Page 13 of Mischief Maker
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.
Chapter Six
Kireth
It’s easy to fall into a routine here. I work with the crops and Faela takes care of the animals, and in the evenings, we eat cheese and more cheese and occasionally some meat and berries. Then she’s able to sell the tiller, and she gives me two tasks to occupy me while she goes into town. When she returns, she has baskets filled with food.
“Things I thought you might like,” she says, spreading out fruit and bread and even a small bit of hard candy. I do not need food, but I eat it anyway because it seems to please her.
She has not tried to put her arms around me again, which I find myself regretting more and more. It had felt so good—beyond good—to be held by her, for her hands to wind around my waist and her soft breasts to press against my chest.
It was too right.
As the plants start to reach maturity, hastened enormously by my magic, it occurs to me that I’ve not so much as knocked over a pail in weeks. The idea of spilling some water or leaving a gate open hasn’t even crossed my mind, and I don’t know what to make of it. It unnerves me.
