Deception (Facets of Feyrie Book 3) Read online

  Even with her obvious distress, I decide to answer her honestly. “He was the easiest to trick out of the people in the Sidhe. Most of the others are too smart to fall for such a ploy.” Not surprised that it does not take the frown off her face. “Iza, at least it is not one of your heathens.”

  “Still doesn’t make it right. Jameson isn’t very… strong, Phobe. I’m not sure how he’ll handle this. It might break him completely.” Her reasoning surprises me.

  “You are worried about his mental health?” I cannot help but ask in surprise.

  “His entire health, because they might very well kill him. Especially if he opens his mouth.” In that, she is not wrong. Jameson talking makes many people want to kill him.

  In my perspective, Jameson is expendable, and always will be. Compared to her, all of them are. In this case, she can recover from his rather quickly, so I am pleased they took him instead of one of the children. When it comes to them, I am not sure she could recover, ever. She has formed an attachment for them that nearly touches the strength of the one between the two of us… she smiles at me, and I know right then how hard their deaths would hit her. Hers would make me inconsolable. I can admit it at this moment, at least to myself.

  The temperature of the room drops, and she doubles over, a hand pressing on her stomach with all the color leeched out of her face. The backlash of something hitting her through the Sidhe wafts through our bond. I grab her and pull her onto my lap. There is nothing I can do to ease this pain. Expanding my darkness out, I look for a culprit, but there is none. A residual taste that is similar to what attacked her before.

  The trojan is showing itself.

  “Someone… someone just died,” the disbelief in her voice is enough to make me pause, and before I can peek into her thoughts, she is off my lap and up on her feet. Attempting, unsuccessfully, to pull on her clothes while trying to walk at the same time. Grabbing her waist while walking behind her, I steady her to keep her from ending up face first on the floor. Other than this insignificant thing, I am powerless to help. This is something between her and the Sidhe, something that has already passed, an enemy I cannot see to fight. I can sense things sometimes, but currently, I am only getting echoes of what has already come to pass.

  Which gives me no direction to go, no intruder to look out for. When this happened before, I could sense the attack. It was blatant and a show of Magikal muscle by the perpetrator, so I thought at the time. Now, I am starting to doubt that assumption. The blatant attack was a misdirection, and I fell for it.

  I suspect Light, but I cannot prove it. Once upon a time, the three of us were equally matched. There would be no hesitation about confronting him. That was a long time ago. I am not the creature I once was, not yet. One cannot replenish all the power lost in a thousand years in a few months. Not at the slow rate, I am feeding. I will start feeding more, building my strength. This ensures a confrontation between the two of us, one I need to be prepared for.

  My gut tells me he is the one behind all of it. Going after him, if I can even find him, will set off a war that I do not think these creatures can survive. That Iza cannot survive. For a thousand years I have wallowed in slavery, my power slowly being starved out of me. In this physical form, I am also incredibly limited.

  Until I am once again at my full strength, I cannot take him on.

  Unlike me, he was not spelled into a physical form and retains his true form and all the abilities that come with it. He is Light incarnate, and it allows him to possess others. I cannot hurt him unless I can catch him in a mortal form. In his true form, there is nothing I can sink my claws into. It is very frustrating, almost as much as the woman in front of me.

  I truly believe that this was always meant to happen, Light and Darkness going against each other. There has never been any form of affection or relationship between us.

  The only one who ever shows that is Life. He likes to be sentimental and call us brothers, and I have fallen into that habit and used the term. But we are not even remotely close to being related. We are merely three beings who became aware of existence at the same time. All with different powers, purposes, and strengths. I abused mine, all three of us did and do. Unlike Light and myself, Life, at least, sticks to some semblance of moral code.

  Light’s only code is to be worshipped by all.

