Page 59 of Fairies Don't Fall

I saw her, gloriously golden, like the sun rising in the east, drawing Max towards her with cords of fate. It was my aunt, Dawn, standing on the steps like a gleaming beacon of hope. She’d dared to come to my ball, my coronation, and steal my werewolf? She was going to die.

I spread my arms and darkness flowed to me, filling me with the destructive magic that I’d used so devastatingly on Malamech’s army. Max came to a stop at my aunt’s feet, where he struggled to stand, but those red lines of power were in her hand, binding him, like she’d bound Shotglass.

“Release the wolf,” I commanded, the sky roiling around inside of the ballroom, the moon throbbing beneath my skin as I hovered over the monster who had betrayed her people so thoroughly.

She smiled at me and then tugged on the cords, making Max writhe and twist until it was his beast. He panted and struggledagainst those bindings, but they ran through him like cords of fate, tied to his soul.

“How could I be so cruel as to allow my queen to fall prey to the destroyer?” Dawn tsked and shook her waves of pale golden hair away from her face. She smiled a glorious smile at Max. He growled at her, tried to lunge, but then was ripped and stretched again into the dimensions of the monster I’d lost myself trying to destroy.

He stood, taller than the beast, smooth features, nose, sharp jaw, glittering red eyes, with magic runes in infernal red burned into his dark skin, war marks over his face, curling around his temples like horns, while my aunt’s red lines wrapped around and around him, through him. Was it Malamech? He’d been bald, and I’d personally eaten his heart. Max wasn’t Malamech. Dawn was playing games with my mind.

Rage swirled around me, streaking the world with trembling destruction. “Deceiver!” I cried, pointing a finger at my aunt, refusing to believe my eyes or anything else she showed me. “You created Pixie Dust. You betrayed our people. Nothing you show me is truth. You are the festering rot at the core of our world! You will pay for your crimes.”

She laughed, so sweet and delicate, light and good. “You turned our people into monsters, but I’m the destructive one? Look at her!” she said, turning to the crowd. “This is the death fairy you’ve heard stories about. Will you allow her to be your queen? She who is so evenly matched with Slaughter, Malamech’s second?” She placed one claw under Max’s chin, forcing it up. His eyes burned red, just like Malamech’s had done. She stood two steps above him and still had to look up at him. “Slaughter. The wolf she seduced, using him in ways no civilized creature would, but there’s nothing civilized about the death fairy.” She met my eyes and smiled as she drew her poisonous claws over Max’s throat, spilling his blood.

I hovered above her, destruction and chaos flickering at my fingertips. I was so close to destroying everything, everyone, but I struggled to be reasonable. Mostly because she had him bound with those demonic threads and could kill him too easily.

“Release the alpha of Singsong City, Traitor. He saves our kind.”

She laughed and again drew her claws over his throat while the red lines around his jaw tightened, stretching his face back so the blood could fall more freely. “Do we need a witness?” She glanced over her shoulder and gestured at Vervain, who’d been creeping towards her with a very good knife, cloaked in shadows as he’d been. He froze, bound in golden lines instead of demonic. Could she bind everyone? I was going to kill her for so many things. “Do tell your precious death-fairy who helped you behind enemy lines. Tell her what you told Slaughter when you went to see him in his city, the deal you gave him so that he’d help your dark queen rise to power.”

I blinked at her. What was she doing? Why would she come here, where I would kill her? She wasn’t stupid, or I would have realized her treachery before now. I sought Vervain’s mind, mostly to find out what her intentions were, but instead of thinking about her motives, he was in a boxing ring, punching Slaughter, whose face was drawn with the red lines he always had when he was in battle.

“I will not go to her,” he growled at Vervain, then punched him three times.

Vervain just blocked, then spun out of distance. “You’re too proud to beg for what you love?”

“I won’t deceive her any longer.” He lunged forward with a punch that knocked Vervain out.

I blinked the ballroom back into focus. It had only taken a blink to see that, to see Max in Vervain’s mind as Slaughter, Malamech’s second. He was playing a game with us. All of us.

I stared at Max and saw a flicker of his eyes as he looked towards me. Raw. Hunted. Enraged. Trapped. A wounded beast who had come here to die. Who deserved to die.

That’s when I heard the mayor’s mutter. “She’s completely out of control. How can anyone have an alliance with her? And Max is one of that vile monster’s soldiers? Can’t trust him or his pack. They’re criminals.” His words had power. He wasn’t just a fairy, and whatever else he was could persuade even slicker than Dawn, my aunt.

So that was the plan. Unleash the death fairy, who would kill everyone who might be loyal to me and ruin any chance of having a peaceful rise to power. Dawn must have armies ready to back her claim to the throne once I’d lost it, either from my betrayal, or my love for Max. Either one would work.

A month ago, I was so broken, I couldn’t see clearly. But happily, Max, no, Slaughter, had rehabilitated me like he’d done for so many fairies, for whatever diabolical reason he had. He was bound to Dawn like he’d been bound to Malamech. What had he said about having no will under that monster?

I couldn’t break those bindings. If I killed her, it would kill him. He deserved to die. He was a monster who had slaughtered thousands. Then again, so was I. And right now, there was only one monster I desperately needed to kill. My aunt who had bound the two men I’d trusted.

I took a deep breath, drawing death and power to me. I pointed at Slaughter.

“I, Queen Grace of the Midnight House of Everlasting Moonlight, claim you, Max, Slaughter, Alpha of Singsong City, as my consort-mate. You are mine.” My words rang like thunder, lights flashed all around like lightning had been caught in a jar and was being shaken by an enthusiastic twelve-year-old.

The bindings that had been building between us flared white hot, wrapping around him beneath the red lines.

“My first command, Slaughter, is to kill Dawn, of the House of the Rising Sun.”

He cracked his neck and then the red lines snapped, broken, and he turned to take my aunt’s throat in his massive hand, tipped with black claws. “Yes, my goddess. It is—” He gasped as she buried a dagger deep into his chest, but he didn’t release her, instead he grabbed her head with one hand and ripped it off with a roar that accompanied a swing of blood that drenched the crowd.

Vervain had his own blade raised the next instant, stabbing into her heart through her back, like beheading wasn’t thorough enough.

In a mass, fairies rushed forward, running up the stairs with rage that echoed inside of me and buried her with their fury. She was the betrayer.

Slaughter stood with fairies climbing over him, biting, clawing, infecting him with their poisonous rage. He wove on his feet, turned to look at me, and then collapsed.

The world went black as midnight without a moon, without a star, without a lit candle for a hundred miles. He’d betrayed me. He deserved to die.

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