Page 21 of Fairies Don't Fall

“You’ll pat my head?” His voice was shockingly smooth. The way he looked up and down my legs was also shocking. Also the feel of his claws, featherlight on my skin, was still giving me goosebumps.

“If I don’t die.” Maybe death would be better than whatever this beast would do to me.

His expression changed to one of calculating shrewdness. This beast wasn’t simple, not at all. “Anything else you’re willing to give me?”

“A shower?” I offered, because the space was very tight, and he was smelling rather potent. He’d need a few bottles of shampoo.

His smile was positively fierce. “I accept your offer and swear to deliver my fairy goddess to safety.” He turned and crouched, digging into the former stone rapidly, sending dirt over me in waves until it was up to my thighs. Then he put a massive paw around my waist.

“Mine,” he growled, yanking me towards him and into the hole. It took two seconds for the shield to melt away, and in that time, he’d gotten us two more feet further into his tunnel. He held me around the waist and dug with one hand, but it didn’t seem at all difficult for him. He was a machine of muscle and drive, shoveling through that tunnel beneath the fallen rock and throwing the dirt behind us as we went.

“You smell like my sauna,” he rumbled, putting his muzzle in my hair for a second while he dug us forward. He was incredibly good at multitasking.

“Yes. Thank you for letting me use it,” I said awkwardly. His grip was so solid that I didn’t even try to get out of it. I was completely at the mercy of the weirdest beast I’d ever killed. I mean, met.

“Your scent must be embedded in the wood. I will lay there, flushed with fever, and think of you.”

“Um. That sounds uncomfortable.”

“The only pleasure I have is you, whether you’re in my thoughts, in my sauna, or in my bed.”

“Oh.” I swallowed hard. Panic was warring with panic. As in, the fear of the beast was growing faster than the fear of death.“Do you have a bed? I just sleep on the blue mat with the other juvenile delinquents. It’s very comfortable.”

“Not soft enough for a pretty fairy with delicate wings like a galaxy of stars, and skin that glows as lustrous as the moon. You are my song, my soul, my destiny.”

Max had understated how weird his beast was. Vastly. “Thank you. Your claws are very large, like the rest of you. And your eyes are like gold poured out of a volcano.” I was clearly not as poetic as this monster. It was kind of embarrassing, actually. Most fairies could run circles around him with manipulative verbal conniving, but I’d never understood the point of it. Or been good enough to make it a habit. Mostly the latter.

He chuckled, and then we were moving faster, like my words encouraged him. It also got more dirt everywhere, because we were flying through with those shovel claws. I pressed my face against his neck to keep the dirt out of his eyes, so I could feel the pulse of his veins, the rumble in his chest that seemed to threaten violence, or more poetry. I clung to him, grasping the coarse hair that grew down the nape of his neck.

Finally, we burst out of the earth, leaving me gasping and shaking my head to get the dirt out of my eyes and ears. I’d have to take another shower. Did the beast actually want me to groom him? Where would I get enough shampoo?

I was like that, my head at least eight feet off the ground, and his head above mine, when I noticed the werewolves who were surrounding us. They had pickaxes and things to hack at the pile of stone blocking the cavern, the stone that had fallen. No. The stone that had been spelled to fall.

“Princess Sparkles?” Ruin asked, running forward, a hammer in her hand, like that would be able to break through the stone.

Max the beast growled and held me closer. Ruin slid to a stop, her feet catching in the soft soil. Oh, right. I was going topat his head. I turned to look the beast in the face, and my heart skipped a few beats. My, he was big. And had so many teeth. And those eyes. Absolutely terrifying. His nose was twitching like he was smelling me. I reached up slowly and patted his head. The ridge of coarse fur was dark, but the scalp on either side had interesting black marbling in the dusky blue skin. I tried to focus on the details so I didn’t have a heart attack.

“My moon fairy smells so sweet, but how does she taste?” he crooned, ending in a rumble that made my hair stand on end.

“Don’t eat me,” I whispered, while shivers went through my body.

His eyes flickered with flames, and then he smiled, the mouth somewhere between a human and a wolf, then he licked my cheek.

It was the most shocking thing that had ever happened in my life. He grinned at me while I sputtered, stiff and horrified. “Tastes sweet. I won’t eat you, my moon fairy. I will devour you with my affection until you are…” He got an irritated look on his face, then refocused on me. “You will shower with me. It is your promise for your life.”

I nodded, and then the beast melted away, leaving Max-in-a-towel behind.

I was still hanging on his neck, and was very aware of his disturbing musculature, but I only sobbed and held onto him tighter, breathing against his skin and trying not to hyperventilate. “Max, your beast is so…”

He sighed heavily. “I know. It’s okay, Princess Sparkles. You don’t have to give him a shower. That wasn’t the deal, just the head pat. Are you going to keep hanging onto me like that?”

I shuddered and held on tighter. “I need another shower after all the mud. I said I’d give him a shower. I promised.”

“Me. I’m him. It’s just a different aspect of myself.” He sighed heavily and patted my hair, which was strangely comforting. “Heshouldn’t have licked you. You do taste sweet, though. I can still taste you on my tongue.”

I pulled my head away to frown at him and realized how it looked, me clinging to him in my towel that was no longer white, him in a towel that was absolutely pristine, letting me. I dropped to the earth, a foot or so up, and opened and closed my hands. “That’s what he-you said. Anyway, it worked.” I crouched down and rubbed the fresh earth in my hands. Yes. That’s what I was going to focus on, not the nightmare dig through the earth, not the beast who eclipsed every other beast I’d ever imagined, and came with a weird sense of romance that was completely nerve-rattling.

“Sure, except that it brought the roof down on us,” Max said, crossing his arms over the bare chest I wasn’t noticing.

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