Page 42 of Outcast Fae
“She’s a nut,” Daniella said, smiling. “She’s one of those old-school witches with all the dried herbs hanging around, making you wear good luck charms everywhere and spitting if anyone even mentions the word devil. She rubs garlic on my chest when I’m sleeping sometimes and braids rowan berries in my hair.”
I chuckled, thinking about what fun this woman must be.
“She’s not a very powerful witch,” Daniella added quietly. “Neither am I.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I can’t do magic at all.”
“But you can do so much more. You can fight and hunt and find things. You can fly! It must be cool being fae.” She said the last bit as if she wished to be something other than human… than a flim.
I put my hand on her arm gently. “You just be you, okay? You’re pretty great as it is. It’s just this place that is making you feel small, but you’ll be out soon.”
We shared a warm moment, but a cry from up ahead broke it apart. Shouts reached our ears. Fighting. They must’ve found the pig and began arguing over it as I’d predicted.
“Here we go again,” Daniella said with a sigh.
Half of me wanted to turn around and head in the other direction, but the shouting was getting worse, escalating into a full-on brawl. Glancing at Daniella, I started to run toward the sound.
“Drop it, or I’ll rip your head off,” Vaughn’s voice said.
“Try me.” This was Sinasre.
From the sound of things, two alpha males were fighting for dominance, and one was related to me. If anything, I’d have Sinasre’s back, but then, I didn’t want to fight at all. Maybe Meadow Song wanted conflict just so she could punish us again. I had no intention of fighting another giant squid as penance for some male posturing. Plus, we needed to do as she said if we were to have any chance of finishing their “program.”
I scampered up an embankment and there they were.
On the pure white sand, ocean waves at their back, Sinasre and Vaughn had squared off, each gripping one end of the pig. Vaughn had the front hooves, and Sinasre had the back hooves. Both were glaring at each other across the cooked carcass, looking like they were about to tear each other’s heads off.
The groups had split into two factions as well: Elon and Wally behind Vaughn and Patricia and the other three behind Sinasre.
And me? I positioned myself in the middle.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
Every head turned in my direction. I planted my feet in the sand and sighed. “Why are you fighting now?”
Sinasre at least had the decency to look embarrassed.
Vaughn’s jaw clenched tighter. “I got here first. The pig is rightfully mine.”
“That is a lie,” Sinasre shot back, his cat eyes narrowing, his red mane shivered, a sign of his anger and frustration. “But I’d expect lies from a lying, no-goodwerewolf.”
Someone gasped. Jaws dropped.
I wasn’t shocked. I’d suspected as much since the events in the cave, but the others hadn’t. Wally and Elon took a step back. The other group gathered more tightly behind Sinasre, looking frightened.
“What’s he talking about, dude?” Wally asked, his eyes wary.
Elon stepped beside Wally, allied now against Vaughn. “Yeah, dude, are you really one of those…dogs?”
Dogs? Supernaturals could be so awful to each other, so hard to accept their differences, so quick to judge. I’d experienced their prejudice first hand.
Vaughn stared at Sinasre as if he could cut him with his gaze alone. I waited for him to deny the allegations, but, instead, he let go of the pig, turned, and stalked away down the beach.
Wally and Elon looked to me. Apparently, they had no idea what to do, but did I? If Vaughn was a werewolf, did that make him untrustworthy? No, that judgment was wrong. It was exactly what Vaughn had done to me, what most humans did to me as soon as they saw me.
As Sinasre ripped the pig into sections with his claws and doled it out, first to his group and then to mine, I did the only thing that seemed right.
I went after Vaughn.
