Glamour Eyes: a Rejected Mates Fae Romance (Wanted by the Fae Book 1)

by Jessica Lynch

  Glamour Eyes

  Jessica Lynch

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Glamour Lies

  Pre-Order Now

  Available Now

  Stay in Touch

  About the Author

  Also by Jessica Lynch

  Foreword

  The Wanted by the Fae duet is written as a companion book to my By the Fae universe, specifically Touched by the Fae. When the reader first meets Callie and Ash in the prequel short, Favor, they’ve already been mated a while, plus they’ve had a child. But as their child—Riley/Zella—went on to deal with the Shadow Prophecy and find love with a Dark Fae of her own, I knew I always wanted to go back and show how these two met—and why a guard in the Fae Queen’s Court would choose to give up everything for his human mate.

  This is that story (or the first half of it, at least). It’s the one that starts it all. The one that brings an arrogant Light Fae male to his knees all because of a pretty girl with a gaze that can look right through him and his glamour.

  So happy reading, and I hope you enjoy the first part of Callie and Ash’s story! The second half will be out in a few months, so while this ends on a cliffhanger with the couple separated, Glamour Lies will show their HFN (Happy For Now) since Favor definitely throws another wrench in their relationship—on the plus side, following the events of Touched by the Fae (after the Fae Queen is no longer a threat), Callie and Ash have definitely earned their HEA!

  xoxo,

  Jessica

  1

  “I see dead people.”

  Callie Brooks wasn’t really a fan of horror movies. Suspense, either. She didn’t like to be scared and couldn’t understand why people put themselves through that on purpose. But when Mitch settled on watching last year’s biggest hit for movie night a couple of weeks ago, she’d been too tired to argue for her choice. She’d rented Bring it On from Blockbuster, so glad to have snagged the last copy, but Mitch came home with Sixth Sense and she reluctantly agreed.

  After all, she argued for Coyote Ugly over his choice of American Psycho last time. It was his turn after all.

  To her surprise, she actually got into it—mainly because she felt for the poor kid. I see dead people... Callie knew exactly how he felt. Change dead people to faerie creatures and that could be the tagline for her entire life.

  Shoot, even the child psychologist part was dead-on. Except, you know, for her doctor not being dead. Dr. Forrest was no Bruce Willis, and while the old dear tried her best to help Callie with her visions, she didn’t understand.

  No one did.

  Which was exactly why, one day, Callie just… stopped. She stopped reacting, she stopped being afraid, and she stopped telling her parents about the things she saw. So long as she acted like she couldn’t see them, the creatures left her alone. Her parents stopped with the doctor appointments.

  And Callie could pretend that she was normal.

  Pretend, of course, being the key word there.

  It seemed to work out so far, she decided. Callie was twenty-two now, living in the city, working as a budding photographer. Well, she processed and developed film at Buster’s Photo, but her boss—the infamous Buster—let her hang up some of her prints and she even sold a couple. As far as Callie was concerned, it counted.

  Hey, she might as well use her sight to her advantage. When she could see things that no one else did, it showed up in her work, making her photographs something unique—and she wasn’t just saying that. Even Buster admitted that she had the sight.

  Whenever he said that, Callie laughed. Poor guy. He didn’t know the half of it.

  While her favorite types of shots were candids, unless she got her subjects to sign waivers, she couldn’t put them up for sale. That was fine with Callie. She was able to shoot photos just for herself—considering it practice—while using her photographs of scenery to pull in some extra cash.

  People in the city really got a kick out of her nature shots. She figured it had something to do with being surrounded by asphalt and skyscrapers and trucks belching black smoke everyday. The lush green of the grass, the vibrant blue sky, the towering trees… her customers loved it, especially when she told them that each picture was taken inside of the city.

  Not too far from Buster’s, and within walking distance of her apartment, there was a park that Callie considered both her haven and her sanctuary. It was a total tourist spot, but she didn’t mind. She’d grown up in a happy home with her parents and two older sisters and, now that she was basically on her own, she liked to be a part of the hustle and bustle of the community while still being able to return to the quiet of her apartment after.

  While she considered her roommate her closest friend, Mitch was a workaholic. Callie worked full-time hours for Buster, but her hours were early: from six am to one pm, five days a week; she was a morning person, and sometimes even went in an hour earlier with Buster’s permission to process her own film off the clock. Mitch, though? He worked more than fifty hours in an office, doing some kind of dot com thing that she didn’t understand, but she didn’t care as long as he paid his portion of the rent on time.

  He kept telling her that he was working toward a promotion. The new job came with a huge pay raise. That, coupled with Callie’s occasional sales, could mean they’d be able to get a better apartment as the two of them finally started to make it big in the city. And, sure, Callie knew that Mitch was trying to one-up his older brother—who happened to be married to Callie’s sister, Ariadne—but so long as they had a roof over their head, she was content.

