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

by Jessica Lynch

  Ash shrugged. He actually shrugged. “Blame my post. I got bored. She was entertaining for a time.”

  “Ah, that’s just like you. Always interested in the chase. But once you get your prize… still, I put you at that post for a reason.”

  “Yes, my queen.”

  “I should punish you, but you’ve been a faithful servant to me these last two centuries, so I’ll let it slide. In fact, I’ve relieved you from your post. You join my personal guard at sunrise.”

  “As you wish, my queen.”

  Callie had watched the back-and-forth between Ash and Melisandre with a growing sense of horror.

  I got bored…

  Interested in the chase…

  Your prize…

  They were talking about her, weren’t they?

  “What the—” It just burst out of her. “Ash? What’s going on? I thought—”

  The queen brushed her dark hair over her shoulder. To those who only saw her glamour, it probably looked like her innocent blonde curls were bouncing in place. To Callie, the actual gesture was far more threatening.

  “You thought what, pet?”

  Pet?

  Pet?

  “Pet?” She turned toward Ash. “I thought you wanted to be my mate. And you’re standing there while she calls me your ‘pet’?”

  All around her, she could hear the whispers coming from the others in the room. It started when she spat out the word ‘mate’ and only continued on from there, but Callie droned them out.

  Because when Ash answered? She had to hear what he was going to say, even if it broke her heart—

  “What was it you said to me once?” Ice. That was pure ice in his voice. “I could lie to your face and you’d never know? Well, human. Now you do.”

  —and he did.

  She stumbled back on her heels. He hadn’t reached out and slapped her, but she recoiled just the same.

  “What? You… you told me that the fae can’t lie.”

  Ash sniffed. “No. I told you what you needed to hear.”

  Melisandre clapped her hands. The cracking noise broke the stare between Ash and Callie, drawing everyone’s attention back to the Fae Queen.

  She rose from her throne. “Aislinn, as your queen, I won’t allow this human to treat you in such a manner. I won’t punish you. But perhaps she deserves—”

  “No.” The murmurs of the crowd rose in pitch. It didn’t seem as it was often that anyone dared to interrupt the queen, but Ash just did. “I don’t want to see her punished. Just send her back to the Iron.”

  Melisandre’s pale eyes glittered wickedly. “Only if you forsake her. With the whole of the Seelie Court as witness, forsake the human you chose over your loyalty to your queen.”

  Choking on her sudden gasp, Callie turned back toward Ash.

  He wouldn’t do that, would he? She didn’t want any kind of punishment, but to have Ash forsake her after everything they shared?

  For a brief moment, their eyes met, before the Light Fae looked away.

  “You can’t forsake what you’ve never wanted,” Ash announced.

  “So be it.” With a wave, the Fae Queen gestured to Helix and Dusk. “There you have it. This human has no place in my palace or in Faerie. Aislinnn said to send her to the Iron, so be it. I want her gone.”

  The captain bowed his head. “Aye, your majesty.” With a flick of his wrist, he lifted his sword higher. “Come, human.”

  One last look. She gave Ash one last lost, pleading look, an opportunity to take back everything he said, to twist his words and tell every fae in the throne room that he said what he said but it wasn’t what he meant.

  Only he didn’t. The blazing heat that was often there when they locked eyes was eerily missing.

  He was a stranger.

  Worse, he was everything that she once feared he was and had convinced herself that he couldn’t be.

  A monster.

  12

  Melisandre waited until Dusk and Helix had forced Callie from the throne room to dismiss the rest of her guard. Taking their cue, the nobles that came for the show all dispersed just in case the queen decided to turn her cruelty on them next.

  Though she hadn’t charmed him to be a statue, Ash stood still and unfeeling all the same. Only when the two of them were the last ones remaining did he speak again.

  His voice sounded hollow as he muttered, “Are you satisfied, Melisandre? I did what you commanded me to.”

