Fae Loyalty (Sanmere Shifters Book 2) Read online

  Fae Loyalty

  Sanmere Shifters

  Lola Gabriel

  Fae Loyalty: Sanmere Shifters

  Text Copyright © 2020 by Lola Gabriel

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First printing, 2020

  Publisher

  Secret Woods Books

  [email protected]

  www.SecretWoodsBooks.com

  Contents

  Secret Woods Books

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Other Books You Will Love

  Thank You

  About the Author

  Secret Woods Books

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  Prologue

  Catherine’s Journal

  May 25, 1995

  I don’t know what’s happening to me. I think I might have become unhinged and I’m locked away in an asylum. It’s really the only plausible explanation for the events of the day. I don’t feel mad, though. I feel as sane as I’ve ever been, just terrified.

  Let me start at the beginning. Maybe writing this all down will help me make sense of it somehow. Maybe I will see the truth this way.

  It all started out like any normal day. I got up, got dressed, and went off to my classes. I am (was?) studying philosophy at the University of Miami. My classes went by as normal, the usual mixture of interesting snippets of information and long, boring lectures. I am seriously thinking about changing my major, but maybe that’s not even an issue now. If I am insane, I likely won’t be studying anything, and if the story I was told is true, then I definitely won’t be studying anything. I’ll be… no wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Where was I? Yes, that’s right, it had been a normal day so far. I left the university as usual and began heading back to my dorm. I was almost back there when Paul, a friend of mine from college, pulled up beside me and asked if I felt like going for a drive with him. God, how I wish I had said no to him, but I didn’t. I got in the damned car. Idiot.

  We drove for about half an hour and then we pulled up outside a house in the middle of nowhere. It was a really beautiful house, the kind I imagined a princess living in. I asked Paul who lived there and he told me it was his parents’ house and that he needed to grab some stuff from the storage room in the basement. He asked me to give him a hand with his stuff, and like the fool that I am, I agreed and followed him down to the basement. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

  I really don’t think me saying no at that point would have changed anything anyway, though. I think once I got in that car that day, my fate was sealed.

  When we got into the basement, Paul changed. Gone was the jovial, friendly guy I knew from school, and in his place was this stone-cold guy with eyes that sparkled with evil glee. He backed me into a corner and pulled a small bottle of blue liquid from his pocket. He demanded that I drink it.

  I refused at first, but you have to know that Paul is a big guy, way bigger and stronger than I am, and when he told me that if I didn’t drink it willingly, he would make me drink it, I believed him. The look on his face told me he was deadly serious. I thought then that maybe he was mentally ill. Oh, the irony that now I think I’m the one who is mentally ill. Either I’m crazy or this situation is crazy. And Paul is definitely crazy.

  I took a deep breath, hoped for the best, and drank the blue drink. It was sweet and fizzy and utterly strange on my tongue. Once I drank it, I felt a little woozy, and for a horrible minute, I thought I had been roofied. The wooziness passed quickly, though, and I felt like I was back to my normal self. No, wait, that’s not strictly true. I felt different. Like I was suddenly powerful. All of my senses felt like they had been enhanced. Crazy, right? If this is an asylum and I am crazy, I can’t help but wonder what the doctors will think when they read this (because they will read it, of course they will). Will they pity me? Think me a lost cause? Oh, who knows.

  Back to my story. It’s hard to stay on track when what you’re writing doesn’t feel like it can be real, but it’s the only way to get my thoughts out, so stay on track I must. Paul didn’t waste any time letting me explore this newly felt power inside of me. He pointed his hand at me, his palm outstretched, and a ray of white light flew from it, wrapping itself around me and binding me like a rope. I tried to fight the binding, but it seemed to get tighter each time I moved. Paul laughed at my struggles and confirmed that each time I moved, the binding’s hold on me would become tighter. I stopped moving pretty quickly after that, afraid I would end up unable to breathe or cut in two or something.

  So yeah, I think it’s pretty clear why I think my mind has betrayed me, broken, and left me hallucinating, crazy. And yet, I don’t feel crazy. Even writing this down, it doesn’t feel like a delusion. It feels like a real memory of something that really happened to me.

  After Paul had tied me up, he sat down on a large box and began to explain what was going on. He told me the house wasn’t really his parents’ house—it was his house. And he wasn’t really a student—he had just enrolled in the university to get close to me. He told me he was a warlock, something I normally would have dismissed as ridiculous, but after seeing the white light flow from his palm and feeling the way it still constricted around me, I was inclined to believe him.