  Content… that was a good way to describe Callie these days. It had been an adjustment, leaving the suburbs behind for the city, especially since she saw far more other beings mingling in the city crowds than she ever did back home. The way she saw it, though, it was just further practice for her to act as if she couldn’t see them.

  Most of the time, she pulled it off.

  And then there were times like now.

  It was a bright summer afternoon, and Callie had already pulled her full shift at Buster’s. It was a good one. She had a line on a sale, one of Buster’s buddies who seemed drawn to a photo Callie had taken of a particular tree in her preferred park at the beginning of spring. Between the dandelions sprouting in the vividly green grass, the shadow falling behind the tree that highlighted its strange shape, and a robin caught mid-flight, it epitomized the previous season.

  He had promised he’d have an answer for her during her next shift, and if he leered a little as he kept her hanging, Callie just managed to hold onto her smile. He wasn’t the first customer to flirt with her or imply that he’d throw money at her for one night in her bed. She was a pretty young woman who knew it, and who also made no apologies for it. She drew the line at taking money for something that wasn’t for sale—when it came to bed partners, she was choosier than her sex drive probably appreciated—but if he kept her on the hook, it only seemed fair that she could do the same.

  Especially when the older gentleman mentioned in a completely not off-handed way that he might know someone willing to give a young photographer a shot at her own showing...

  And all because he saw something in her spring photo.


  Now that it was summer, she thought she might make a series of it. The tree itself was in an unusual spot. Set apart from most of the much taller oaks that bordered the park, this one was half the size, a totally different species that Callie hadn’t been able to identify. Maybe because it was blackened and twisted, nature turning it into something other than it was supposed to be.

  Kind of like Callie.

  There was a bench that was sat catty-cornered from the tree. In the spring and the fall, it was often occupied since there was nothing nearby, and no tree to provide shade. In the winter, the wind blew right through anyone sitting there, while the summer sun left anyone daring enough to take a seat blistering in the heat.

  Callie didn’t care. She was grateful it was empty when she arrived since that gave her a place to set down her camera bag and set up her supplies. Besides, knowing this was her plan, she covered her fair skin with sunscreen, leaving her long, white-blonde hair to settle over shoulders as she sat down on the edge of the bench before glancing over at the tree. She wanted to make sure that none of the other park goers had laid their blankets beside it, or were sunbathing near it.

  The grass was empty. But standing next to the tree, in a bright patch of sun, was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen before in her life.

  No, she corrected an instant later. No man—male. Because while he appeared human, he most definitely wasn’t.

  He was other.

  It was only fitting that he was standing in the sunlight since he seemed to absolutely gleam. With skin the color of rich bronze, he had a tan that must’ve been ingrained all the way down to his bones. The long, silky-straight tawny hair falling like a sheet down his back made his skin seem even darker. And his eyes…

  They were sun-colored too, a striking golden shade that almost flashed as his head cocked in her direction.

  A lump lodged in her throat right as her eyes locked on his.

  For the first time in years, Callie forgot her number one rule: don’t let the faerie folk know that you can see them. She learned long ago that it was easier that way, and it kept her both safe and sane.

  Hoping he hadn’t noticed the way she stared, she ripped her gaze away from him, unsettled that it took more of her willpower than it should. She moved her camera bag over, fiddling with the zipper, ducking her head while she peeked back at the tree.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as the male faded out of sight, leaving behind a vaguely hazy patch that, now that she saw it, she couldn’t ignore.

  He was standing by the tree, but now he wasn’t. From the recognition low in her gut to the gleam of his sun-colored eyes, she knew he’d never even been in the park.

  He hadn’t even been in her world.

  Faerie. He was in Faerie, but his gaze had settled on her anyway.

  Because of course it did. The one downside to being able to see things that most humans couldn’t? That which she saw always seemed to sense in some way that she was different. That she could spot them even while they were trying to hide behind magic and glamour.

  Callie swallowed the lump in her throat, the image of that stunning male seared into her mind.

  When she was a little girl, she thought of the fantastical creatures—some that looked like people, most that didn’t—as real. Then, when it became clear that no one else could see them, she was convinced they were imaginary. After too many years of therapy and even longer where she took it upon herself to make sense of the things she saw, Callie eventually accepted that they were real.

  But they were magic.

  Powerful.

  Otherworldly.

  It was the most accurate description, in a way. The creatures that crossed the veil between worlds visited the human world from Faerie, a fantastical realm where unicorns might exist but trolls and dwarves and fairies definitely did.

  Even from across the park, she could see the thin haze that separated the two worlds. All of her research books—from Yeats’s Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry to Fairies for Dummies and everything in between that she could get her hands on—made it clear that there were weak points between worlds where the realms were kept separated by a barrier as thin as a veil; hence the name. They were usually found marked by fairy rings or stone circles, some sign that the land had been touched by a faerie creature.

