by Kathy Lyons
The words didn’t make sense. Bruce first stared at the fairy, then turned to Laddin, his wolf expression managing to be both grumpy and baffled. Laddin wasn’t any help at all. It took all his resources just to hold back the panic. Then Bruce shook himself as if trying to clear his vision.
“They’re pixies,” Laddin said. “Or a fairy of some sort.” He looked at the Grand Master. “Right? You’re pixies?”
The Grand Master did not answer Laddin. His attention was all on Bruce. “Friend?” he repeated. Then he brandished a tiny, moldy fist. “Or foe?”
All around Laddin, the string cheese was getting ready to attack again. He saw them squat like a spring about to release, and panic set all his cells to screaming. “Friend!” Laddin cried out. “Bruce, tell them I’m your friend!”
Bruce didn’t speak because—damn it—he was still a wolf. He probably didn’t remember how to shift back. And now the cheddar cheese boulders were starting to combine into larger ones. Shit. Laddin knew from experience that they were hard as rocks.
“Come on, Bruce. Tell them I’m your friend,” Laddin said.
Bruce yipped once, then sidled up right next to Laddin, twisted his backside, and let fly with another rancid fart. Laddin thought he was making a statement, but the wind from his body was strong enough to send the string cheese rolling away. Tumbling alongside them were bits of parmesan that had come from places best left unmentioned.
And while those cheeses were laughing with great cheer, Laddin was quick to make everything clear to the Grand Cheesy. “That means we’re friends. Great friends!” he said as he wrapped his arms around Bruce’s wolf neck.
Fortunately Bruce dipped his chin in agreement. And then he turned and licked Laddin from chin to temple with a big wet tongue.
“Ew!” Laddin mumbled as he wiped away the slobber. “Cheese breath.” But given all the smells around here, that was probably one of the better ones.
They both turned to look again at Fetid Feta. The fairy was watching them with narrowed eyes, but the in the end, he bowed deeply before speaking again.
“Then we greet you, Cheese Breath, and welcome you to our great holy war.”
“No, I’m not….” Laddin stopped himself. Obviously the fairy thought he’d been introducing himself as Cheese Breath, but it wasn’t worth correcting. Especially when there was something more interesting to pursue. “Um, what great holy war, exactly?”
“The one against our mortal enemy! You destroyed her structure and have therefore declared us the winner in this battle. Behold the enemy prisoner before she departs.” He made a great gesture to the pile of sticks and stones, and there, sitting and sulking, was a tiny fairy who looked relatively normal compared to all the cheese around her. She wore a dress made of flowers that did not go with her furious expression as she pushed to her feet, kicked at a loose pebble, then gave them a middle-finger salute before puffing out of existence.
In response, all the cheese fairies pointed their middle fingers sideways and made a farting noise before pointing at Bruce and dissolving into laughter. Honest to God, it was a funny, funny sight, and Laddin couldn’t help but snort in laughter. Or maybe it was hysteria still. Hard to tell.
Bruce looked at him with a wounded expression, but he didn’t really seem hurt. If anything, the poor guy looked bewildered. Laddin dropped his forehead into Bruce’s fur and took a deep breath. The wolf definitely smelled better than anything else around here. And while he took comfort from the wolf’s solid presence, he whispered into the fur, knowing that Bruce would hear him clearly enough.
“We have to get out of here,” he whispered. The fae were capricious, and no mortal was safe around them.
Bruce woofed softly in agreement, and so Laddin straightened to his feet with a smile. His knees were weak and he kept a hand deep in Bruce’s ruff, but he made sure his voice was strong. “Well, Grand Master Cheesy, Great Fetid Feta, we thank you for this experience. Sadly, we must be leaving.” He was very pleased with himself for remembering the details of the leader’s name.
Except Feta didn’t seem so pleased. He leaped forward and dropped his hands on his crumbly hips. “You cannot leave! You have declared yourself our friend and therefore cannot leave until our grand mission is accomplished!”
Laddin narrowed his eyes. “And what is that grand mission, exactly?”
