Page 65 of Fairies Don't Fall

“How? And how did my aunt have bindings over you? Is there really someone else that she worked with who you bound yourself to?”

His head snapped up, and he smiled at me in a way that made me all shivery. “The pain sharpens most exquisitely, my poisonous flower. I suffer sweetly.” He bent his head and nipped my neck, but left it attached to my body. There wasn’t any blood at all that time.

“So glad to hear it.”

The sound of ripping skin came before the new flesh and bone spilled out of his back, rising above his head like indigo sails. Wow. And to think that I’d thought that he couldn’t have been more terrifying.

His expression shifted to one of absolute rage and then the wing tips stabbed down around my face, deep into the mattress, sending up puffs of fluff. “You gave me wings?” he demanded, like I’d poisoned him. No, he wouldn’t mind being poisoned, but apparently, wings were out of the question.

You know what? Whatever. I was mated to Slaughter. What could be more impossible than that? Nothing. We’d left the shore of sanity and reason long ago. I smiled at him brightly and jabbed his chest. “Of course. You don’t think I actually wanted your pain, do you? I’m not the death fairy, not anymore. And you aren’t Slaughter. You’re my consort. Can you imagine a fairy consort without wings?” I peered past him at the enormous black spikes of death and nodded in satisfaction. “They’re perfect. Sparkles are what you really need to offset this whole foreboding death vibe you’re cultivating so earnestly. Think how pretty we’ll be descending the stairs together at the next ball. The more sparkly, the better the consort. That’s what I always say.”

He melted.

One second he’s the lupin sorcerer Slaughter, who needed no other title, because that one was quite enough, and the next, he’s Max, looking down at me with the strangest expression, like he didn’t know what I was. He still had wings, but they weren’t quite so massive and evil-looking. Still terrifying, though, and not a single sparkle to be seen.

“You gave me wings,” he repeated, with that same look of bewildered horror.

I shifted and then froze. Having a mostly naked Max on top of me when I was wearing his dark magic dress was blowing my panic in a completely different direction. The last time we’d been in bed together, it was after the kissing, in his glorious fluffy thing that was so much better than my bed. And here he was again, every inch muscular perfection, with a face that was slightly scruffy and a mouth that I knew was silken velvet. Would he keep licking me? I really, really hoped he did.

I swallowed hard, trying not to be so aware of him, to like his heart pounding against mine so much. I failed. “You’re my consort,” I said quietly, less sure of where I was with him than with Slaughter. At least that monster was brutally honest about what he wanted.

He frowned down at me before he ripped the wing tips out of the bed and then rolled off me, coming up on his feet as he walked towards the door wearing a small pair of black shorts that did nothing to camouflage his sculpted body.

I sat up, still bewildered. “Where are you going?”

He slowed down, but didn’t glance back at me while those curved wings of darkness and mystery flexed and shifted. “You made me your consort and gave me wings. I’m going to make Vervain the Terrible train me on how to use them.”

“That’s it? You’re fine being my consort now that you have wings? That was the ultimate threat that can control your vilest monster?”

He chuckled, but it faded into a sigh. “With a kiss, you gave me wings. You gave me affection and some of your power, the ability to chase you if you try to fly away. For now, you have defeated the monster. You should eat before he comes back.”

I scowled at him. “Not that he isn’t you.”

“Of course.”

“You who is running away. You all need therapy.”

He shook his head slightly before disappearing around the doorway, leaving me alone. And wearing a dress that felt like his soul.

Chapter

Nineteen

Iwas in a terrible mood when I went down to the kitchen to find something edible. The ball was still going on, and everything was a mess, the buffet table half devoured, spilled on the floor and smeared into the gemstone tile. I felt like that, also stupidly aching for Max, particularly when he told me he’d rather be with Vervain than me. If Slaughter wouldn’t let me go, why would Max? Weren’t they the same? Hm? Of course not! It was just depressing how impossible everything was. I couldn’t be with Slaughter. But I couldn’t let him die, and I’d made him my consort-mate, so that licking thing was probably going to lead to all kinds of dark salaciousness. I should be glad that Max came and then left. Why wasn’t I? Maybe because he was my consort, and I needed him to bear the weight of responsibility. Without him, of course I’d be cranky. Maybe I was just hungry.

I stacked a bunch of elaborate sculpted flower delicacies on a platter made of frozen dew drops and then stopped. Was that a whimper I’d heard?

I drifted towards the sound, stacking some cheese with tiny blossoms pressed into the pale surface until I heard another sound. It came from beneath the table directly behind me.

I whirled around and crouched, pulling up the cloth so I could catch the little wolf by the scruff before she disappeared. She was furry and sad, with tears in those big golden wolf eyes. Ruin. She looked like her heart was broken. My own heart melted and ached with her.

I climbed under the table, bringing my plate. “Do you want cheese?” I offered it to the wolf. After a moment’s hesitation, she carefully took it from my fingers. “What do you think of the flower cheese? What if we put it on pizza? Would that be too weird? Like Max with his wings. I’m so disappointed that they aren’t more sparkly.”

She blinked at me and then shifted into the little girl whose fabulous outfit had become tattered and torn, stained and ruined, like her makeup and hair. “Max has wings? You mean, Slaughter.” She sighed heavily. No one knew what to do with the killer lupin sorcerer. He’d been willing to die, but how dare he die unless I killed him? My feelings didn’t make sense. Max being Slaughter made even less.

I patted Ruin’s head. “Right now, I mean Max. Earlier, it was Slaughter. Your alpha needs so much therapy, Ruin. Are there a lot of werewolf therapists around? Not here, obviously, but on earth.”

“No. I mean, there’s the Alta. He’s supposed to be really wise.”

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