Faetal Surrender - Book 3 of the Blood Crown Series
While her sisters
have made their homes among the mortals, Lea has always been content
to stay in the realm of the Fae, serving as their Oracle and tending
to her dragons. However, the Reckoning has turned her once quiet life
upside down. Her powers are erratic, unstable, and potentially
deadly. Her connection to the divine has grown stronger, but her
prophecies make no sense, though she's afraid they may foretell her
demise. The dragons she'd sworn to protect are at risk, being hunted
again after centuries of hiding in safety. And as if that wasn't
enough on her plate, the secrets of her past have been revealed,
making her question everything she's ever believed.
But there's no time
for personal issues, because war is coming. Lea's half sister, who
happens to the be the rightful heir to the crown, is still missing.
They'll have to go to war with the Maigere to get her back, and
reclaiming the throne will mean civil war among the Fae. While Lea is
happy that her sisters are back in her life, ready to put their
kingdom back to rights, there is one among their allies that could
completely shatter her world as she knows it forever.
Dain is arrogant
and dominating, and he infuriates Lea to no end. He also makes her
feel things that no one ever has before. He wants her, and though she
hates to admit it, she wants him just as much. There's just one small
problem- as Oracle, Lea has taken a vow of purity, which means that
Dain is off limits. Unfortunately, she suspects that he's her soul
mate, and that kind of connection doesn't care about vows. Is she
willing to give up all that she is for a man she barely knows?
Life has always
been predictable and certain, and now it's anything but. Lea doesn't
know if she can withstand the coming storm, or if she'll surrender to
the chaos threatening to consume her.
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CHAPTER ONE
Lea
watched the woman on stage dowse herself with gasoline. "She's
not really going to light herself on fire, is she?"
Mae
shrugged. "Apparently."
"She
knows she's combustible, right?" Lea asked, shaking her head.
Sure
enough, the woman produced a lighter and proceeded to set herself
ablaze. What an idiot, Lea thought... not only the woman- who was now
rolling around on the ground while the crowd cheered- but the
spectators who had paid actual coin to witness such an insipid event.
Lea hated to sound prejudice, but most humans really were stupid.
"Tell
me again," Tori demanded, "why we are tromping around a
human carnival in Louisiana?"
Mae
turned from the smoldering woman to face her sisters. "We're
looking for someone," she said cryptically.
Lea
sighed heavily. Mae had connections, but they were always bizarre
connections.
"Well,
let's get on with it," Tori barked, stomping across the
fairgrounds. Lea doubted her sister had a clue where she was going,
but that had never stopped Tori from taking the lead before.
Mae
darted off after Tori, leaving Lea standing by herself amid the
dispersing crowd. She took one last look at the woman on stage. Not a
hair was out of place, let alone singed, and there was a familiar,
yet undefinable, smell in the air. Shaking herself, Lea jogged after
her sisters.
As
the girls made their way across the midway, Lea caught a whiff of the
strange smell again and again, but couldn't recall where she'd
smelled it before.
Mae
finally overtook Tori, reclaiming the lead and then coming to a halt
in front of another small stage.
"Oh,
good," Tori said sarcastically, "another freak show."
Mae
ignored the comment as she scanned the immediate area. After a
moment, a short, pot bellied man waddled onto the stage. Against her
better judgment, Lea took a step closer.
The
man folded his hands in front of him as he addressed the gathering
crowd. "Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls..." Lea shook
her head at the lack of creativity, but it just kept coming.
"Tonight, you are going to witness something miraculous."
"An
honest carnie?" Tori mumbled, so only her sisters could hear.
Lea snickered and Mae smacked Tori in the arm.
"Folks,
would you believe me if I told you that I could defy the laws of
gravity? That I could rise up from this very stage, and float in the
air before your very eyes?"
As
the crowd murmured in disbelief, the plump little man threw his arms
out wide and promptly rose a good five inches off the stage. The
crowd gasped as one. As Tori began grumbling about parlor tricks, the
mysterious smell rose up once again. Lea inhaled deeply, desperate to
place its origin. Tori's words echoed in her head, finally connecting
the dots, and she knew exactly what she was smelling.
"It
is a parlor trick," she said in disbelief. "The
human is using a glamour."