Feta looked like he was shocked that Laddin didn’t know. His mouth gaped open, and then a puff of mold came out before he turned to all the assembled cheeses, lifted his arms high, and began to shout. All the other True Cheeses joined in until the field rang like it was filled with wind chimes.
“Fairyland! Fairyland! Fairyland!”
Laddin looked at Bruce, who shifted his front legs as if he were shrugging. And still the cry continued until Laddin felt dizzy. He held up his hand to stop Feta, who quieted immediately and with him all the other fairies. Suddenly Laddin’s ears all but rang with the quiet.
“What about Fairyland?”
“Fairyland! Fairyland! Fairyland!”
The entire group began cheering again until Laddin clapped his hands over his ears. Bruce too dipped his head and whimpered, not that Laddin could hear it. He felt it through the press of Bruce’s wolf body against his.
Finally Feta silenced everyone and Laddin dared to drop his hands from his ears. “Is the place in danger?” He had no wish to name it aloud again.
Feta shook his head solemnly. “We are barred from the holy land, blocked by those who will not dress as cheese.”
Now he understood. “You cannot get to the holy land, and you want to go home.”
“Yes,” Feta intoned. “So we wage our war.”
“But how are they stopping you?”
Feta shook his head sadly. “We don’t know. We only know that much from the words of the prophet.” He gestured to a wedge of cheese beneath a tree. “Smoked Gouda has so said.”
Laddin blinked. Dark smoke appeared to waft off the fairy wedge of cheese.
“Maybe we can help,” he offered, and suddenly everyone took an excited step forward. “I said maybe,” he quickly clarified. “Do you remember how you got here? How did you leave the holy land?”
A low voice spoke, and Laddin didn’t have to look to know that it was Gouda. “Always here, never there,” he intoned.
Right. In short, they had no idea. “I, um, I need to do some research, then, to see if I can find you an answer—”
“Sir Bottom Air knows! He comes from the holy land. We can ride on his wind straight to Fairyland!”
Apparently, Bruce had been upgraded from Hero to Knight of the Bottom Air. “Okay, but—”
“Fairyland! Fairyland! Fairyland!”
“Stop!” Laddin snapped, his patience wearing thin. This had been a hell of a day already, and the charm of working with a bunch of cheeses was wearing off. “Look, Bruce doesn’t know anything. He’s brand-new to this—”
“Not Bruce! Sir Bottom Air!”
“Er, right. Sir Bottom Air doesn’t know his head from his, um, bottom right now. He doesn’t know how to take you back. He’s just learning….” Laddin’s voice trailed away at the stern look from Feta. Worse, he had the sinking feeling that he was the one talking out of his ass because Bruce was a werewolf, thanks to fairy fruit. And perhaps the guy knew a whole lot more about fairies than he was letting on. Laddin looked down into Bruce’s eyes. “Do you know what they’re talking about?”
The wolf’s head dipped low and he shook his head no.
“See,” he said to Fetid Feta. “He hasn’t any idea—”
“We will ride him!” the mozzarella cried. They’d been creeping closer and now abruptly jumped up on Bruce’s back. The wolf shied sideways, but there were too many cheeses there, and all of them tried to leap on his back. Mozzarella, camembert, ricotta, all sorts of cheeses that jumped, sprang, or tumbled into the air while Bruce shook himself to keep them away. They landed anyway, but with every shake, the fairies went tumbling out of his
fur with more tinkling laughter.
They all thought this was a game, except Laddin knew it wasn’t. Fairies were immortal. He’d learned that in his basic training through Wulf, Inc. They could be squashed, sliced in half, even consumed, but they came back in a puff of light and laughter. Humans weren’t so lucky, and mortals often died when they participated in anything having to do with fairies. That had been drilled into them.
Laddin wished he’d paid more attention to that fifteen minutes ago.
“Sir Bottom Air says no,” Laddin declared forcefully. And before Feta could get angry, he held up his hand. “I swear we’ll look into getting you home. Sir Bottom Air and I will do what we can for you.”
Feta looked up, hope shining on his pale face. “You swear? On behalf of all pixies for the True Cheese?”
