Page 7

Chapter

Seven

“ M ax! Get closer to me and down. You’re too tall!” My voice was shrill from the effort of holding up the shield and the thousands of tons of rocks above us.

He immediately dropped down so he was crouching against my legs, closer than I’d intended, but I didn’t have the breath to argue.

“How long can you hold that, Princess?”

I gave him a panicked look. “Not long?”

He nodded and took a deep, calming breath before he smiled at me. “In that case, I’m going to introduce you to my beast. He’s a shameless flirt. He’ll hit on you until you’re convinced that he’s desperately in love with you and that you’re the only one he’ll ever want.”

“Oh. That sounds…friendly?”

“Too friendly. And he’s going to dig us out of here, so you’ll be very close. He’ll probably carry you. He likes to carry helpless females.”

“I’m not helpless. I’m holding up tons of rock,” I panted.

He nodded. “I know. But he has ideas. Just reassure him that you’ll pat him on the head after he rescues you, and what a big, strong beast he is. And his claws. Tell him how awesome they are, which they are, definitely good for digging, like an aardvark. Very attractive aardvark claws. And try not to scream and use up your breath when I shift. He’ll think it’s adorable and probably snuggle you too much. He thinks all fairies are adorable. You ready?”

I stared at him, on the brink of collapse, then whispered, “I am braced for an over-friendly beast. Feel free.”

He nodded, still frowning, then taking a deep breath, and forming a triangle at his chest with his thumbs and forefingers, he spread his hands and ripped in half. Not actually, but the beast exploded out of him, without any progress from Max to Beast. Just one second I was looking at Max, and the next, his beast was crouched low on the rock, looking at me with flickering eyes of molten gold. He was also drooling, or slavering, whatever beasts did, and looking at me like I was going to be his next meal. He did not look friendly.

“My, what big claws you have,” I wheezed. “I bet you could dig us to safely so quickly with those massive claws of attractiveness.”

He grinned and ran said claws up my leg. I was still wearing a towel, so there was a lot of my leg for his claws to cover. And those claws were massively large, and thick, like mini-swords attached to the freakishly muscular creature. Gulp.

“None of that, now,” I said, shifting slightly, then freezing when my force field flickered. I stared upwards, trying to coax it to hold together. “After you get us to safety, I’ll pat your head.”

“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 to pat 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. “He shouldn’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.

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.”

“But…why?” She looked so confused.

I patted her head. Her hair was silky, so she probably used conditioner. “So you can run in the moonlight.”

“We could just go to some regular woods if we wanted to do that. Max has this huge property northwest that’s hills and forests. We go a few times a year, and it’s amazing.”

It sounded amazing. The caverns weren’t that big, but still, it would be nice to have a little bit of nature for them to enjoy right where they lived. “Exactly. Why wouldn’t you want a piece of that action at home?”

She shrugged. “I mean, sure, it’s just that it seems like a waste of your time. What’s in it for you?”

“I don’t know. I just said I could do it in passing, and Max turned it into a promise. He’s tricky.”

“Ah,” she said, nodding wisely. “Max is finding a healthy outlet for you that doesn’t involve pixie dust. I guess that’s good.”

Whatever that meant. What would be good was showering again and washing off the dirt and the feel of Max’s beast’s tongue.

I rubbed my cheek and shivered.

“Yeah,” Ruin said, studying me. “I’ve never seen Max’s beast before. His wolf is bad enough, but that monster? Everything about him is too much. Like that mohawk. Those haven’t been cool for decades.”

“You should tell him that.”

She shot me a horrified look and shuddered. “Suddenly I feel like running. Are you up for it, Princess Sparkles?”

I nodded and then we ran, her boots pounding on the pavement while my feet were a softer patter. It didn’t take us long to reach the warehouse. Inside, the boys were kicking a ball around but stopped to nod at Ruin and stare at me.

“What happened to you?” the biggest one asked, a piece of metal glinting in his ear. “Did you mud wrestle with a wolf?”

“The cave roof fell down,” Ruin snapped, grabbing my arm and dragging me past them. “She’s lucky to be alive. Idiots,” she muttered once we were past them.

She set me up with shampoo, a clean if old purple towel, and a washcloth. The shower was so good, particularly without any wolves in there with me. I could just let the water run over me, washing away my worries and cares. Then I’d have a memory of Max’s beast, and my heart would start thumping in my chest, and I’d slump against the wall for a few minutes. If they succeeded in killing his pack, he was precisely the sort of werewolf that could lead an army to devastate my country. Did someone want to finish off Fairyland for good?

I got out of the shower, feeling the day, needing to sleep, but instead, the kids were sitting on the mats surrounding cardboard boxes that gave off an appetizing aroma.

“Max ordered pizza!” Ruin cried, hopping up and coming over to me. “You’re in a towel again. Didn’t you see the clothes I left in there for you? Come on.” She dragged me back to the bathroom, clearly very excited about this pizza.

She helped me figure out the clothes. The tank top was almost low enough in the back to go under my wings. With a little rip of her teeth, it was perfect. The bottoms were loose, slouchy things that tied at the waist. Then she held up the hoodie with a look of triumph. “I cut it from the bottom, so the hood part works over the wings.”

I pulled that on and felt kind of weird in so many loose heavy layers, but at the same time, they were warm, and Ruin had sacrificed her clothing for my sake.

I gave her a hug that she returned hard and tight before pulling away with a large smile. “Now the pizza! He even got a weird one with flowers on it for you. Fairy pizza? Who knew there was such a thing?”

Max knew. Like his beast knew Shakespeare. And like I knew that whatever happened, I had to protect him and his wolves.