creepy hollow 05 - a faerie's revenge

• Part I
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Part II
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Part III
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  
• Chapter Twenty-Three
  
• Chapter Twenty-Four
  
• Chapter Twenty-Five
  
• Chapter Twenty-Six
  
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
  
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
  
• Chapter Twenty-Nine
  
• Part IV
  
• Chapter Thirty
  
• Chapter Thirty-One
  
• Chapter Thirty-Two
  
• Chapter Thirty-Three
  
• Chapter Thirty-Four
  
• Chapter Thirty-Five
  
• Next in the Creepy Hollow Series
  
• Acknowledgements
  
• Books by Rachel Morgan
  
• About the Author
  

A Faerie’s Revenge

By Rachel Morgan

Copyright © 2015 Rachel Morgan

Cover Photography by Regina Wamba

Cover Design by Rachel Morgan

Summary:

Still reeling from a shocking revelation, Calla Larkenwood finds the threads of her world unraveling further when she’s accused of a horrifying crime she didn’t commit. In a world where everyone keeps secrets and someone is intent on framing her, how will she figure out who to trust?

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information please contact the author.

Mobi Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9946679-7-7

Epub Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9946679-8-4

PART I

CHAPTER

ONE

The ship rolls from side to side as it rises and falls on the swell of heaving waves. Purple-black clouds darken the sky, spitting out beads of icy rain that sting my bare arms. Lightning zigzags across the horizon. It’s the perfect storm. The perfect distraction.

From
him
.

Across the slippery deck, my opponent raises her wooden staff. “Ready for another ass-kicking?” Saskia shouts, her voice barely reaching me before it’s snatched away by the wind. My only response is a grim smile. I’d like to tell her it’s
her
backside that will be meeting this deck, but I’d probably be lying. I’m not particularly skilled with the staff, and she knows it. She punches the air with her fist and lets out a war cry. She takes her staff in both hands and, with enviable ease, begins spinning it in front of her—hand over hand over hand—until it becomes a blur.

Then she lunges forward and strikes. I raise my staff to block the blow, and a crack rends the air as our two weapons meet. Ignoring the sting in my hands, I twist on one leg and kick with the other. Saskia pivots out of the way and swoops her staff around. She jabs at me with the end of it, but I jump back. As I swing the wooden weapon from side to side, she slides one leg forward and slams hers down onto the deck, narrowly missing my foot. I dance out of the way and use the staff to help vault me up onto the ship’s railing. I wobble and almost tumble into the water, but I regain my balance quickly.

For a moment I see everything—the ship and the waves and the storm tossing the entire scene about—and I remember the glass bottle on Chase’s desk. The glass bottle with the tiny ship sailing on an enchanted stormy sea. What was I thinking? A perfect storm isn’t a distraction. Draven was the
master
of storms. How can I think of
anything
but him?

Saskia’s staff slams against the back of my legs, knocking me completely off balance. I fall forward onto the deck. The scene vanishes, and when I roll over, I find myself staring up at the wispy white surface of the Fish Bowl.

Footsteps sound nearby before Saskia’s face appears above mine. She gives me a smug smile and mutters, “Loser,” before striding away.

I let my eyelids slide shut as I catch my breath—

And I see Chase. Stepping away from me. Fading into the snow.
I’ve never lied to you, I swear. This is who I am.
My hands squeeze into fists at my sides because, once again, it hasn’t worked. Once again, focusing all my attention on a training exercise has done nothing to distract me from the memory of him. Every time I close my eyes, I see the same thing: that moment in the forest with flurries of snowflakes swirling around me, wind tearing at my hair, and Chase vanishing into the whiteness. Then a frozen calm settles over everything and Vi says his name, and the weight of that one whispered word is heavier than a stone slab lowered onto my shoulders.

A chill races down my arms, both in my memory and here in the training center where I’m lying sweaty and breathless on the Fish Bowl floor, watching the forest scene play out across my closed eyelids yet again:

“Draven?” I repeat. “What are you talking about?”

“It was him.” Vi’s face is almost as pale as her dress.

Ryn steps into my line of vision then. “What’s wrong?” he asks immediately. He knows something is amiss without us having to tell him. He could probably feel our tumult of emotions from the other side of the clearing.

Vi turns to face him. “Draven. Nate. He was here.”

“What?” Ryn clasps Vi’s hand.

“I swear it was him.”

“That was
not
Draven,” I blurt out. What a ridiculous notion. How could the tattoo artist by day, vigilante by night that I’ve slowly been falling for be the evil overlord who brought about The Destruction?

“He didn’t look exactly the same,” Vi says to Ryn, “but it was him. I have no doubt.”

“The necklace,” Ryn says without pause.

Vi nods. “We always wondered.”

“Wondered
what
?” I demand. “What necklace?”

Vi presses her hands against her forehead and groans. “I knew it. I knew it, I knew it. Why else would his body vanish? Surely it should have remained there if he’d truly died.”

“We couldn’t say anything without knowing for sure,” Ryn says. “You know that. And the winter ended, and you couldn’t sense anything when you tried to find him. The logical conclusion was that he was well and truly gone.”

Vi drops her hands and finally looks at me. “Eternity necklace,” she says. “That’s what we’re talking about. It was made for the Unseelie Queen centuries ago. It was supposed to keep her from ever dying. Draven was wearing it right at the end when I … when I
thought
I killed him.”

I blink. I open my mouth, but no sound comes out.

“Well, I didn’t know for
certain
that he was wearing it,” Vi adds, “but he had some sort of chain around his neck, and I always suspected it was the eternity necklace. It seems I was right.”

I try to reconcile the image of Chase—the Chase who helps people in secret; the Chase who lives in an unassuming Underground home that looks like his grandmother decorated it; the Chase who saved my life—with the image I’ve always pictured of the powerful and destructive halfling prince who wiped out so many fae. My mind won’t accept it. I slowly shake my head. “It isn’t possible. He’s just a guy! There’s no way he’s
Lord Draven
.”

“Then why isn’t he here to tell you that himself?”

“Because … because … ”

“What was he doing here with you in the first place?” Ryn asks with a frown.

But I don’t answer him because my mind is far away now, remembering things I don’t want to remember. Scraps of information that fit together like pieces of a puzzle I don’t want to see.
No amount of remorse can change the past.
The past. His past. His secrets.
Whatever it is
, he said,
it can’t be as terrible as the things I’ve done.
What things has he done? Who is he?
You wouldn’t like me nearly as much if you knew.

I almost hear the click in my brain the moment I accept the truth. The whoosh of air as it’s sucked from my world. The groan of my heart as it’s crushed beneath the weight of betrayal.

“Calla?” Ryn reaches out and touches my shoulder. I shrug away from him, turn around, and run.