  He told me I carried a rare protein in my blood, something called Sanmere, and that the protein allowed me to become a shifter. That’s when I really thought he had lost his mind, but as he explained further, somehow it seemed plausible. He told me the liquid I had drunk had been a potion that had turned me into a fairy. I wanted to laugh, to tell him he was crazy, but what if he wasn’t crazy? I mean, I had felt different after drinking the potion, powerful.

  I remember trying to process everything he was telling me, and asking him why he had turned me into a fairy. He smiled and told me that humans who can become shifters are a rare commodity. The word commodity worried me, rightfully so, as it turned out. He explained he was something called a Matchmaker, an immortal being who sold humans with Sanmere in their blood to the highest supernatural bidder—in this case, evidently a fairy. He smiled then and told me I was destined to be a queen—that I had been bought by a powerful fae king and I would be his mate.

  I’m not sure why he thought that was something to smile about. I didn’t want to be a fairy, or a queen. I just wanted to be a student, to live my normal, boring life. But it wasn’t to be, according to Paul, and when I begged him to just let me go, he told me I was worth too much m
oney to him for that.

  He took my cell phone and my bag, leaving me with nothing but the journal I am writing in now and a single pen. He flicked through my journal and when it became clear what it was and I begged him to let me keep it, he shrugged and threw it back down beside me.

  He told me that the fae king, Fabian, who had bought me was powerful, and that I had done well for myself. He also told me that Fabian wasn’t someone to be messed with. That I must just accept my fate and make the best of it, because if I tried to run, Fabian would find me, and when he did, he would make me sorry. He finished up by telling me Fabian would be here tomorrow.

  He left the basement then, waving his hands around and leaving a shimmery wall across the door. As soon as he left the room, my bonds broke and I ran to the door. The shimmery wall acted like an electric fence, stunning me and throwing me backwards. I gave up trying to get through it after the third useless attempt. All I was doing was frying myself.

  And now I sit writing here, trying to make sense of my predicament. And the more I think about it, the more I don’t think I’m crazy. This is really happening to me. I know it is. And from what Paul has told me, there is no escape. Maybe I should just embrace my new life.

  I mean, fairies are meant to be kind, right? Maybe I will like Fabian. Maybe it will be like a whole romantic thing where we fall hopelessly in love. Now I think maybe I am crazy, because I’m pretty sure that’s Stockholm Syndrome and I certainly don’t want to go there. Although if everything Paul has told me is true, there’s no escape for me, so maybe it will be better than a lifetime of misery.

  I guess there’s nothing left for me to do but try and get some sleep and first thing in the morning, try to figure out how the hell I am going to get out of this. And that, I think, is my answer as to whether or not I am crazy. I’m not crazy. Not even a little bit, although I fear I might end up that way after a few days with Fabian. Until then, though, I’m as sane as I’ve always been. And somehow, all of this is real and it’s really happening to me.

  Catherine’s Journal

  May 26, 1995

  It’s worse than I ever imagined it could be. Suddenly, insanity seems like a better option that this. I would love to think I am locked away in an asylum somewhere, but I no longer believe that. I can’t let myself believe that because I know in my heart that my imagination isn’t twisted enough to cook this up. It’s not a hallucination. It’s real. Oh, heaven help me, it’s real.

  Fabian didn’t come for me himself—he sent someone else to collect me. I was told we would be going to District Seventy-Three. When it became clear I had no idea what that meant, the man rolled his eyes and told me it was Arizona. I knew there was no use in arguing. I had no more of an escape plan then I had the night before. I was screwed.

  They made me drink something else, something bitter and nasty tasting and when I drank it, everything went black. I woke up here. In this cell. Yes, I am in a cell. Well, truthfully, I am in a small building behind Fabian’s castle, but I’m locked in with nothing except a dirty, hard bench and a hole in the ground that I assume is my toilet. It might as well be a cell. It sure as hell feels like one.

  I have met Fabian and he’s absolutely terrifying. I definitely had the wrong impression of fairies if this one is anything to go by. They are nasty, evil creatures. I have known Fabian for less than an hour, and in that time, all he has done is torment me, telling me that I am his property now and that I will be his mate whether I like it or not.

  He forced himself on me, telling me he wanted me pregnant sooner rather than later. I tried to fight him off, but he was too strong for me. He just laughed, telling me he is centuries old and I don’t stand a chance with him. Does that mean I am now immortal too? I didn’t dare to ask, but I really hope I’m not. Death seems like the only way out of this for me.

  When he was done with me, he zipped himself back up and told me I had two choices. I could continue to try to fight him and stay in my cell, or I could embrace my new life and be treated like his mate.

