Deception (Facets of Feyrie Book 3) Read online

  DECEPTION

  FACETS OF FEYRIE BOOK THREE

  ZOE PARKER

  CONTENTS

  Deception

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Acknowledgments

  About Zoe Parker

  Copyright © 2018 by Zoe Parker

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the Author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover design by Christian Bentulan

  DEDICATION

  Always for my children. Also, for all of those dreamers out there. Keep creating the things that make us all live a little better.

  PROLOGUE

  Prologue of a Boob…

  Jameson

  “Stupid mudholes,” I mutter under my breath while trying to swipe at the muddy slush that’s now covering my right pant leg all the way to the knee. Slowing my pace, I scrape off as much of the mess as I can without completely stopping. I don’t want to be late. This is the third time something has gone wrong since I left the Sidhe. If I were a superstitious person, this could be considered a bad sign, but there’s nothing ever bad about women and the lovely things I can do with them.

  Although, I’ll freely admit to myself that this is a new low for me. Meeting a stranger, physical attributes unseen in a public park isn’t something I normally do. No matter how you look at it, desperate times call for desperate measures. So much so that overlooking all this cloak and dagger business. Which is probably because this ‘mysterious lady’ is a new member of the Sidhe.

  Considering the old, outdated customs of some of the Feyrie, I can completely understand her hesitance to meet in public. With so many people gathered together in one place, gossip is prevalent. People have reputations to worry about, and all that bother, and because of that some of the Feyrie still enforce those customs. I don’t feel like getting married this week via a gun pointed at my head.

  It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had the company of a beautiful woman. Who am I kidding—months—since I had that kind of comfort, so this encounter shouldn’t take long. If I time this right, I can show my appreciation to the tidbits offered to me and still be back before anyone notices my absence. The first one to notice will more than likely be Nika, the one who is responsible for my sudden dry spell in the company of the opposite sex. Slipping past her wasn’t easy, the woman is a dragon after all, and for some reason, she guards me like I’m some pretty bauble in her hoard.

  And even if I am a pretty bauble, I want no part of that mess.

  In this specific instance, Nika isn’t who I’m worried about being upset. Iza might kill me if I don’t show up in time. She planned this down to the colors of the napkins and the little paper turkeys on the plates. She spent all night cooking the monstrous bird that everyone will be dining on, without setting the kitchen on fire for once. She made all this effort is for our family Thanksgiving dinner—and why does that thought make my chest tight?

  Deciding to stop those mood-killing thoughts dead in their path, I focus once again on the woman who made this an unexpectedly tedious chase. I hope that she’s attractive because it will make up for the ruining of my good shoes. Not that her being unattractive is a deal breaker, I’m not leaving unsatisfied. I can keep my eyes closed through the entire thing. I’ll also probably keep this little adventure to myself. All to protect the woman’s honor of course.

  This adventure is also more palatable than eating Iza’s cooking. The plan is to delay it as long as possible because the thought of her cooking scares me more than wandering around in the snow looking for a booty call. The picture of Iza smiling when she’s angry flashes through my mind. Those red lips parting to show me rows of pearly white, razor-sharp teeth. I take that back, Iza scares me more than most things, including her cooking. If she smiles at me that way, I’ll even ask for seconds.

  That’s her scary smile, and usually, if she’s wearing it, then someone ends up dead or at least bleeding profusely. I’ve seen it enough to know. Somehow, I’ve managed to survive most of them. Wait, I have survived them!

  Has my manly personality finally won over the woman? The next thing you know she’ll be singing my praises and telling me how good of a job I’ve done managing the Sidhe.

  “I can’t believe he showed up.” The amused voice dumps cold water right on my daydream of Iza crowning me king of personality.

  Straightening my shoulders and planting a panty-charming smile on my face I look up to find myself instantly and utterly regretting this decision. Yes, the dark-haired, rather curvy woman standing there with a smirk on her face is incredibly beautiful, but the big hunk of muscle standing beside her with a terrifying, satisfied smile on his face is not my type.

  The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I’ve made a huge mistake. As the woman takes the first steps towards me, I find myself frozen in place with fear, and the realization of exactly how bad I fucked up hits me. Cold sweat soaks through the back of my shirt, cooling in the cold air. For once I don’t care if the shirt is ruined, because I’m more worried about shitting my pants.

  “The boss man said not to kill him, but he didn’t say that we couldn’t hurt him a little bit,” the big man says, following close behind her.

  Without a word, I turn, and with muscles burning, force my stiff legs to move in the direction away from the scary man. Instead of achieving my goal of magically getting back to the Sidhe unharmed with a macho story to tell the ladies, I find myself face first on the cold, wet ground with a crushing weight on top of me. It’s the man who plowed me down like a dragon, taking me down with no warning at all. He laughs while he squashes my face further into the mud with a hand bigger than the back of my head.