“Um… er… yeah. I swear.”
Feta hopped off the rock and came to stand right before Bruce’s eyes. “And you, Sir Bottom Air? Do you so swear?”
Bruce stared at the fairy so long without moving. He didn’t so much as blink. And when Laddin started to squeeze the wolf’s back, the animal turned to look directly at Laddin and slowly, firmly shook his head no.
Crap. “What do you mean, no? Bruce, swear to them!”
Again, a steady, firm shake of his head no.
“Sir Bottom Air does not pledge himself!” Fetid screamed. “Attack!”
Laddin cursed, and Bruce let out a woof of anger.
They had no choice now—they’d have to run for it.
So they did, as hard and fast as they could go, which for Bruce was a whole hell of a lot faster. But it didn’t help. No matter how quickly they moved, the pixie cheeses were faster. They leaped, they tumbled, and they exploded into noxious plumes of fermentation, making Laddin choke. And the moment he slowed, the string cheese bound his feet and the American cheese wrapped his hands into solid balls of yellow.
No! No! He couldn’t go through that again! But here he was tumbling to his knees, though he still had breath to bargain.
“Wait! Wait! I have pledged myself to you, right? Aren’t I enough?”
Up ahead, Bruce whirled around, his nostrils flaring but his mouth resolutely shut. The cheese near him quickly surrounded him, but they didn’t move to attack.
Meanwhile Feta bounced up to Laddin. “Are you enough? Can you get us to Fairyland?”
“I don’t know. But I have pledged to help.”
“Standard forfeit?”
Laddin was pulling at the string cheese around his ankles. Damn, the shit was like iron.
“Standard forfeit?” Feta repeated.
Stall for time. “Um, what’s the standard forfeit?”
“Firstborn child.”
Laddin recoiled. “Absolutely not!” The very idea horrified him. How the hell had he gotten himself into this situation? All he’d done was investigate some weird lights, and now suddenly he was talking about the life of his future offspring. “I promised to help you find a way to your holy land. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll search our… um… holy records and tell you what answer I find there.”
“You must open the pathway or make him do it!” Feta pointed to Bruce.
“I can’t promise that!” Laddin snapped back. “I’m just going to do research. That’s all I can do!”
Feta frowned, taking a long moment to think. Then he turned toward the other cheeses. “Research,” he said as he looked at his fellow cheeses. “Research?”
There was a moment of silence as all the cheeses looked at one another. And then, on the far side of Bruce, came a tinkling cry.
“Research! Research!”
The others took it up. In fact, the string cheese that bound his ankles abruptly unrolled and clapped its hands. “Research! Research!”
Laddin took a moment to breathe, but it did nothing to calm his racing heart. “So, we’re agreed, right?” he asked. “I promise to do research.”
“You promised to give us answers.”
“Answers?” he echoed. Fine. He’d give them answers. They might not like what he found out, but that’s what he’d give them. “Agreed.” Whatever it took to get the hell out of here.
“Agreed,” Feta said, and there was weight behind the word unequal to the stature of the tiny fey. In fact, the impact of that single word hit him as hard as if he’d taken a blow to the sternum from a sledge hammer. “Report back in seven minutes.”
“What?” Laddin gasped. “No! That’s not enough time.”
“It is the standard time frame.”
“Bullshit. It’s usually a day or a year. Didn’t Rumpelstiltskin give the miller’s daughter overnight to do that straw-into-gold thing?”
Behind him, Bruce snorted his disgust. Laddin couldn’t blame him—he didn’t think he got that fairytale even remotely right either. But it didn’t matter. Feta stomped his foot and created a noxious cloud.
“Agreed. Report here at dawn with your answers.”
Laddin didn’t like it, but his mind was frazzled, his heart beat a zillion times a minute, and he was clammy with sweat. At that moment, he’d agree to give over whatever answers they wanted, as long as it got them out of there without another damned piece of cheese attaching itself to his body. So he nodded. “Fine. Tomorrow at dawn, right back here.”
“Agreed!” Feta cried as he stomped his foot.