  I need fucking facts to move forward, Life on our side is the only way to win this as things stand. For that, I am at a loss. Perhaps Iza knows something I have not worked out? Snooping around inside of her head, I find that, although she felt the death of an imp she does not know the cause, either. She is not happy about it, and as we walk through the hallways that the Sidhe creates for her, her mood deteriorates even more.

  Val is the one who died, the imp who was sick before. One she does not know well but has a bit of a soft spot for because of what happened to his family. This likely means the others who were sick are in danger as well. The sickness was the planting of the seed, and the imp’s death is the bloom.

  The out of control moments of her Magiks are possibly another part of it, but I’m starting to suspect something else might be the culprit.

  First, I need to calm Iza down, because her anger is driving her is steadily building stronger. She can be very emotional at times, but this level of anger is uncommon for her and will make her act out in senseless ways. It does not matter that I like the darkness that is alive and showing its teeth inside of her. Iza always pulls a visceral reaction out of me—this amplifies it, significantly. The deep, primal part of me wants to encourage it. The part of me that is brought out by Iza wants to dissuade it, protect her from the consequences of it.

  A conundrum, this war between two fragments of my personality.

  The plan I settled on, is to find a way to reach both goals. I have not found a way yet, but I will not stop searching until I do. Both of the creatures I am… all of the creatures I am, love her—no, it is not simply love, it goes beyond that. So far beyond that even I do not know where it ends.

  Iza is everything to me.

  “Why do I have a feeling you’re having a conversation with yourself about me?” Coming out of my thoughts at her question, I look down into her eyes. She is standing in front of me, her arms crossed. The anger temporarily banked inside of her, raging behind a mental wall. This shows exactly how strong she is, and I like it, too.

  Although, her knowing I am thinking about her is suspicious. Studying her active thoughts, she is incredibly perceptive at times. I check in case she has suddenly developed mind-reading abilities. She has not and is merely showing how deep her mind can truly be.

  Opting to stick with the truth I say, “I am trying to decide whether to help you control the anger or let it out.” Both of her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline in surprise. It amuses me that, given all that she is gone through with me, I can still surprise her.

  “I’m used to your brutal honesty, but that’s honest even for you.” Her eyes sharpen on me. “Which one do you think is the right choice?” She is seriously asking me my opinion on this subject after what I said?

  Squashing the small flutter of flattery in my stomach, I answer, “There is no right choice in this situation. You are a creature of the dark, a living breathing representation of it. Letting that part of you out does not make you evil. You are what you are. It is why I do not understand your strange concern about being reviled by these people.”

  A strangely moral one that has no place in her life. She will not go on some murderous rampage if she embraces what she is, at least not against the creatures she has cared for. The masses of Light Fey, though, would be in danger of her doing exactly that. Not only would they become her fodder, but she would also unleash… oh, now I see. It is not herself she is worried for.

  “Control. We will teach you to have it until we find out what is causing your sudden spikes in anger. Is this acceptable?” I offer.

  The whole asking her permission thing is new, but in my experience with
her, it is also effective. Even if it mostly a placation. She responds more positively to requests than orders. Unless we are sparring, that is a different situation entirely, or naked. She likes me being bossy then.

  “Did you just think about sex? Because I’m feeling the sex vibe rolling off you.” Her anger banks a little more at her question. I shrug. Nothing that I say will make me look like any less of an asshole. Sighing at me she continues, “Come on, the least I can do is find out why he died. His family is upset, and there are no answers. He was watering the lawn and just fell over dead.” She turns and starts walking again. “Feyrie doesn’t die like that, we all know this.”

  I say nothing. This is her way of digesting the information. My talking will only delay her from getting what she needs to get out. There is a term for it here in this human world, a sounding board.

  “The only conclusion I can come up with, without knowing any facts, is that this shit that killed him is whatever started when he got sick the first time. Like a spell that was hidden or something.” See? Her brain will always bring her around to where she needs to be. “Which I’m guessing you already know since you're so freaking quiet about it?” I shrug once again.