  “Satisfied? You say that like I had you reject your ffrindau for my amusement.”

  Ash could barely find the strength to care that Melisandre knew exactly who Callie was to him. For days, she pretended that she was insulted that he was caught deserting his post just to entertain himself with a human. She’d acted as if Callie couldn’t be his mate only because a human and a fae? It wasn’t supposed to be possible.

  It didn’t matter, though. Melisandre made him a bargain. If he gave up his human, she’d spare Callie’s life. Not that the queen needed any reason to just kill Callie—another one of her amusements—but if she gave her word that no harm would come of his human so long as he did what Melisandre told him to, then at least Callie would be safe.

  But for Melisandre to knowingly rip two bonded mates apart? That was even more cruel than the rumors in Faerie had given her credit for.

  He stayed quiet because if he spoke up again, he’d only do so to curse her.

  It didn’t matter. The queen wasn’t done talking yet.

  “You’re not the first of my subjects to find their mate in the Iron,” she told him, adding salt the his gaping wound. “I gave them all the same choice that I gave you: sacrifice your mating or sacrifice your mate. I can’t allow a halfling to be born if I want to keep my throne. You must understand, Aislinn.”

  He bit down hard, careful to keep his true emotions from crossing his face. A century’s worth of habit, of serving under Melisandre and dealing with her fickle moods and her careless whims, and after only a short while with his Callie, he struggled to control himself as she circled him closely.

  She was looking for an excuse. Any excuse. If she could find some way that he weaseled out of his bargain, she’d consider it broken and take her anger out on Callie.

  Ash would never let that happen.

  He should’ve been expecting something like this to happen. Despite her best efforts to quell any recent discussion of the ancient Shadow Prophecy, the prophecy was as old as time. Only in the last few decades, when the lesser races started to refer to her rule as the Reign of the Damned, did it become clear that it was referring to Melisandre.

  ...a child with powers

  part human, part fae

  in the Iron,

  she’s destined to stay

  more than a lover,

  a consort, a friend

  when Dark mates Shadow

  the Reign of the Damned shall end...

  When he saw Callie, he saw his ffrindau. Uncharacteristically short-sighted, he never thought of the family they might possibly make one day—but Melisandre obviously had. Any child that a fae created with a human mate would be a halfling.

  And a halfling was fated to end the Fae Queen’s reign.

  It wasn’t personal. Ash understood that. She wasn’t ripping Callie away from him because she wanted Ash to pay. Any of her subjects fated to bond with a human would meet the same fate.

  But at least he managed to save Callie’s life. If it meant he was stuck in Faerie forever, eternally separated from his love, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

  In Oberon’s name, he already had.

  Pity the cunning Fae Queen wanted more proof of that.

  “Just in case,” purred Melisandre before she waved her hand, pulling a patch of darkness toward her.

  It wasn’t as inky black as the portals some of the other Unseelie made, but there was no denying what it was: shadow magic. No wonder Melisandre had sent the other guards away. She didn’t have to worry about Ash retaliating so long as she
held Callie’s life in her hand; he was no threat to her, and the retinue of guards weren’t necessary. She also didn’t want any witnesses to her using her Dark Fae powers, not while she still wore the glamour of a Blessed One.

  Dipping inside the darkness, she pulled out a wooden box. Erasing the patch with a careless wave, she lifted the lid off the box, careful not to touch what was inside.

  Ash knew from his decades working as a guard in one of the infamous Faerie prisons that most of those wooden boxes held pairs of iron handcuffs, perfect to weaken faerie prisoners.

  The object inside of Melisandre’s box was indeed a set of handcuffs, but these weren’t iron.

  They were crystal.

  “Put them on,” she ordered. “Put them on or I have your pet dragged back here again. And, this time, I’ll freeze her if I must.” For just a moment, Melisandre dropped her Seelie glamour, letting a hint of her feral Dark Fae smile peek through. “I can always use another statue for my garden. The ones I have keep smashing into hundreds of pieces for some odd reason.”

