Page 22 of Fairies Don't Fall

I glanced up at him, considering whether I wanted to tell him what I’d seen about the spell. Vervain would probably think I was hallucinating, but Max… I looked around at the crowd of werewolves. I cleared my throat. “I, um, actually saw a rune on the ceiling before it came down. That’s why I knew to put up a shield.”

His brows raised, then lowered, and a growl came out of his chest, low, deep, terrifying. I was already beyond terrified, but it still made me shrink away from him. I’d had too many over-powered werewolves today. All of them Max.

“Someone tried to hurt you?” His voice was soft, but the thread of violence beneath the words had me shivering.

“You,” I replied, scowling at him. “You think because you’re so big and ferocious, you can’t be killed? Understand your own mortality, or you’ll lose it.” I turned and headed towards the entrance. “Come on, Ruin. You’ll need to help me find shampoo and another shower. Hopefully not at the bath house.” I was definitely not taking another shower with Max or whatever wolf/beast he was.

“Sure,” she said, falling in beside me, giving me weird sidelong glances. “There are two locker rooms in the gym with showers. There’s a whole storage closet with shampoo. Someone accidentally ordered twenty-four cases of this stuff, smells like bubblegum, but you wouldn’t mind that, right?”

I looked at her blankly. I had no idea what bubblegum was. “It sounds perfectly ideal.” I glanced over my shoulder, because I couldn’t help trying to gauge Max’s expression. Was he angry? Was he relieved that I was leaving? His back was to me as he walked towards the fallen stone in his towel with a pickaxe in his hand, and then he leapt in a move that brought all his fascinating muscles to life and struck it with the force of thunder and lightning, breaking a huge chunk of stone away. The other werewolves followed his example and fell on the stone, hacking at it like it had personally offended them.

Ruin tugged on my hand. “Did someone really want to kill Max?” she asked in a low voice.

“I think so,” I murmured back. “But I don’t know who. We need to watch the water and food, make sure they’re not poisoned.”

“Really? But wouldn’t that kill all the wolves?”

I looked at her impatiently. “Exactly why it’s so important to be careful.”

She gave me a sketchy look. “Werewolves aren’t easy to poison.”

“No, but they’re not impossible. You just have to know what you’re doing.”

She looked at me suspiciously. “You know how to poison werewolves?”

“I have venom and poison glands in my mouth that, when combined, will deliver a paralyzing and sickening effect to a werewolf. After that, it’s a simple matter to cut off a head, or rip out a heart.”

She stared at me, horror and fascination combining. “Is that like a theoretical knowledge, or have you actually cut the head off a werewolf?”

“Well…” I said slowly.

An enormous yellow beast with glowing eyes roared towards us.

Ruin grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the street. “Watch it, Cliffy! If you run us over with your Cat, Max would have your head.”

The man riding the beast waved a hand in almost apology as he continued on his loud, rumbling way. Then I noticed the huge wheels. Oh. It was a metal creature riding towards the caverns.

“So…I’ve never seen Max’s beast before,” Ruin said, glancing at me that weird way again. “You looked like you were making out with him, too. Does that mean you were trying to kill him?”

I sort-of laughed at the thought of killing Max’s beast. That would take more poison and venom than I could produce in a year. “I thought he was going to eat me. You’ve never seen him? Max must really keep the beast under wraps.”

She nodded soberly. “Yeah. I heard a rumor that once his beast came out at an Alta, and he trounced some idiot while quoting Shakespeare. That couldn’t possibly be true, could it?”

“What’s Shakespeare?”

“Poetry and playwriter, I guess? I haven’t actually read any of that.”

“Max’s beast and poetry are definitely compatible. Let’s hurry so I can get the dirt out of my teeth.”

“About that. Did you turn the cave soft so you could get out of the rocks?”

I smiled, and it felt almost real. I’d actually done something right. Yes, there had immediately been a cave-in, but before that, I’d actually turned the ground to something that could sustain life. Now all I needed was water and sky.

“I’m going to turn the caverns into woods for the owls and the werewolves.”

“What?”

“The caverns. Woods.”

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