Red and Her Wolf (Kingdom, #3)

Violet jerked her head up and smiled as a massive loping beast emerged from a dense thicket of bushes.

The creature was easily nine feet long, with its massive shoulders and gigantic paws, there was no mistaking the thing for a normal wolf. Its grey coat was muted in the moon glow. It stopped, taking a moment to sniff the air before padding slowly to the tree. She’d noticed it last night, the first wolf roaming these woods that wasn’t quite a wolf. Just like the wolves from her past.

Something gold glinted around its neck.

It was one of them.

Not the black wolf that’d almost killed her. But just like it, close enough she could pretend it was the big, black wolf of her nightmares. Close enough to make her thrill with the sharp desire of ripping into him, of watching his blood spill like he’d watched her grandmother’s.

She was easily twenty feet up. Violet smiled. “Looking for me.”

The wolf growled, looking up, its hackles rose and mouth pulled back revealing impossibly thick canines.

Violet withdrew her knife and jumped. All breath left her on impact, needle sharp stabs of pain clawed through her thighs. She’d not broken any bones, but there would be bruises later. Snow drifted in a flurry around her face, blinding her for a brief moment. The wolf pounced, its claws gouged her legs, her stomach, and she laughed as the power of hate rose up inside her. She wielded it truer than any blade and slashed mindlessly, feeling a rush of strength she’d never known before surge through her muscles. She was strong. Powerful.

There was blood everywhere. On her arms, her hands, her face. It coated her tongue, but she didn’t stop stabbing. Over and over again. The wolf lay still, no longer fighting. Little more than a carcass and still she savaged it.

“Down with the Big Bad Wolf,” Vi hissed, stabbing her knife down the gut of the beast; smiling as the blood painted the white snow crimson red.

Chapter 2

Danika--fairy godmother extraordinaire--waited until the sun set fully, the last warm rays dissolving behind the sharp blue sky. All around her, the woods sang with the song of fairies deep in sleep. Actually, sang was a nice word for what they were doing. They were snoring. Like banshees. All of them. They’d fallen soundly asleep, dropping like flies the moment they’d left her home. Some were leaning against the wall, half slumped forward, and others were spread eagle upon rocks and mushroom caps.

Why?

Danika whistled, patting her pocket that at that moment concealed a glass vial full of eau de dragon. Or in laymen’s terms, dragon fart. Crude yes, but effective. One whiff of a dragon’s fart, especially of the sea variety, (let’s not get started on just how impossible it is to bottle a dragon fart underwater… Danika shivered remembering) and a fairy was as good as drunk. Something about the noxious odor of the fumes mixing with a fairies magical make-up, and boom… a fairy was out for the count.

The serpentine dragon’s smell had been so powerful; it’d brought tears to Danika’s eyes, even though she’d placed an invisible pincher upon her nose prior to the tea. She’d worried a fairy might realize she was breathing through her mouth during all of tea time, but thankfully she’d been spared.

Her heart clenched when she heard a noise.

Bianca--fairy godmother of toads--scratched her tiny bell shaped rear, let out a belch and sighed happily, sinking even deeper within the grassy field. Grabbing her chest, Danika leaned against her door, awaiting the signal.

She hated to poison her friends. And normally she’d never dream of doing anything so awful. But she did what she must. Orange blossoms began to open, their perfume thick in the air, as they yawned loudly. It was a beautiful night and the flowers would soon notice there were no fairies to dust them. No amount of squawking or crying would wake the fairies at this point. They’d inhaled a potent amount and would be out of it for at least another hour, none the wiser, and suffering no long term effects.

Enough time for Danika to make it to her meeting.

Fireflies came in droves then, doing their nightly dance ritual; zipping and spinning through the mushroom homes of the fae. It was precisely eight thirty. Time to go.

Rubbing her arms, Danika eyed the motley assortment of snoring fae one last time, just to ensure they were all well and truly out. Satisfied, she sailed into the air. Wings buzzing like a hummingbird’s as she flew to the edge of the woods. She zipped and sailed, dodging tree limbs, heart speeding with the aftereffects of her fear, but also joy.

She smiled when she finally sailed clear of the woods. Peering through the darkness, she looked for her marker: a series of boulders in a helix formation. Finally spying it, she dove. It took only a moment before landing on gray rock. Glancing both ways, she tapped out a quick sequence of sounds on the stone face.