  Some odd reason? More likely a Dark Fae queen in the middle of a rage.

  Ash watched the crystal cuffs twinkle in the bright lights of Melisandre’s throne room. Iron cuffs weakened his kind, but crystal? It would keep him from crossing over into the human world ever again.

  Just like he thought, he’d be trapped in Faerie forever.

  For Callie, he’d give up his freedom.

  For his ffrindau, he’d do anything.

  Ash put on the crystal cuffs.

  It seemed like a dream, but one that Callie couldn’t find a way to escape from.

  With Ash’s rejection both raw and painful, she couldn’t do anything as the pair of fae guards marched her out of the immaculate throne room. The whispers tore at her skin, the taunts and the insults that one of her kind was nothing. Less than nothing. She was human, and she never should’ve looked twice at Ash, let alone believe that he might care for her.

  It was all a game, she supposed, her mind a fog as she struggled to keep ahead of the guards and their shiny, pointy swords. The fae did so like to play, and he’d made it clear from the beginning: her sight had interested him, her beauty had attracted him, but it was her refusal to get involved with a creature from Faerie that led him to do whatever he had to to earn her touch.

  He was after her soul. Stealing a part of her every time she let him touch her, Ash hungered for the power in her mortal soul. She was the idiot who confused his tenacity for affection. She was the one who brought her heart into it.

  She’d loved him. And maybe it was too soon. Maybe she’d let him compel her after all, using his glamour to turn her into his very own plaything. His… pet. Ash had vowed that he would never use his magic against her, but if he lied once before, maybe he lied twice. Three times.

  Every single time he opened that beautiful mouth of his.

  He had sounded so harsh just then. So cold. As he refused her, there was an edge to his musical voice that she’d only heard from him whenever he mentioned Mitch. She had thought he was jealous. Now? Now she knew that, to the Light Fae, her human roommate was just one more obstacle he needed to remove to get at what he wanted.

  And he had. She slept with him, letting him touch every last inch of her, and then he was gone.

  Time worked differently in Faerie. At least, that’s what Ash told her when he explained how days might’ve passed between his visits when, to the fae, it could’ve been hours—or it could’ve been weeks. He promised that he was always working his way back to her, and no matter how long it took, he would return to her side again.

  Another promise, she mused as the guards led her down the long stretch of halls in the Fae Queen’s castle. Everything was twinkling, nothing clear. She thought it was because the decor was made of crystal, the walls so blindingly white, but as Callie blinked to focus her sight, she realized that she was having a hard time seeing through her unshed tears.

  Neither of the guards had spoken to her earlier except to tell her that she was being brought to Ash. After the queen threw her out of the throne room, the guards stayed quiet so long as she drifted forward with them. She’d take the silence over the arrogant and frosty threats anytime.

  She didn’t know where they were taking her now, and she thought there should be some relief when the golden guard directed her to another one of the Light Fae portals. She’d never taken one before, and if it wasn’t for being told that Ash needed her, Callie wouldn’t have ever walked through the one in her bedroom—was it only about an hour ago?

  As she stumbled back into her apartment after seemed to sleepwalk back through this second portal, it seemed like it was a whole other lifetime.

  She turned on her heel just as the portal winked out of sight, closing off the veil between Faerie and her world—between Callie and Ash.

  The pain stabbed anew, the ache cutting through the fog as she began to understand that her trip to the magical realm hadn’t been a fantasy. It was real.

  And she was changed.

  Screwing up her eyes, she looked around her room. She might be changed, but nothing about her personal space was any different. It was exactly as it had been when the Light Fae who looked so much like Ash but wasn’t waltzed into her private space and commanded her to get decent.

  Callie gave her head a clearing shake. It didn’t help. She still felt the same sleepy, light-headed sensation that followed her through the two worlds. She had vaguely wondered if it was a side effect of going to Faerie as a human, but if anything it was stronger after her return.