  It seemed as if, in this park, the veil was marked by a tree that was nearly split in two, making it look like a fondue fork. The rectangular-shaped patch of hazy space hovered right beside the charred half. Town lore said it had been struck by lightning decades ago, but suddenly Callie wasn’t so sure.

  Whatever happened to it, the sunbeams filtered through its droopy branches, drawing her attention back to the hazy patch.

  To the hazy patch, and the gorgeous male who had blinked back into her sight.

  He seemed closer, as if he was traveling through the veil, prepared to cross from his world into hers. And maybe if there hadn’t been that moment when their eyes locked before, Callie could pretend that he wasn’t focusing on her.

  In her experience, it was never a good thing to draw the attention of a Faerie dweller. Especially the more humanoid ones. The monsters were absolutely dangerous, but if they even risked crossing over into the modern world with its cars and its computers and its tech, it was a pretty safe bet that all they wanted to do was cause chaos and hunt. The tricksters and domestic fairies were kind of similar. Brownies, redcaps, goblins… so long as you didn’t get snared by one of their traps or offend them, you were fine. Nowadays, with the world moving on from the old ways, most of those lesser fairies didn’t even bother crossing over since very few still believed in them, let alone respected them.

  But the humanoid ones? Callie might be immune to their glamour and their charm courtesy of her “gift”, but that didn’t mean the faerie wouldn’t try to compel her anyway if she caught their attention. From all her research, those types of faeries were stronger, more powerful, and less easy to fool with her pretending.

  Worse? She’d seen hundreds of Faerie-touched creatures since she recognized they were other. But this guy? She’d never seen anyone like him. And, God help her, she was drawn to him in a way that had her grabbing her camera bag and, as casually as she could, climbing up from the bench.

  He was drawing closer. If her gut was right—and it had never steered her wrong before, even when her mind refused to accept what was directly in front of her—then he was coming for her.

  No, thanks.

  She slung her camera bag over her head, letting it settle against her chest. Struggling to control her suddenly frantic breathing, she busied herself with searching in her purse for a few seconds before swallowing again and casting her gaze over the park.

  Like before, she forced herself to sweep right past him, as if she couldn’t see him at all. Hopefully he thought her earlier surprise was a fluke, that she hadn’t met his stare in such a heated way on purpose or at all.

  Tossing her long hair over her shoulder, Callie forced herself to stroll away from her bench, heading leisurely toward the sidewalk. She didn’t turn around, though she did look behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of gold that winked on the edge of her vision before vanishing.

  It could be a trick, she told herself. She forced herself to keep walking, smiling at some of the regulars on their afternoon walk, even pausing to pet a friendly pup she usually saw playing frisbee with his owner. Only when she was heading out of the park did she dare one last peek over her shoulder.

  Callie let out the breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding when she saw that both the male and the patch of other was gone.

  Phew.

  2

  It was a punishment.

  At least, Melisandre intended it to be a punishment. The Fae Queen, ruler of both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts of Faerie, had decided that he was not allowed to serve her as one of the elite guards that lived in her grand palace. He was banished to his rooms at the guard
s’ barracks instead, and given a post out of her sight while she fumed over his perceived insult.

  Ash hadn’t mean to upset the queen. It was just his bad luck that he was the guard standing to the right of her throne when her glamour slipped. As the queen, her command over her glamour was impeccable, but it tended to slip whenever one of her court had the poor taste to mention Melisandre’s missing consort, the former Summer King. For a few moments, her blonde curls turned dark, her yellow eyes shifting to silver, her tan fading as she turned her pointed stare at the Seelie noble who should’ve known better than to utter Oberon’s name.

  Ash had protected his queen. With a soft cough, he snared her attention, gesturing to her suddenly pale skin. He never knew why Melisandre insisted on appearing as a Light Fae when she was a royal from the Winter Court, but she was the Fae Queen and he owed her his loyalty the same way as he served Oberon when he sat on the same throne.

  Too bad that his queen turned her ire on Ash as well as Raine. Only one of them was destined to stand frozen, another statue for her endless summer garden. Raine’s wealth and his pedigree couldn’t protect him from Melisandre’s cruelty down to the way she sentenced him with an innocent smile before she sent Ash from her sight.

  At the barracks, Ninetroir pointed out that every member of the guard knew better than to respond whenever Melisandre lost her temper. While her glamour slipping was rare, her quick temper wasn’t, and Ash brought this punishment on himself.

  He wasn’t standing as a statue to amuse the queen, but his new assignment wasn’t too far off. For the next decade or so, he was sent the the edge of the realm, guarding a point where the veil between Faerie and the Iron—the human realm—was thin enough to be a threat. It wasn’t quite a fairy circle or a pocket of shadows, but there was a risk that fugitive faerie folk might try to escape their fate in Faerie by slipping through the weak point. Worse, a human might cross over on their own without being led by one of his kind.