"Of
course he is," Mae replied, rolling her eyes. "And he's not
human; he's a witch."
Lea
could have slapped herself in the forehead- how could she have missed
such a thing? Okay, the smell had thrown her off- mortal magick
wasn't quite the same as tribal magick- but she should have known
these performers weren't human.
Tori
stared at Mae, as if she were talking herself out of throttling the
girl. "You brought us into witch country without a heads-up?
Well done, Mae. Bravo."
Mae
slugged her sister in the arm once more. "It's no biggie... our
magick's stronger than theirs. No way they think we're anything but
human."
Lea
hoped Mae was right. Yes, tribal magick was much stronger than any
mortal magick, but they were seriously outnumbered here.
From
seemingly out of nowhere, a very large and burly man appeared behind
them. "Sedrich said he'll see you in his camper."
Lea
studied the man for a moment. His ridiculously large arms were
covered in tattoos. Skulls, birds, guns, names, hula girls...
interesting, but not near as elaborate and beautiful as Dain's
head...
Whoa!
Enough thinking about that man! Between his physical presence,
the non-stop thoughts of him, and the explicit- and very detailed-
dreams of him at night, Lea never got away from the man. She needed
some peace of mind, already.
The
girls followed the tattooed giant to a dilapidated camper attached to
a run down pickup truck. As the three of them looked at each other,
Lea knew they were all on the same page- they were not going
in there.
As
if he read their minds, the big man said, "If you want to talk
to Sedrich, you'll go inside. If not, you can find the exit on your
own." The man sort of smiled- a rather evil looking expression-
and then gave each of them a very creepy once-over. After another
sickening smirk, he turned and lumbered away, leaving them standing
outside of the camper with a decision to make.
As
Lea had no idea why they were there, she turned to Mae. Tori
obviously felt the same way, because she was already glaring at their
sister.
"I
can go in alone if you want," Mae offered with a smile. Lea
sighed once more, certain that Tori was going to actually kill their
sister this time.
"You
bitch," Tori snarled. "You know we're not going to let you
go in there alone."
Mae's
smile brightened as she rapped on the camper door, not bothering to
wait for an answer before yanking it open. As she stepped inside, she
paused to look back at Lea and Tori. "Oh, I know," she all
but giggled, then disappeared inside the metal shell.
Tori
growled something under her breath and followed Mae. This should be
entertaining, Lea thought to herself as she stepped up and into the
small space.
The
inside of the camper was surprisingly roomy. There was a couch on one
end, and a table and benches on the other. Between the two was a
small cabinet and a miniature fridge. It was kind of quaint... almost
cozy.
The
levitating man from the stage lounged on the couch. Lea figured this
had to be Sedrich. He made no move to offer them a seat, but Lea
doubted any of them wanted to sit anyway. She sure the hell didn't.
"You're
here about Elaisa?" he said, almost accusingly. "How do you
know my daughter?"
Tori
turned to Mae. "This is about Laisa? You could have said that,
you know."
Lea
knew Laisa was one of the girls who lived with Mae and that she was
missing. Beyond that, she was clueless.
Mae
ignored Tori, focusing instead on Sedrich. "She lives with me."
"You're
lying. She'd never align herself with normals."
Mae
simply smiled, then snapped her fingers- she was such a drama queen-
and her glamour fell away. As Sedrich registered the changes in Mae-
the multicolored eyes, the pointed ears, the not quite luminous skin
tone- he began to smile.
"Fae,"
he all but whispered. Now the man was listening.
"Yep,"
Mae replied. "Have you talked to her lately?"
Sedrich
sat up straight, his hands clenched at his sides. "What has she
done this time?" he demanded. Shaking his head, he leaned over
and grabbed a bottle of something off of the floor. He downed a good
portion of it in one long pull, then slid the back of his hand across
his mouth. "That girl was always trouble. I can't tell you how
many times we had the cops out here. I punished her, I pleaded with
her... Do you know what kind of jeopardy attention like that could
put us in?"
"All
too well," Mae said, but the man wasn't wanting an answer.