  A cold metal collar snapping around my neck makes my eyes burn with the desire to weep. I know exactly what that collar is. The Magiks in it are already working, blistering my skin as the spell in it works its way into my body. Not that I stand a chance with either one of them in a fight, Magiks or not. I’m a mediocre healer who dabbles in herbs and potions. Not a fighter like Iza and some of the others. I’ve never wished more than right now that I listened to Iza and started training with Alagard because then I could at least throw a good solid punch or two.

  Telepathy would be a handy trait to have right now too. I could scream my head off on their wavelength and Iza would come and save me. Knowing this, I still try to do it. Screaming in my mind for help like the pussy I am, begging at a god that isn’t listening. I’ll eat the whole damn bird if she does, because this is terrifying, and they… are going to kill me.

&nbs
p; A thought, foreign to me and completely unselfish flits through my panicking brain. Someone needs to tell Iza that it’s a shifter and vampire working with a Light Fey who works Blood Magiks using Feyrie as a conduit for it. Something that essentially created a distorted version of Dark Magiks that can completely null out its own Magiks type. A perfect weapon against someone like Iza, one that they have perfected in my absence.

  This is something that brings our people to complete extinction.

  This collar was created specifically to control Feyrie, to make them weak and to truly enslave them. I know this because I helped make it. I realize the error of not telling her sooner, but my insecurities made me hold my tongue. All because I didn’t want her to have another reason to hate me.

  Now, I’m regretting that choice because she needs to know these things. There’s a good chance I won’t survive this, and if they are lucky enough to get a collar like this on her, any hope for Feyrie is lost. They will break her then, they will make an example of her and in her death is a herald of the destruction of all Feyrie.

  The desperation that I felt mere minutes ago to get laid is quadrupled and focuses instead on the need to do something to help Iza. She might come looking for me, she also might not, but it doesn’t matter. The warning still needs to be there. Thinking quickly, I wiggle my hand up through the mud, gritting my teeth as gravel tears away at my pampered skin, to dig the small tablet out of my inside coat pocket. My arm is shaking from the effort of levering a much of my weight as I can on my left side, especially with ‘Muscles’ deadweight sitting on me. Sliding it up to my shoulder, I carefully I take a picture of the collar around my neck. Turning my head, I see that he’s looking at the woman, I take the opportunity to get a picture of the shifter. Tilting the tablet up, I try for the woman as well, but I’m not sure I get it. Forcing my arm back underneath me I shove the tablet down into the mud. Covering it in the thick stuff to disguise it from view. God, I hope Iza finds it. She’s smart—somehow, she’ll figure this mess all out. Even if I had faith in nothing else in existence, I have faith in her.

  The weight on my back suddenly disappears, but before I can take a much-needed deep breath, he picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder like a small sack of flour. I fervently hope I shit all over him. The woman steps around him and takes my face in her hands. The vampires special brand of Magiks comes out of her mouth with her whispers. Without my own to protect myself, I’m helpless to her hypnotic gaze, and the darkness pulls me under.

  I za

  I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE that someone stole Jameson.

  Why the hell did they take him? Jameson isn’t a pivotal piece in the stupid game they’re playing, he’s a glorified secretary. He’s someone I don’t trust, not really. For the most part, he’s useless when it comes to the majority of life. As far as using him against me, there are far better choices that would get my attention more thoroughly.

  I don’t care about what happens to him.

  A slight queasiness tightens my stomach and makes the smell of the food around me unpalatable and argues against that fact. I argue back. Jameson betrayed me to save his ass. He allowed us to go through hell because of his cowardice. Why should I care about someone like that enough to worry? I don’t give a shit… right?

  The realization that I do floods my face with heat. Cradling my burning cheeks with my hands, self-consciously, I look around the room full of confused faces, knowing mine probably has a similar look on it. Shit, this changes things.

  “Who saw him last?” I demand of the room, accepting the emotional epiphany for what it is and moving forward. Someone saw something. There are too many people here for no one to have seen him. Jameson is always buzzing about getting into something or someone. Plus, he organizes most of the things that happen at the Sidhe as a good secretary should. Jobs for the people here, chores around the Sidhe, trips to town. Everything.

  My instincts are buzzing that there’s more to the story. Something else is bothering me about this too. Why was I the first one to notice? As a general rule, I don’t pay much attention to him. If I spend too much time focusing on the words leaving his mouth, I end up wanting to strangle him. I don’t feel bad about that either.

  Nika should have noticed first since she stalks him all the time.

  My eyes go automatically to where she’s standing, using that ungainly height of hers to look over the heads of people in the room. Why she’s looking in the dining room, I don’t know. He’s not in the Sidhe or anywhere close, anymore at least. The fact that her face has the beginning of panic on it rules her out rather fast. She’s worried sick, maybe even a little angry, and it’s genuine.

