Obliteration

by Zoe Parker

  Obliteration

  Facets of Feyrie Book Four

  Zoe Parker

  Copyright © 2019 by Zoe Parker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This part sucks, I know but - without it there’d be nothing creative except those mud pies you made as a kid… oh, and that google eyed pet rock.

  Contents

  Dedication

  To the Reader

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About Zoe Parker

  Also by Zoe Parker

  Dedication

  Jason, you got me through four of these bastards. I love you.

  To the Reader

  This book is shorter than the other three. I realize that some of you might be like, wtf… but let me explain. They told this story and I just went along for the ride.

  Forgive us.

  1

  Killing Schoth gets boring.

  I’m not thrilled with this revelation. The ones we’ve encountered so far, are mostly Magikless Schoth with a few other kinds of Light Fey mixed in. None of them have been more than the lowest caste of Light Fey. It’s dull, downright suspicious and I don’t like the implications of it. That’s why I’m sitting on a burned out car hood, picking at my claws, while Adriem is taking a turn against some Schoth ‘mages’ who are tossing around ‘fireballs’ the size of ping pong balls. At least, when they’re not running around screaming in terror. It’s like fishing in a barrel— there’s no sport there. No sense of accomplishment. It feels like a distraction.

  I think it’s time to be done here because despite what we’ve been told by Armpit, these might be ‘hostile alien invaders’, but they’re not the specific kind I’m looking for.

  Goosebumps rise on my skin and I force myself to keep looking at my fingernails as he approaches. It's Phobe, but also not-Phobe. He doesn't remember me; doesn't remember us. Life assured me that it is Phobe—just without all his memories, but when I look into his eyes, the man that I hope to see there, isn’t. Although, I’ve seen peeks a few times; sometimes he says something similar to his old persona, and it’s enough to keep me hoping, but not enough to bank anything on. I’m not trusting Life to be completely honest about anything.

  Look how he fucked everything up to begin with. All because some dying kid spoke a prophecy that the ageless idiot took at face value. He then spent a billion years manipulating everyone and everything to bring it to fruition while claiming he was ‘helping’. Yeah, I don’t trust him at all. To me it looks like he wanted things to happen how they did, and is kicked back somewhere, eating popcorn and watching the drama unfold, with his hands clean of the mess.

  Kinda makes me want to kill him too.

  Initially, I was thankful that he ‘saved’ Phobe and the Feyrie but as time passed and I thought more on it, the thankfulness faded to be replaced with a lot of ‘fuck him’. When I started looking beyond the rainbows and glitter bullshit, I started seeing things differently. He’s a selfish, too powerful creature that presents himself as a god, and likes meddling in the affairs of his creations. I don’t give a shit how benevolent he claims to be.

  Phobe tried to remake the world in his image by meddling and look what they did to him. Maybe Life needs a little Schoth prison love?

  Knowing Phobe is beside me, I look up, careful to avoid looking at him and study the Light Fey that fill this camp. The ones left alive, anyhow. He’s got to be thinking along the same lines as me. There’s no way this is a military outpost. There were no guards, no beasts of war. There aren’t even weapons here. This isn’t what the information said it was. This is a regular outpost, probably full of farmers and crafters. Sacrificial lambs, to keep us busy and out of the way.

  A planted false lead that we ate up like candy.

  “Stop!” I yell out. All of the Feyrie who came with me instantly cease what they’re doing and turn back towards me. “This is a waste of our time, there’s no military force here. Let’s go.” I stand up and head towards the edge of the camp.

  Our cars are parked a mile or so outside of the shield that Phobe brought down without any real effort. Too easy. I should’ve suspected something then. Sure, they’re still Schoth and would kill a Feyrie or human in a hot minute but they’re not the bigger threat.

  When I get to the car, Phobe has beat me there and is leaning against the hood of the one I was going to get into. I pause and meet his gaze. He wasn’t with me when one of the suited human men brought me this intel. He was out doing whatever mysterious stuff he gets into when he’s not around me. The part of me that loves him—because I do still love him—wants to know where he gets off to. But the wounded part of me wants nothing to do with him.

  It’s a fucking headache.

  “I’ll go to their base and see why we were given fake information,” he says after a long study of me. Then he’s gone, a flash of shadow the only sign of his former presence. The tension in my shoulders relaxes a little. Never fully. It took me awhile to come around to accepting the changes in Phobe, but even having this new version of him is better than having none.