"That
little hellion of mine put us all in danger time and time again. Then
she went and ran away." He took another long drink then burped
loudly. Lea wrinkled up her nose in disgust. "Maybe I'm a bad
father- hell, I know I am- but I never even tried going after her. I
think we all agreed that we were better off with her gone."
Lea
wanted to throttle the man for his harsh honesty. As one who'd been
all but abandoned by her own father, she couldn't bear to hear such
things. Even if Laisa had been a nightmare child, she was still his
child.
Mae,
ever the diplomat, carried on cordially, though Lea could tell by the
change in her tone that she wasn't happy with his rhetoric either.
"Bottom line? She's missing. As much as I'd like to say that she
took off on her own, it looks like she's been kidnapped."
"Who
would take my little girl?" Sedrich cried. The sisters all
exchanged confused glances. Wasn't this man just going on about how
great things were without his little hellion around? And now
he's going to cry over her kidnapping? Talk about your mood swings.
"Okay,
that's enough bullshit," Tori barked. Mae jabbed their sister in
the side, but Tori wasn't having it. "Laisa had a stalker. She
also had a guard, but she went and bang... uhh... fired him,
and so we don't really know what happened. We also don't know what
her stalker looks like. And now we also know that you're a shit and
you know nothing." She jammed her thumb toward the door. "Let's
go."
"Wait,"
Sedrich all but yelled. "I might be able to help. Does she still
have her car? The Volkswagen?"
"Yeah,"
Mae answered, "but it's missing too."
At
that, Sedrich smiled. What in the name of the Seed, Lea
thought to herself, was this man smiling about? He was a strange and
creepy little guy, confirming her suspicions that witches were
weirdos.
"It's
bugged," Sedrich said. He tapped his temple with a fingertip. "I
knew it would come in handy one day."
"You
low-jacked Laisa? That's awesome!" Mae said, clapping her hands
together.
"Well,"
Sedrich sighed, shaking his head slowly, "the equipment we used
to track those devices was destroyed long ago. Getting a signal will
be almost impossible."
Tori
held up her hand. "No, it won't. I know just the nerd for the
job."
Lea
laughed, wondering if Mitch would be offended or flattered by Tori's
description.
While
Sedrich gave Tori and Mae as much information as he could on the
tracking device in Laisa's car, Lea stepped outside in order to
breathe properly again. She was in no way claustrophobic, but that
camper was just entirely too small for her liking, and she could no
longer stomach that awful man.
The
masses had trickled down to just a few fun lovers who didn't know
when to let a good thing die. Lea watched them as they talked and
laughed, sauntering slowly toward the exit. Just as she was falling
into a lovely little daydream about a night at the fair with Dain, an
unfamiliar male voice jolted her back to reality.
"Where
are your friends?"
Lea
turned toward the voice, unnerved to see that it was the inked up
behemoth from earlier. Something about the guy gave her the willies,
and she didn't think it was his stinky mortal magick perfume either.
"They're
inside... just finishing up."
The
man looked her up and down... she could practically feel him
undressing her with his eyes. With as much will as she could manage,
she tried to reach out to her sisters, silently telling them to
hurry.
"We
have a little time then," he said, stalking toward her.
Lea
put her hand out in front of her as a deterrent. "Stop right
there," she demanded.
The
giant threw back his head and laughed. "Or what?" he said.
"Oh, you silly little human... you have no idea what you're
dealing with."
With
less than an actual thought, Lea dropped her glamour. The man stopped
in his tracks, probably from shock. With as much menace as she could
muster, she warned, "Neither do you, mortal."
"Holy
shit," the man cried, "a fuckin' fairie!" He
rubbed his hands together eagerly. "I've never had me a fairie
before."
Lea
took a step back, feeling the metal step of the camper digging into
her calves. "I'm not joking," she warned. "Come any
closer and you'll regret it. I don't want to harm you."
"Harm
me?" he asked, chuckling. "You may be a fairie, but
you're still a girl." Without warning, he lunged toward her.
Lea
was suddenly blinded by white light. All sound faded away as the
sound of her own heartbeat drummed in her ears. The hand she held in
front of her felt like it was on fire, pulsing with heat. From
somewhere far away, Lea heard herself screaming, the behemoth chiming
in, and then... there was nothing but peace.
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