  “My lady, I think I saw him in the kitchens a few hours ago. He was in a hurry and was wearing an ungodly amount of cologne,” Arista says, standing up at her table to be seen more clearly.

  I nod my head to her, glad someone finally spoke up. The Magiks are pushing me to react rather strongly to this situation.

  Jameson being in the library isn’t surprising, he’s always reading something. When he puts on cologne though, that usually means there’s a woman involved. In this case, that habit might help me figure out where the hell he is. My Magiks can’t, which is frustrating to it and me. All I can feel is a muted sense of him, very muted. Which is completely useless.

  With a quick, selfishly sad look at my big bird—that I won’t get to eat—I head towards the library. Searching through the tables covered in the books Jameson is reading, and the scribbled notes scattered all over the place, I find nothing. His laptop isn’t here either, so that leaves one place he’d take it. The place he thinks he privately watches all his dirty movies. We all know he does it.

  I head to his room. Just like I hoped, his laptop is on the bed, and papers cover the rest of it. Quickly, I sort through them, looking for something that’s out of place or even a little useful. My nose finds it first. A fancy cream-colored piece of paper that smells strongly of cheap perfume and—I hold it up to my mouth to get a better scent— a vampire. Now, why would a vampire be sending Jameson a stinky letter? Unfolding it, I scan over the contents.

  In disbelief, I grind my teeth together. Three freaking sentences lured the idiot out of the safety of the Sidhe.

  I saw you in town and think you’re hot. I’m single, and I want to rub my big, luscious boobs all over you. Meet me at the park at dark.

  When I find him, if he isn’t already dead, I’m going to kill him. A handful of words from someone he’s never met before made him into a fucking moron. What kind of idiot meets a random stranger at the park because they mention boobs?

  ‘Jameson,’ Phobe answers my silent question, drawing an eye roll out of me. Sadly, he isn’t wrong. Someone did their homework to know Jameson would fall for this ridiculously transparent rouse. Either that or they know him. Considering that we have a spy in the Sidhe, that’s possible, too.

  “So instead of eating the bird and pie, I’ve got to go run around and try to find his ass,” I mutter. Glaring at the note, I continue, “I guess the first place to start is in the park.” Tucking it in my pocket, I turn and walk out of the room with Phobe’s dark presence following close behind me.

  The brief, light touch of his fingers on the small of my back relaxes me. Funny, too, because I didn’t realize how tense I was right until that moment. I glance at him and muster as much of a smile as I can. Letting it drop off my face, I head towards the front door. Without pausing, I pick up speed in the hope of avoiding Nika, who’s heading towards us with green fire flashing in her eyes.

  Not in the mood for a bitchy dragon right now. I’ll end up saying something assholey, I know I will, and this time I’ll not have anything filtering it. I don’t even feel like trying to be nice.

  “My lady, we need to—” she begins.

  “Nope,” is all I say before ducking out the door. Big nope.

  Don’t get me wrong. I have a small—microscopic—amount of empathy for what she’s feeling. The man she
has the hots for is missing, but that’s as far as my empathy goes. That idiot did this to himself, and I’ll make sure he’s made aware of this when I find him. Because I will find him, and for the sake of whoever has him, he better be in one solid, breathing piece. If anyone is going to kill Jameson, it’ll be Phobe or me. No stranger has the right to come in and—

  “Iza, where are you going?” Phobe’s voice pulls me out of my murderous thoughts of Jameson.

  I stop walking and look around me. I have no idea where we are. All I know is the heartbeat of the Sidhe is no longer below my feet, and that up ahead of me the smell of humanity is strong. Oh, we’re right outside of the town of Moleville. Wow, that went fast. We were hauling ass. By car, downtown is about fifteen minutes away from the Sidhe. Turning to my left, I start walking again. I’m pretty sure the park is—

  “Not that way. Come,” Phobe says, grabbing my hand.

  Rolling my eyes, I let him pull me along. Oddly enough, he’s walking at normal speed. Probably because those human spy people are about and know who and what to look for. They did kidnap me, which wasn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it’d be, so that means I’m on their radar. They also came to the Sidhe and tried to take the kids.

  They’re probably somewhere around here making more plans to annoy me. Unless Phobe killed them all already. It’s entirely possible, because I know he’s been sneaking off and destroying their little bases, but these human government-based organizations remind me of an infection. All it takes is one tiny piece getting away, and it can start a new infection somewhere else.

  Annoyingly persistent, too.

  It’s also possible that Phobe has some other brilliant plan that he, of course, didn’t tell me. That is just so shocking, him hiding something.

  ‘I can do without your sarcasm.’

  ‘Na, sarcasm for life,’ I tease back. A smile doesn’t crack his face, and no amusement wafts across our bond… well, then I’ll try harder. He comes to a jarring stop and swings me around to look at him.