Page 28 of You Give Me Fever

Roger blinked at her, stubbornly silent. He ruffled his feathers and looked toward the screen door, wondering when Clara would open it and perhaps give him some corn.

"Roger, please," she said, her eyes beginning to prickle as she looked from him to the rapidly darkening sky. She had been moving so fast in her quest for a solution that she had hardly taken a moment to think about what it would mean to lose Shiver now, to admit to herself that this was love, and he might be gone, and she would be alone again. “Please, I'm out of time. It might be too late already, just… please. One good crow."

Roger wanted to help her; he really did. As a man, he felt it his duty to protect all the hens in his care, and Clara was, in spite of not being a chicken, one of his own. He might be able to understand her better if she opened up that bag of corn.

Clara just stared at the rooster, her eyes filling with tears. She had found love in the most impossible place, had come out of a fever that was meant to take her life, had tracked down a book, and within that book, a spell, had squeezed demon blood into her mother’s mixing bowl—and here she was, stopped by a force she could not control.

An old rooster.

Throwing her head back, Clara let loose a roar to the sky that rattled the little table and made Roger jump.

Well, thought Roger. Now that I understand.

He answered her roar the only way he knew how, with his loudest crow.

Shiver felt a moment's panic—if his people learned what he really felt for Clara, that his love for her had slowly given him a form again, a personhood, they would come for her and scatter her bones across the world.

The panic felt suddenly too sharp—like a yank upon his chest—and Shiver smiled at the head demon's clouded expression.

"Sir, I'd like to resign," said Shiver. "Formally."

He had just a second to take in the expressions of shock and betrayal that spread across each demon like a plague before he was ripped away and landed with a rolling tumble back on earth.

He groaned when he hit a solid floor, and then again when something hit him in the chest—a girl. His girl, fallen right on top of him. The tugging at his wrist showed him bound to her by a soft red twine, and when he pulled his arm back, he yanked her closer with a grin, bound to him by the same thread.

"Clara," he said, cupping her face and smashing his lips to hers.

Seven hells, he could touch her again, could hold her, could smell the sweet scent of sun and herbs and grass that clung to her. He could even feel her slapping his face over and over—oh. He released her.

"You palooka! Get your mitts off me!" She fought his grip even though they were tied together. "I thought you'd been killed!"

Shiver couldn't stop smiling, even under the barrage of her slaps and insults. He held her face gently, swiping his thumbs under her eyes to wipe away tears.

"Would you have missed me, sweet girl?"

"I'd've danced all over your c-coffin, you stupid—you big—" Clara was fully sobbing now and looped her arms around Shiver's neck as he crushed her to his chest.

"Say it, honey, tell me," he begged in a rumbling whisper.

Clara hiccupped little sobs into his shoulder, cursing herself. She had screamed it into the floor when he disappeared; why was it so hard to say now?

"I won't tell anybody, baby, come on, we're so close," he said. He wanted to be patient, wanted to tell her he could wait for her as long as she needed—but he had just survived Hell, and he hadn't the faintest idea what would happen now, or how long he might have. "Just a few little words."

"I love you!" She wailed into his shoulder.

Shiver had just been beaten to chewing gum by a horde of demons, but nothing had ever punched him in the gut quite like hearing her say those words.

"Are you happy now you… you stupid d-demon?" She said, looking up at him with her big eyes swimming with tears that refilled the moment he swiped them away. "I would have broken to pieces without you."

His tongue was stuck, but his hands were not—he clapped a hand on the back of her neck and yanked her into a kiss that sizzled between his ears like butter burning in the pan. He had too much to say to her, but not right now, not when she was in his grip, hot and alive, crying, shaking, and as beautiful as the sunrise he had only just realized he missed for the last few hundred years.

At last, they both needed to breathe, but he only released her a half inch, pressing his forehead to hers, his long nose smushing hers.

“And you," he panted. "Are what held me together…. So no one could break me."

Clara struggled to understand such a cryptic phrase, but before she could ask, Shiver held up his wrist to examine the twine that connected him to her.

"Clara, did you… did you bind us?"