  I think I’m going to have to go with option B. As unbearable as it sounds, it has to be better than spending my life locked away in a cell or a shed or whatever the fuck this building is. God help me, I think I’m going to do it. I’m going to embrace my new life.

  Catherine’s Journal

  August 5, 1995

  It’s been a long time since I made an entry in my journal, which is unheard of for me. I have always been strict with my journaling since I first started one ten years ago when I was fifteen. I journaled every day, sometimes multiple times a day. But that was the old me. Now I am someone else. Even writing this feels strange to me, but I have to get it all out and this is the only way.

  I have reinvented myself as a fairy, the mate of a dark fae (who incidentally is no king, as I was led to believe). We live in this dark, musty old castle in the middle of a mountain range in Arizona. It’s always too hot and everything is constantly dusty, but that’s the least of my worries.

  I play the role of the dutiful wife—and I was right, as awful as it is, it’s better than being locked in a dirty little out-building, peeing in a hole in the ground like a damned animal. Fabian isn’t a nice man, but while I’m willing to play the game, he mostly leaves me alone, except for when he wants to try and get me pregnant.

  I’m even trusted enough to be able to go down the mountain and into the little town at the foot of it. I know there’s no point in me trying to run. I have no doubt that Fabian is deadly serious when he tells me that if I try it, he will hunt me down and make me wish I had never been born. I have no passport, no money. It’s not like I’d get far even if I dared to try it.

  Going down into the town makes my life bearable, mostly because I’ve made a friend. A good friend who I trust. Fabian made it clear that my identity had to remain a secret in the town because most of the residents are humans and they would think I was crazy if I started talking about being a fairy. I’m okay with Polly, though. She’s a witch and when she saw me coming down the mountainside one day, she knew exactly what I was.

  We got to talking and swapping stories and I ended up telling her everything. How I was more of a prisoner than a wife but I had chosen to make the best of it, and how I was dreading the day I ended up pregnant and was forced to bring a baby up in that musty old castle with such an evil man as the baby’s father.

  That day was last week. I found out last Monday morning that I’m pregnant. That’s why I’m writing in my journal today. I need to get it all out. I really don’t know how I feel about it all. I’m gutted on one hand for obvious reasons, but on the other hand, Fabian has treated me much better since he found out I am expecting his child. Gentle is the wrong word—I don’t think Fabian has a gentle bone in his body—but so far, he’s stopped yelling at me all the time, and I no longer have to cower in fear in case I get a beating for not being pregnant. You know, because if I’m not, it’s clearly my fault because I’m not trying hard enough or something.

  I told Polly my secret and she agreed completely about how bad an idea it would be to raise a child here with Fabian. We’ve come up with a plan. I’m going to introduce Polly to Fabian as my midwife and she’s going to help me save my baby from such a terrible fate. I am happy that my baby will be safe from his clutches, able to lead a normal life away from this place. But I’m also absolutely devastated that I will have to give my baby up and not be able to watch him or her grow up.

  I thought writing down my feelings and thoughts on this would help, but it hasn’t. Not really. I am still in the exact same dilemma as I was when I picked my pen up. I don’t want my baby to grow up here but I still don’t want to give my baby up. I have seven months to get used to it.

  Seven months. It sounds like a long time, but it isn’t really, not in the big scheme of things. It’s likely to fly by, and I don’t think I’ll be any more at peace with my decision then than I am now.

  Catherine’s Journal

  May 1996

 
The plan worked. Or at least I think it did. I gave birth two months ago and Fabian has done nothing to suggest he’s looking for the baby. Polly deserves an Oscar for the performance she gave. She really does.

  She was called to the castle when my labor began and considering she’s not really a midwife, she coached me through every stage of my labor like a pro. She held my hand, wiped my brow, told me when to push and when to pant. And when I screamed like a banshee and squeezed her hand so tightly I felt the bones in there rubbing together, she didn’t complain once.

  As my baby slipped out of me finally, after eight grueling hours of labor, Polly used a spell she had been practicing to disguise the baby. Where the baby should be, there was nothing but air. My baby had been made invisible and silent. Once that was done, Polly gave me a potion to drink, one she told me would ensure I never became pregnant again.

  I drank it and it hurt like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It made the labor look like child’s play. And the blood. My God, the blood. It all played into the plan, though. Polly went to Fabian, teary-eyed and covered head to toe in blood and told him I had had a horrific birth and the baby was stillborn. She explained that my uterus was destroyed in the process and that I had been lucky to survive the ordeal.