“Where do you want this?” Deyva asked through gritted teeth.
“Just swing it down to the ground. Far enough so it doesn’t break the windows as it comes down,” I called up to her. She was balanced precariously on the broken wall of the house, the branch cradled in her arms and lifted out of the debris it had created when it crashed.
“But the marigolds,” she said.
I laughed and the audience of townspeople tittered behind me. “Seriously? Don’t worry about the marigolds, Daisy, no one’s taking care of the house until it’s repaired.”
She grumbled something, and it was probably for the best that we couldn’t hear it.
“If only I could fly up and assist her, but alas, my wing is not yet healed,” a soft voice murmured from behind me. The angel, Azariah.
“I mean, she owes us,” Zach answered. “It’s just a tree branch.”
I frowned and glared over my shoulder at Zach. Just a tree branch? It was a tree branch the size of a fucking tree. Deyva was right. Azariah the angel was an asshat and Zach needed to rein it in a little.
“Okay, just everybody back up a little more,” Deyva cried, the strain starting to show around her eyes.
The crowd hustled back and I swallowed hard, watching her.
Deyva grunted, tossing the branch up and away from the marigold beds. It landed on the ground with a bone-trembling crash that made everyone gasp, but I was too busy watching Devya. She wobbled, arms spreading out to try and balance herself.
“Whoops,” she said, and then fell forward out of the house.
“Daisy!”
I was way too far away to catch her, and there was a massive branch on the ground between us, but I still ran forward, trying to clear the branch in a leap.
It didn’t matter.
Succubus’ landed like cats, as it turned out.
Deyva made a soft ‘oof’ against the ground, tipping forward to catch herself on one hand before righting quickly. She giggled sheepishly at me, one hair bun falling loose against her cheek, a little flush on her skin.
“I like marigolds,” she said.
I released the breath that’d been trapped in my chest ever since she wobbled, and didn’t bother fighting the grin bursting through.
“Father! Can we have a bonfire with some of the wood?” someone called from the crowd.
“Good work,” I said to Deyva, since no one else would, and I turned to the others, glancing down at the branch. “If the weather holds, I think a small one would be alright. But let’s not forget this is going to come in handy this winter.”
“I’ll go inside and start clearing up the room that was damaged,” Deyva murmured, heading for the back door of the old house.
I was going to stop her, make her join me with the others, but then someone called my name with another question and she had already stepped inside.
In the crowd, the angel Azariah’s eyes tracked our succubus.
“So today is really...you not at your peak?” I asked Deyva, watching her eat on her own for the first time. She sat next to Stavros, who watched her hungrily, and even though she wasn’t giving him a full cold shoulder, it was pretty clear he was still in the dog house.
I passed her one of my fries, just to watch her dip it in maple syrup and chew on it thoughtfully. She was testing flavors, and she did so with a kind of adventurous freedom that was borderline childlike, but mostly pretty gross.
“Nah. This is like...me with a head cold or after a human bender,” Deyva said.
“Do you need to feed?” Stavros asked hopefully.
She gave him a sidelong glance, her face remaining impassive, aside from a brief flash of heat in her eyes. “No, thank you. If I were really wanting to fuel up, it would probably look more like what you guys expected me to do in the beginning. Multi-source feeding frenzy, not giving the human meal-ticket a break, seriously draining them.”
Stavros frowned and drew back, watching her. Personally, I thought it was kind of obvious. He’d made her feel like a job he had to do. She was making him feel like food.
People falling in love were sort of stupid, which made it that much more ridiculous that I was jealous of Stavros right now.
“If I wanted to be really naughty I’d go grab that angel and suck him dry,” Deyva muttered, picking up one of the over easy eggs on her plate and