  Giving me a quick look over her shoulder, in annoyance, she turns back around and goes silent. She is thinking of things I will not like. That horrid wall of blue, singing things goes up in her mind, and I have to work on fighting my way past it. I always get through, and she knows I will, eventually, and when she does things like this it makes me work even harder at it.

  Pausing outside of the quarters that reek of grief and disbelief, she takes a deep breath, preparing herself. Iza is no more prepared to deal with the mess on the other side of that door than I am. We are not built that way. She is simply better at faking it.

  When she opens the door, the sounds of wailing fill the hallway is almost enough to make me turn around away and walk off. If I did not have to look at the body, I would. Logically, I understand their high emotion, losing Iza would give me that kind of reaction, but the continuing noise, I do not understand that.

  ‘It seems a little… dramatic,’ I say, satisfied that I said the right word.

  ‘Everyone handles their grief differently. You went and dragged me out of death land, remember?’

  ‘I did not wail like a child as I did it,’ I defend, unable to deny that I did fetch her from there.

  ‘Jameson said you growled a lot. We’ll count that as your version of wailing.’ She has a point with that, and I do not like it.

  I feel like there is more that she wants to say but Val’s sister, Mira, falls into Iza’s arms, and the noise starts again in earnest. Iza looks at me, clearly uncomfortable despite the front she is putting on and pats Mira on the shoulder. Moving past, relieved it is not I that has to deal with it, I look down at the blue-lipped body of Val.

  Delicately, my shadows search him, looking for any type of Magikal signature. Finding a small trail of Light Magiks, I latch onto it, while trying to definitively decipher the source. They are strong, whomever they are. Although strong enough to not leave any trace of their actual identity, I still memorize the feel of the Magiks. Even if they can hide their Magikal signature, everyone has a unique taste to their Magiks.

  This one I shall remember, and although it feels slightly of Light, I cannot say with surety it is his Magiks. Which makes everything more complicated. Turning away from the corpse, I give one last, slightly sympathetic look to Iza—who is still holding up the weeping woman—and leave the room. I cannot tolerate the noise any longer. Iza’s patience is wearing thin as well, but she feels guilty for it. I do not.

  ‘Any idea if this is connected to Jameson?’ she asks me.

  ‘More than likely it is related.’ I pause, debating on how to broach the rest of what needs to be said. Decision made I continue, ‘you could just let them keep him and move on. As you said, he is not an important piece on the board.’

  ‘He still fucking matters, Phobe!’

  Her anger is a blast of heat through our connection. I will not tell her this, but I like these reactions from her, too. ‘I understand that you don’t care about these people… and I don’t expect you to, but you need to understand that I do!’

  ‘His absence is causing you so much pain that you cannot let him go?’ I ask, knowing that although she cares, it is not much, or used not to be. His death would be filled with more guilt than of grief, but she is acting as if he means more than I deduced.

  ‘He deserves better,’ she says more quietly. The guilt speaks.

  ‘In that, you and I do not agree. I will see what I can find out while you deal with that mess.’ There is nothing I can do to help her in that situation. I can, however, look for information concerning Jameson. Even though I still do not think him worth the effort.

  I hope that the imp understands that anything I do, is for her—not him.

  I hope they all understand this, and if not, it is their error.

  NOT SURE WHO TO start with, I pick the closest one. Knox is playing alone on his video game when I find him. Briefly, he looks up when I sit on the armrest of the couch.

  “What do you want?” he asks, surly as he usually is lately.

  “Why has your behavior been so strange?” There is no reason to beat around the bush. Sometimes to get the best answer you ask the source, and in this case, I can kill two birds with one stone. Iza is concerned about his behavior and, using this moment. I can potentially find out if it should concern her.

  He looks up at me, his eyebrows drawn together in a scowl, and I watch the emotions chase themselves across his face. Hurt, anger, love, jealousy, and doubt, in that order. At this specific moment, this child is not under the influence of Magiks, but merely having human-like reactions. Insecurity being the predominant one. It is annoying that I cannot read this child, and it is suspicious, but for now, I will tuck it away. This insecurity could be the cause of all his angst concerning Iza that he is too young to express correctly.

