Page 71 of Fairies Don't Fall

“What is it?” Ruin asked from behind me, stumbling forward. When she stepped ahead on the cement floor, red lines flooded up in elaborate patterns, demonic, summoning, absolutely infernal, tied to the fairy strapped in the chair and the book at his feet. Ruin whimpered while I grabbed her, pulling her back into my arms. I pulled her close, leaning against Max. Panic made me tremble. I didn’t want to deal with infernal monstersthat were worse than Slaughter. I wanted the mayor to be the biggest problem we had to face, but instead…

“We have to get him free,” I whispered, but I didn’t want to walk into that demonfield.

Max shifted to human and then took my hand and Ruin’s, leading us back up the stairs at a steady pace that belied the rapid beating of his heart. He didn’t stop walking until we were back outside the kitchen and in the Mayor’s backyard.

He dropped Ruin’s hand and pulled out his phone. He spoke into it in a steady tone. “Could you get me the Scholar and anyone else who specializes in demonic bindings? I also need the Librarian to secure a demonic tome.” He lowered it for a moment and looked at me. “You should go back to Fairyland.”

I was shocked, hurt, and absolutely not going to leave him here, but this wasn’t my world or my problem. Except that the fairy trees in his cavern were being threatened.

I raised my chin. “No.”

He frowned, eyes glimmering with gold and a hint of infernal flames. “You’ll be safe there from…” He glanced at Ruin.

She flashed him a bright smile. “Yeah, I saw the thing that makes your beast look like a puppy. Sparkles is right. You need so much therapy. Can that guy, Slaughter, go in there and save the mayor?”

He frowned and then glanced at me. “You should go back to Fairyland,” he repeated

I scowled at him. Why did he keep saying that, like he wasn’t hopelessly stuck with me? “I’m not abandoning my people or the trees.”

“They left Fairyland. They don’t want to be bound to you.”

I flinched. His words were hard, hurtful, and true, but I shrugged and let them roll off me. “And you? Do you not want to be bound to me as well?”

“It would be better if we parted like this. You gave me wings when you should have let me die. You’re not a good match for me. I’m a dark thing. You will always be something I can’t have.” He shrugged, but his soft eyes were sad, determined. He would let me go and die. Again.

I grabbed his irritatingly beautiful chin. “Mating is for life. You really think this is going to kill you? What do you think’s really going on? Do you know who did this to the mayor? Do you know who bound you and gave those bindings to my aunt, the traitor?” I grabbed his arm, gripping him tight. “This is our problem, both of us. It’s not going to go away just because I run away and bury my head in Fairyland. Tell me what you know. Please.”

He blinked at me, brows drawing together. He didn’t want to tell me, to involve me like I was part of his life and his problems. Did I really want him to? This wasn’t just pack business, this was lupin sorcerer business, and I wanted nothing to do with Slaughter, his real monster. Or did I?

I slid my hand down the strong forearm to his fingers, spreading mine through his as I gripped him, feeling his strength flow into me. “Please, help me to understand. I’m not running away from this fight or from you.” That’s what it came down to. Maybe I wasn’t happy about Slaughter, but I wasn’t going to let him die. In time, I’d come to accept him and love him like I’d gotten used to his beast.

He frowned at me, eyes glittering gold with a flash of red, before he finally said, “Malamech had a mate. She’s the one who introduced him to the old sorcerer who taught him how to enslave his own, to draw on those infernal powers, to become an unholy mess, like me.”

I squeezed him tighter. “You think she’s behind this?”

He gave me a sickly smile. “I know those infernal runes, the bindings. She’s trying to claim those who were boundto Malamech, as well as all of their descendants. She’ll want revenge on you as well as me. She’s mad. No one plays with those powers unless they’re mad, and she was always unstable.” He frowned, wrinkling his nose. “It smells like…”

“Dominia,” Ruin said, scowling. “She was down there with the mayor. The brimstone threw me off for a second, but if you’re talking about an insane female werewolf, the bus stops at her. No wonder she hated you automatically,” she said, turning to smile at me. “Because you ate her mate’s heart.”

I slowly smiled, and absolute happiness winged through my soul. Finally, I had a really good excuse to kill her! “That’s the best news I’ve heard of all day! Together, we can kill her easily. You’re bound to me, so she can’t control you.”

Max studied me for a long moment. “That’s right. No one can control me, including you. I can’t defeat her without Slaughter, but he would prefer to subjugate the world.”

“Subjugate the world?” Ruin asked, frowning at him. “Oooooh. So, like you think that you’ll become worse than her if you let the wolf out of the bag? Don’t worry so much. Princess Sparkles wouldn’t ever let that happen.”

He frowned. “The mayor isn’t going to last long. I need someone else who can walk through those bindings. Slaughter can’t be trusted.”

I took his hand and then reached on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “He’s never let me down yet,” I whispered.

He looked into my eyes, his own panic and turbulence showing in that sweet, warm gaze. “I brought the wolves to your land.”

I cupped his face. “You also took them out. You have my heart to devour or protect. I hate that you lied to me so much, but everyone has a past. Like me. So much past. But I want to be better. I want to live up to my mother’s ideals, to be a queen that she would be proud of. What do you want?”

He gazed at me, eyes so soft and flickering with warmth. “First, I want you. So much, it terrifies me. I want to crush you into myself so that you’re safe, warm, and mine forever. But I also want peace, order, justice. I want to keep what we’ve built here, in Singsong City. I want to work with you to rehabilitate the fairies I betrayed. I want to make it up to you. But part of me also wants to watch the world burn while you warm your feet on the flames.”

I ran my nose slowly over his, inhaling his scent, his essence and finding all the pieces of Max, including that hint of bitter where Slaughter lived. His eyes glowed at that contact, that connection, and my heart tripped in my chest.

“But I’d rather warm my feet on your beast’s belly. If Slaughter can save, I’ll let him wash my hair.”

---