Maybe he is.
My guardian angel.
thirty-nine
The Fall Festival
The Halloween decoration delighted so many customers, we nearly sold out of everything worth selling. To be frank, we’ve got a lot of books on our shelves that are just kind of okay. I should discount them, but there’s no time to run a sale…
The Fall Orchard Festival is almost here!
I’ve bought display racks we can easily travel with, a nice tablecloth, a table runner with our logo, and a few smaller dragons in the design of the one Bastian made for the front door. We kept that after Halloween, of course. Everyone loved it, me included. Bastian threw a little fit about so much of his magic remaining in the world in such a useless fashion, but I know he loved it too. He’s proud of it, and happy it brings us all so much joy.
“Where’s the smut!” I yell from the dark hallway of sin.
“Packed,” Bastian yells back from somewhere in the shop.
“What box!”
“Boxes! In the back of your car already!”
I smile. He packed it all.
He doesn’treallyapprove of the smut—despite reading all of it—but he knows it sells well. Selling well means we can get new stories in. New stories fuel his magic. And the cycle goes round.
I grab my heavy-duty cardboard box and walk up the ramp to the historical fiction. There are a few gorgeous covers in here that I know we can offload easily. I pull them out and pack them in tight next to the sci-fi books.
“Is that it?” I ask no one in particular.
Bastian appears at the entrance to the office. “The only thing missing is the most beautiful woman in the realms.”
I laugh. “Wherever will we find her?”
He disappears with abloopand then I feel his hands on my hips. “Found her.”
My cheeks burn as my shoulders climb up to my ears. “You’re silly.”
He tugs me against him, taking the weight of the box in one arm as he wraps me tightly in the other.
“You are if you think I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong. I’m certain.”
“Oh? Please tell me then, who is more beautiful.”
I blow a raspberry. “About every actress in the world for starters.”
“Swine, all of them,” he retorts.
“Bast,” I scold, slapping his hand. “They are not.”
“They are.”
“How so?”
“If harm were to have to come to you, or all the actresses in the world, I would kill them myself to keep you safe.”
I want to roll my eyes but my pussy clenches instead. “That’s just ridiculous. You’ve been reading my smut.”
