.” He walks around me, surveying me, and I stay rooted to the spot. Under his loincloth, his legs are wonderfully shapely, each muscle clearly defined. “And what is it I’ll be helping you with, sad girl?”
I swallow. This is where I admit my failure.
“Bring my farm back from the brink of death.” I keep my gaze on the forest floor. I can’t look him in the eyes as I tell him my ugly truth. “Fix what I’ve not been able to fix. Plant crops, rejuvenate the soil, help me bring a bountiful harvest so I can survive the winter.”
I keep my gaze down while Kireth does another circle, clicking his tongue thoughtfully, that tail whipping back and forth behind him.
“You’ve let it go to ruin, have you?” His voice is light, carefree, and not at all accusatory.
“Yes.” I don’t even try to deny it. I’m only here because of my incompetence.
Kireth stops abruptly in front of me, and a clawed finger reaches under my chin. He lifts my head up so I’m looking right into his bright red eyes, and his touch, while strange, is gentle and delicate.
“Why is a sad young woman like you doing all this on her own?” he asks, voice quieter. He’s watching me curiously, the way a boy might study an interesting bug he’s found on the ground.
“My mother died. She left all of it to me, but I’m a terrible caretaker.”
His hand releases me, and I can’t help rubbing my chin where his hot skin met mine. There’s a pensive look on Kireth’s face.
“You’ll have to be a little more specific than ‘fix it for me,’” he says. “But you’re the one who summoned me, so you know that already, don’t you?”
Right. I’ll assign him tasks to do and hope he does them right, like Mother told me once upon a time. Then, once his tasks have been completed, he will vanish and return to his temple to serve someone else.
I can only pray that I’ll have him long enough to repair the farm, and he won’t cause too much trouble in the meantime.
“Yes, I know.” I wring my hands. “How many tasks?”
“One hundred. That’s all you get, and then I’m free of you.” He sticks one pointed finger in my face. “And you can’t summon me again in your mortal lifetime. Those are the rules.”
I get one shot at this, one chance to make things right again. Maybe once I’ve used all my tasks, I can keep up with maintenance from there. I have to hope.
“Go on, then,” Kireth says, shooing me with one hand. “Let us get started.”
As I walk back to my horse, he follows close behind.
“I’m sorry I don’t have another horse,” I say, getting up onto Rye’s back. “You can ride with me, though.”
Kireth just laughs at that, and it’s a somewhat menacing sound.
“No need. I will enjoy stretching my legs again after so much time asleep.” He pulls down a tree branch and inhales the scent of the leaves. “At least the woods still smell like woods.” Then he looks at me with a smirk. “And humans still smell like humans.”
“What do we smell like?” I ask as we begin walking.
“Like stupidity,” he says with another bright laugh, bounding on ahead of me down the path, and I wonder if I’ve made the right decision in bringing him back from his immortal sleep.
Chapter Two
Faela
It’s a long way back to the farm, down dark paths through dense forest, up steep hills and over rushing rivers. My trip here was a silent one, but with Kireth beside me, the way home is noisy and full of his mocking laughter.
“One little peasant girl,” he says as we crest the mountainside and start heading down again. “Brave of you to come all this way alone.”
“I don’t have a choice.” Our village is small, and no one would even think of wasting two days traveling with me. They don’t much care for my presence anyway, as useless as I am and as decrepit as my land is. Not a soul has stepped in to help me with the farm since Mother died, all of them fearing the dark illness that took her.
“Hmm.” Kireth hops over a log that blocks our path. “What if you came upon a bear? Or a wolf? What would you do then?”