  It felt like a dream, but it seemed more like a nightmare.

  You couldn’t honestly believe that a male like me would want a human like you?

  His sneer echoed in her ears. Callie’s stomach roiled, the urge to bend over and heave almost too much. Even when Ash made his opinions on humans clear, he’d always implied that she was different. That she was special.

  She was an idiot.

  Her legs buckled. Luckily, she was near enough to her bed that she allowed herself to drop. To just let go. She sank down on the mattress, blinking rapidly as the tears returned.

  He rejected her. Refused her. Lied to her. And if he thought she was going to just walk away with her tail between her legs after he pursued her so hard, then he had another think coming. She hadn’t had the chance to confront him with the Fae Queen and her entire court watching them. In her space, in her world, she had every intention of doing just that.

  But first—

  “Aislinn.”

  The syllables came out softly. Broken. It was one thing to muster up the strength to confront him, but her heart was breaking just like her voice.

  Callie remained the only one in her room.

  It didn’t work. Of course not.

  Clearing her throat, she tried again, just the way he taught her.

  “Aislinn, I command you to appear.”

  The name was important for a first summoning, Ash had explained in the haze of their love-making, but there was more to it than that. Faerie magic was made up of rules and traditions and instructions that made little sense to the very human Callie, but she accepted it because it was Ash who told her—and he wasn’t supposed to be able to lie.

  She swallowed her pain when seconds, then minutes crawled by and she was still alone. Sitting on the edge of her bed, hands folded between her thighs, she waited. He had to create a portal, she told herself. He said it should be instantaneous, but what if he couldn’t get away from the queen?

  Aislinn was his name. Callie was at least sure of that. She heard Melisandre use it, and he answered to it. It was his name.

  But was it his true name?

  She didn’t know. When it came to the Seelie male she had loved and lost, it seemed as if Callie didn’t know anything.

  Three hours after she returned to her bedroom, Callie slowly got to her feet. The tears had dried on her cheeks; with the edge of her fist, she roughly swiped at the streaks. Her he
ad was pulsing. The hazy, dozy dreamlike sensation was gone, replaced by a dull thudding that had her gritting her teeth.

  Turning around, she looked at her bed. Three days ago, she’d spent hours wrapped up in those sheets, lying side by side with Ash—plus on top of and underneath, even once straddling his face as he fucked her with his tongue—until he had to leave her right before the sun went down. The sheets still smelled like a combination of sex and her fae lover. Since she hadn’t known how long before she’d be with him again, she hadn’t changed her sheets just yet. In some sappy, silly way, it was almost as if he was spending the night with her even though he was gone.

  But that was before he told her that he got what he wanted, and that she was a fool to think she had anything left to offer him.

  Her hands were still fisted at her side. Callie flexed her fingers, trying desperately to push the haughty look of disgust that had twisted Ash’s unearthly features from out of her head.

  And then, with a yank that sent her comforter and a pillow flying, she started to strip her bed.

  Epilogue

  Ash never came back.

  Callie didn’t know what she expected.

  Well, no. That wasn’t true. She just wanted to be proven wrong—and she wasn’t.

  The name hadn’t worked. Deep down, she still harbored the hope that he would pop into her living room, shattering a few light bulbs or shorting out her toaster oven in his wake. With an arrogant tilt of his head and his come-hither smile, he would tell her he still wanted her, that nothing was as it seemed.

  Callie held onto that hope for two months. And when summer turned to fall and there was still no sign of Ash, she had to admit that it was time to move on.

  So she did.

  The first old habit to go was her outside visits. Her daily trips to the park turned to weekly stops before she gave up on heading to that location. Telling herself that she had plenty of pictures of the trees in their fall foliage—her most recent excuse to go to park and hopefully see Ash—she finally focused on turning her film into prints that might possibly sell. She had thousands of photos from her sessions in the park, and if she needed more, there were hundreds of others she could visit.