  “Since you came here, she’s been different,” he says after a few minutes of silence.

  “You are jealous of my place in her life?” I ask, confident his answer will be yes. After staring at me, with that scowl still on his face, he nods.

  “That is unnecessary.” Now, how would Iza deal with this? Clearing my throat, I take a guess, “you will always have your special place in her life, Knox.” He stares at me a moment, scrunching up his nose. I have no idea if I said the right thing to comfort the child, I am not even sure why I am trying to. Iza’s influence on me is showing itself, which makes me want to smile and because of that I fight its appearance on my face, but… I do accept it.

  The silly woman has her claws in deep, but not just in me.

  “So, she isn’t gonna leave us because you’re here?” His question makes me pause. I know the thoughts going through Iza’s head because of Jameson’s abduction, and one of them is how special this child is to her.

  “She will not stop loving you because I am here.” That will work for now. I have no idea how else to express that without giving away what her intentions are, ones that have not even solidified in her mind. This is an awkward moment for me, too. Until Iza came into my life, I could never imagine being in this kind of situation. My solution would have been to simply walk off—or worse.

  “Okay, I guess,” he mumbles then lifts his eyes up to hold mine, “if you hurt her, I’ll kill you.” His green eyes flash as he says this, and it becomes increasingly hard to keep the smile off my face. His fierce defense of her makes me a little proud.

  “I shall keep that in mind, little shifter.” As we spoke, my shadows checked him for any trace of Light Magiks. There is nothing. I think, more than likely, that the ‘weird’ stuff Iza has been worried about with Knox, is this wash of human emotions going through him. He is insecure about his place in her life and jealous of my presence. He is probably jealous of anyone else who holds her attention for any length of time. In this particular ca
se, there are no Magiks involved at all. This will make her feel slightly better, that Knox has been moved farther down the suspect list.

  The other shifter, Peter, walks into the room and I give him the same thorough once-over I gave Knox, nothing on him either. There is also nothing stopping me from reading his mind.

  Knowing this does not stop the surprising question that pops out of my mouth, “why did you tell Knox that Iza will not love him anymore?” Iza’s influence, absolutely, but the question has already been spoken, and there is a curiosity to have the answer there.

  “Everybody leaves. My parents left me and his parents left him.” A traumatized child’s logic, and for him potentially true. Although more than likely his parents did not leave him willingly, shifters like to murder each other.

  “Not everyone leaves, boy. I think you speak from a bad place in your life.” Before I can catch myself, I add, “perhaps it is time for you to change that perception?” Sensing no Magiks from this child either, I turn and leave the room before I can say anything else out of character for me.

  “See, I told you so, Peter.” Knox’s words follow me out into the hallway.

  At least this uncomfortable encounter will let me provide a modicum of relief for Iza. The thought of him being hollowed out by possession tore her up inside, pulling on a well of grief so deep inside of her that even I could not see the end of it. I cannot help but be slightly relieved myself, especially knowing that I would be the one to have to destroy the child if it wefre him. Although the truth of it is, that it is not his death that concerns me, it is her reaction to it.

  ‘Your little shifter is more than likely not the culprit,’ as an afterthought I add, ‘his friend neither. In some ways, Knox is incredibly mature for a child, mostly because of what he has experienced. In other ways, he is every bit his age and relationships with anyone fall into that category. Be reassured that it is because of these things that he is acting as he is.’ Iza is strong, but I think a bit of reassurance is necessary at times with her, it balances her out. She does not respond, but I feel her relief. Perhaps she is upset with me for abandoning her to the tender mercies of the grieving women? In this circumstance, better her than I. My patience and understanding of such things are not at the level of hers. In these cases, it is always better for them if it is her.