Laddin pushed to his feet, his knees barely strong enough to support him. He was shaking, he now realized, but as he took a tentative step, Bruce came to his side and used his large wolf body to brace him.
Thank God.
They began to walk away. They plodded steadily, carefully. It was a long way back to the house, and they both glanced behind often. Every time, the cheeses waved cheerily at them, but they didn’t follow and were soon lost to view.
If only the feeling of dread climbing into Laddin’s chest could disappear so easily. He hadn’t read the full history of Wulf, Inc. Hell, he hadn’t even read half. But he had read the parts where the message was always and forever, Never Bargain with Fairies. It was like a corporate motto or something. In fact, it had been etched into stone at Wulfric’s first home in America.
So what had Laddin done on his very first solo mission? He’d bargained with fairies.
“I think I screwed up,” Laddin finally said as the house came into view. “I don’t know how yet, but I have this lousy feeling that tells me I’m in trouble.”
Bruce responded with a snort that sounded very much like “Duh.”
Chapter 10
SITTING ON THE PORCH SINGING THE WEREWOLF BLUES
LADDIN WAS screwed. Bruce knew very little about all this fairy werewolf magic stuff, but he did know people. He knew that as much as Bitterroot tried to make nice with him, the fairy was trying to trap him. He could smell the stink of manipulation flowing off the elf. He could also tell that the little pixies were funny mischief-makers, but there was a real agenda behind their actions. It was like a fighting a fire. The element wasn’t evil, but it was implacable. And those damned pixies had an agenda and wouldn’t rest until they consumed everything in their path on their way to whatever goal they had.
Unfortunately, Laddin had landed himself smack-dab in the center of their crusade. And as much as Bruce wanted to tell the man to wise up, his wolf mouth wasn’t forming the words. So he padded along beside Laddin and tried every way he could think of to become human again.
No-go.
The best he could do was lean against the man’s leg, trying to tell him in an animal way that he would do what he could to help. But he was a big wolf, and Laddin wasn’t large enough to take his weight without stumbling. Worse, Laddin thought Bruce was the one who needed comfort.
“Easy there, Bruce. I know that was scary.” He squatted down right there in the field and wrapped his arms around Bruce’s neck. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. You’ll be fine.”
Bruce huffed out a breath in frustration. Wasn’t that the fucking truth of his entire life? He tried to help
, and it went sideways. He tried to show support, and it was completely misinterpreted. That was one of the many things he admired about his brother. The guy’s thoughts and intentions were always crystal clear. There was no misinterpreting the big middle finger he got from his little brother. Josh communicated. Laddin did too, because Bruce sure as shit knew that nearly dying there had shaken the guy. But when it came time to express his thoughts, all Bruce could do was fuck it up. So he stood strong and let Laddin comfort him because—maybe—Laddin got some strength from the hug too.
Then Laddin shivered. Whereas Bruce was covered in thick fur, Laddin was only wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt.
“Sun’s going down, and I lost the blanket somewhere back there,” Laddin said against his fur. “Let’s get inside before I freeze to death.”
Bruce rumbled agreement, and Laddin pulled back.
“Was that a growl? You want to stay outside?”
Fucking hell. He shook his head no.
“Inside, then?”
He nodded his head. And then for good measure, he licked Laddin’s chin. That was the only way he could think of to express his concern. Laddin laughed. Of course he did. Nothing kept his happiness down for long. But he did wipe his face off.
“Ew!” he teased. Then he straightened up. “Inside it is. We can play catch or something later.”
Catch? Catch! Did he seriously think that Bruce wanted to run around after a stupid ball? He was not a dog! He was a man trapped in this wolf body who couldn’t fucking talk right then. The best he could do was snort his disgust.
“You don’t want to wait? Well, okay.” He leaned down and picked up a stick, which he tossed ahead of them. Then he grinned as he looked down at Bruce. “Go on! Go get it!”
Bruce snorted and looked away. He was so not going to chase that stick. Except some sort of instinct kicked in the moment the stick flew through the air. His body tensed and he nearly leaped after it, even though he was not a fucking dog.