Page 26 of Sequel to the Easter Bunny

My feet are grateful for that as I step from the burning sand to the mildly less burning stone.

Juun waits for me, sitting on a throne made of men.

The naked bodies are twisted and twined together as they hold to the ground and to each other to keep themselves in the shape of that chair.

Strain shows in the eyes of those who’ve kept them open and sweat sheens on the long expanses of too much skin.

Their pain is startlingly obvious in the bloody lines where their mouths tense and flex… against the cords that have sewn them shut.

I hear a faint whimper as Juun adjusts, leaning forward, more weight born onto the men at the front.

“Have you come to beg for my mercy so soon?” Her smile is a cruel twist of a thing.

“I’ve come for my second task,” I say, holding out my arm, so she can see the unmarred skin.

Her gaze hardens and her mouth turns to a scowl a moment before she shoves to standing and the men topple to the hard stone floor. They scramble to resume their formation, terror writ on their faces.

What, I wonder, did they do to deserve her wrath?

They only serve as a distraction for a moment before Juun stands so close I have to take a step back, and even then, I have to look up to meet her fiery glare.

She is silent for too long.

The hot breeze is loud against the skeletal palms that line her oasis. Sand scrapes across the stones.

Juun stands so terribly still, it feels as though she’s turned to a statue.

I realise then… she didn’t have a second task for me. She hadn’t expected I would pass her first test—not yet, anyway.

But it doesn’t take her long to settle on something else. I see it in the tension seeping from her shoulders, the twitch of a smile that never makes it onto her lips.

“My peacock is missing.”

I blink at her, because… “What?”

“It is my favourite and you will find it for me.”

Her gaze bores into me and I realise she’s waiting for a response. “Okay….”

“It is somewhere in your mortal realm and I want it back.” She snaps her fingers and the lift doors open in a space where nothing had been before.

“Somewhere out there?” Panic threatens to choke me. “That’s all you’re going to give me?”

“That is the task you must complete. Be back with it before sunset.”

“It could be anywhere.”

Her lips turn down in a mocking frown. “That’s your problem, not mine.”

When I don’t move, Juun rolls her eyes, turning back to her human throne and snaps her fingers again.

The lift moves toward me so quickly, all I can do is raise my hands up to protect my head before I hit the padded back wall of the interior. The doors slam shut and I drop to my knees as it rises back to the lobby.

I sit in the puddle of skirts, blinking out at the sky beyond the lobby doors that has just started to bleed pink.

“Fuck.”

The creature flinches at its table and the tower of wooden blocks tumbles, clattering on the table and the floor.

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