Page 72 of Fairies Don't Fall

His jaw clenched beneath my fingers and slowly, so slowly, Max expanded, shifting into the dusky-skinned lupin sorcerer I’d feared and hated for a hundred years.

“I will save the weak fairy for you, mate,” he growled.

Ruin squeaked somewhere behind you while I found myself getting wobbly knees as he wrapped his hand around my waist and then dragged me with him towards the mayor’s door again. He didn’t pick the lock or even turn the handle. Nope, that door crunched open, along with some of the frame, just pressed into a passageway for us without Max moving a muscle. So many muscles beneath the blood-robe he wore over black loose pants, but he didn’t need them to destroy the world.

I hesitantly slid my hand up his forearm, exploring the silky skin and the muscles beneath while my heart beat faster and faster. Danger. So much danger. But I’d always liked living on the edge.

“I will bathe your hair in blood,” he murmured, which shot a bolt of alarm up my spine.

I swallowed hard and continued working my way up his arm to his stronger ropes of muscles at the top. “You may bathe your Queen in anything you’d like, as long as it’s not the mayor’s blood. We need him for leverage.” Right? We had to need him for something, or who knows what Slaughter would do with him after he’d ‘saved’ him.

He turned to look down at me with those molten gold eyes roped with crimson. “Anything I like?”

I gulped and tried to smile brightly. Those eyes. Could melt the skin off your bones. “Maybe not a volcano?”

He flashed a sharp-toothed smile and pulled me close before he wrapped his hand around my neck, black claws curled over my jaw. “I will bathe you in my saliva.” His mouth covered mine before I had a chance to gasp at the shocking idea.

He tasted like Max, only with a coppery hint of blood. He was so demanding, taking what he wanted, and what he wanted was me. He wasn’t hard or fast, but firm, increasing the pressure until a shock of pleasure went through me, and my wings unfurled as I pressed against him, knotting my hands in his hair and pulling him closer, tasting him deeper, consuming him with a growing desperation that he didn’t seem to have.

“Can you guys get a room? Not like we’re trying to save someone’s life and the werewolves. Sure, let’s take a break to make out. Unless you’re trying to kill him. Again. Seriously, if you don’t stop, I’m going to kill both of you!” Ruin was apparently stressed out.

He broke away before I could, giving her an unblinking stare before he turned and gestured, just a little flick of his fingers. The mayor’s house melted around us, walls and roof peeling away until we were left with nothing but the floor beneath our feet and the stairs leading down to the now open basement.

I froze, still tucked against him, but he’d just demolished the mayor’s house in a breath. Not even a breath. So fast. So muchjust gone with a flick of his fingers. This was different from Malamech. Slaughter-Max was more powerful than he’d been. Because we need a more overpowered beast.

“You smell of fear,” he whispered in my ear.

I shivered and grabbed Ruin’s hand. “That’s right. I’m afraid I’m going to fall through the floor.”

Ruin gripped my hand tight enough to hurt. “Fairies don’t fall. I’m the one who’s going to break a leg when Mega-Max melts the floor under me.”

“I am Lord Slaughter,” he rumbled and put a massive hand on her head. “You, ward, will stay with my Queen-mate. Keep her from following me into the runings. Otherwise, I will melt your feet very slowly, then your ankles, then…”

I put a hand over Lord Slaughter’s mouth, pulling away when he licked my palm. I liked that way too much. “Sure. We’ll both stay put while you rescue the mayor. No need to threaten to melt people.”

His lips curved into a diabolical smile. “I want her to understand the stakes. If you follow me into the runings, you will both die. Now, my precious heart, be still and cling to the child. Watch your protector and master save the pathetic life of the dying fairy.”

The poetry of my megalomaniac. Somehow, it may have been lacking.

He stepped into the air, walking down like it was solid steps, completely ignoring the actual stairs. He descended until, with a flicker of red, the entire basement came to life in a complex tangle of violence and evil.

Slaughter, my protector-master-delusional-multi-personality consort-mate, winced and then his skin burned with the infernal runes, coming to life in the most terrifying way. It was war as he unraveled the bindings one by one, ripping them apart and absorbing the magic until he vibrated with it.

“Did someone say they needed a book contained?” the librarian asked cheerfully and then gasped when she really saw Slaughter-Max in the hole of infernal bindings. She stood on the grass outside where the kitchen had been.

I took a step towards her, but Ruin grabbed me tight, pulling me back.

“Don’t move,” she hissed. “He wasn’t messing around.”

I hesitated and then waved at the librarian, trying to somehow normalize this situation. The way she was looking at Slaughter-Max, like she was watching Armageddon unroll over the land, made my own stomach twist. Yes, things didn’t look very good, what with the mayor bound to the chair and Slaughter-Max Standing above him playing with infernal magic like it was easy.

“I don’t want to disturb him,” I stage whispered, gesturing at Slaughter-Max. “But there’s a book down there that is bubbling blood and infernal magic.”

She looked at me for a long moment, just staring, before frowning down at Slaughter-Max. “What is he doing? It looks like he’s torturing the mayor, but surely you wouldn’t be so calm if that were the case.”

I gurgled a slightly hysterical laugh. “Oh, no! Max is just channeling his lupin sorcerer persona in order to unravel the infernal runes that someone else cast around the mayor. With the book.”

Slaughter-Max threw a hand down with a boom and a rush of hot air came up in hissing steam all around us. The librarian threw herself back from the edge like she was dodging shrapnel. Ruin and I held very still and somehow weren’t melted. Ah. He’d set a shield around us, probably while he’d been kissing me. How annoying that he could think about something else when I was kissing him. And that’s why he’d been so firm about us not moving, and that whole thing about Ruin melting, because she’dliterally melt if she moved. How could he put her at risk like that? It was ingrained in her DNA to disobey. He was setting her up to get melted. Why hadn’t she moved?

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