Page 15 of Fairies Don't Fall

“I’m pretty tough.”

She turned her head to give me a skeptical look. “We’ll see. I’ll give you five minutes.”

I shook my head and closed my eyes, trying to relax and channel the heat into my extremities. The heat started to feel really, really good.

The door opened along with a gust of cold air and a group of three women.

“Oh, look, it’s the runt and the alpha’s most recent crack whore fairy.”

Ruin sat up and glared at the woman with golden hair and eyes. “Runt? You’re just jealous because Max hasn’t ever run away from me screaming. Then again, I haven’t ever dropped my towel in front of him, just hoping to be noticed like a pathetic…” She trailed off while the woman smiled, but with a growl in her throat as she focused on Ruin.

She was a dangerous werewolf, not soft and concerned, like Max. I sat up and moved so I was between them. I smiled at the woman, trying to placate her. “Ruin, it’s normal to drop things. You shouldn’t make it sound like an insult.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down, her sneer showing what she thought about what she saw. It wasn’t good. I was so devastated, I dropped dead immediately. Not really. She was the kind of werewolf I would happily kill if it wasn’t against Max’s rules.

She sneered, baring her teeth. “You think because the Alpha gives you some attention he’s interested? He always takes in pathetic fairies out of some misguided notion of his duty, but he’ll never actually see you as a woman. Not that there’s much about you that’s noticeably female. You have no curves.” The contempt rolling off her was surprising after Max and Ruin treated me like I wasn’t their immortal enemy. She would love to rip me apart and eat me alive. The feeling was mutual, but that didn’t mean I had to be rude.

I shrugged. “That’s true. The fairy ideal is quite linear, and even for fairies, I’m not the kind that attracts males.”

Ruin gasped and grabbed me, pulling me beside her. “Where’s your pride?” she hissed at me.

I was so confused. What did pride have to do with anything? We were trying to avoid conflict so Max wouldn’t be disappointed in us. My pride had sailed a long time ago, at least as far as attractiveness went.

The werewolf woman smiled a very sharp smile. “I’m so glad you know your place,” she purred, then nodded towards the door. “Get out. Leave Song and never return.”

That wasn’t going to work for me. I had to hang around to hopefully stop the werewolves from being exterminated. I crossed my arms. “There are no males to attract in the sauna, and Lord Max specifically asked Ruin to bring me here. I’m not going to disobey the alpha.” Unless I wanted to and hadn’t accidentally bound myself to his will.

With a snarl, the woman’s arm shifted into a monstrous furry beast as she reached out to swipe me across the face. Ruin pulled me back and took the blow instead. It was hard enough that she sprawled on the bench and then rolled off it onto the one below. With a cry, I turned to help Ruin, but the aggressive female grabbed my hair, yanking me back.

I know that I was there to save werewolves in general, but this one in particular needed to die. And I knew just the fairy to do it. How nice that this werewolf didn’t know how to grab a fairy in a way that didn’t get her killed.

My claws came out, three-inch spikes that I hadn’t seen since the war. I spread my wings, flipped back, and kicked her across the face while I twisted, landing in a crouch, one hand gripping the edge of the bench, before I launched at her again. She tried to punch me, to claw me, but she was so incredibly slow, and she’d hurt Ruin, who was just a kid, and someone I knew and couldn’t help but like.

The other women tried to interfere while I had the werewolf pinned down, my claws deep in both sides of her neck. I’d decapitate her. That would be a fairly clean death. I brought my wings up, slashing at them with the razor edge I usually kept covered. But now all my spikes and blades were out.

The werewolves were so shocked. I smiled pleasantly as I pressed deeper into her neck, until with a gust of cold air, the door opened and a large man strode in wearing nothing but a towel to camouflage his ridiculously muscled body. His face was bare, without a beard, but his eyes were burning at me, golden hot.

His voice was a low rumble. “Princess Sparkles, please release the werewolf, if you would be so kind.” That was Max’s voice, but what happened to his beard? I’d never seen a warrior wolf without a beard, and it was shocking, so shocking I almost forgot what I was doing.

Decapitation. Right. “Lord Max, she attacked Ruin.”

He frowned with that bewilderingly bare face. “I don’t care. You’re going to make a huge mess in the sauna. It will smell like blood for the longest time if you continue to cut off her head with your bare hands. If you must kill her, do it somewhere that is easier to clean up. The wood slats will soak in the blood, and there are so many cracks and crannies you’d have to clean out.”

His logic was absolutely impossible to deny. I sighed and yanked my claws out of her flesh and stood. The second I was on my feet, Max grabbed me and carried me out of the sauna against his bare chest, growling at the woman’s friends who were still nicely sliced up from my wings.

“Stop the bleeding and get her out. You know that Dominia’s banned from the bathhouse.”

Was she? That made me feel better for some reason. Max had me wrapped up tight in his arms, like he was worried thatI’d struggle to get away. I wouldn’t. The closer I was to him, the easier I could keep him safe.

“Where are we going?” I asked into his neck.

“Shower,” he growled.

“How did you get a rain shower in the undercity?”

He huffed. “Sparkles, I’m taking you to the indoor rain shower to wash off the blood before you get it all over everything. Blood-letting is specifically forbidden in the bathhouse.”

“I’m sorry. No one told me about that law.” Except that Ruin had mentioned it earlier. I blinked at his chin. Without the beard, he looked like such a different person. I tried to raise my arm to touch the strong jawline, but my arms weren’t going anywhere. “I should have just knocked her unconscious without breaking through her skin. What about burning her alive on the sauna’s hot coals?”

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