  “What made you think that these aren’t the right bastards to kill?” Adriem asks, looking around—probably for Phobe, before turning to face me.

  “Did you see a single sword? Or a gun? Anything remotely resembling a weapon?” I ask.

  He shakes his head and then looks thoughtfully back the way we came. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t see guards either. Do you think the humans have been compromised?”

  I shrug, and say, “Phobe went to find out.”

  “How are you two getting on?” That’s none of his business. He’s gotten too comfortable with me and foolishly assumes I feel the same way. But after Ruthie… I’m protecting my heart more now. They need me to help them, not care about them.

  “Don’t make me punch you in the face, Adriem.” I’m not kidding either.

  I open the door and cringe when the metal screeches. Well, there goes another car. I climb in and try to shut the door behind me but it’s hanging crookedly off the top hinges. Fuck it. Kicking it, I dispassionately watch it fall completely off and land on the ground with a metallic thump.

  I glance at it laying there, twisted and useless, looking like I feel, then look at Adriem. “Call a meeting. We’ll go to my dad’s property out in the sandy place.”

  “You mean Las Vegas?”

  I shrug again. “Yeah, that place, I want to go exploring afterwards.” I need a distraction. My temper—that isn’t long on a good day, is basically nonexistent and I don’t want to keep taking it out on those around me that don’t deserve it. A small break won’t hurt anyone, in fact it’ll potentially keep me from hurting anyone. For a few hours.

  As the Feyrie start leaving the small camp, I watch the skies for those that fly, knowing they’re going back to our own small base at the hotel. The ones who can’t fly are already piling into the cars and leaving.

  I didn’t bring a large gr
oup with me, thirteen not counting myself and… Phobe. The entire group is trained and more than capable of handling themselves. I left the shifters that came with me back at base. The rest of them are split between the secret place Auryn took the kids, and the Sidhe, guarding those that can’t fight for themselves. Out of the Nightmares, only Adriem and two of his brothers came with me; I ordered the rest to remain.

  The Sidhe is moving around, changing positions every few days but I worry it won’t be enough. Eventually that bastard brother of Phobe’s will find it—unless I find him first.

  Yeah, there’s a problem when killing becomes boring, especially when there’s so much more of it to do.

  I’m such a loser.

  I can't make myself stop staring at him. He’s the one who I so desperately want to touch, and also punch, repeatedly. I obsess over him regardless. He smiles more, cold bastard or not—he shows consistent spates of humor that Phobe rarely did. At times, there’s a sort of puzzlement and curiosity to them, like a Kelpie has right before it takes a bite out of your ass for staring at it.

  If anything, that makes it cooler to see.

  No matter where I turn, he's there. Watching me. Weighing my actions. Killing those that need killed, exactly like I intended. He's serving a valuable purpose but that isn’t why I’m staring at him. It’s because I’m still drawn to him, despite how many times I tell myself he isn't mine anymore. Yet, this man, this monster—still pulls at me.

  It's fucking annoying, this craving for him that I can’t stop.

  No one can deny that my monster is gone but none of that stops me from searching his eyes for that flare of deeper emotion Phobe used to show me—towards the end anyhow. Hope is a deadly thing to someone like me who doesn’t have faith in much of anything. While the bloodthirsty bitch I'm becoming enjoys the one he is. Is it possible that I want both aspects of him?

  The answer is a whisper in my mind, from my own darkness.

  Yes.

  "You're looking at him like you want to eat him and stab him at the same time. Which one is it?" Michael asks, coming to stand beside me. I look over at the boy who's walked through fire to become a man, and see the shadows lurking in his eyes. Michael’s grief and pain are directly related to some of my own actions and that makes me feel bad. I helped put those there. The purple smudges underneath them—that look like permanent bruises, add to the guilt that I can’t make myself shake. He's heartbroken and it's something that I completely understand.

  In my world, in this place of pain and regret, I have to ask myself... what does a monster with a broken heart do?

  "Anything she wants, Iza." The achingly familiar voice in my mind makes me gasp.

  He's found a way through my shields once again. He’s better at it and more often than not, I don’t even realize he’s done it. This version of him is powerful, and free of the yoke of slavery heaped on his soul for so long. He's not their scarred robot anymore. This version reacts more, says more. He’s still cold, vicious when he chooses to be—that hasn’t changed about him. But with me he’s… more lover than enemy in his behavior.

  I eat it up and simultaneously hate myself for it.

  Fuck. Fuck. Impulsively, I grab the sword leaning against the wall and throw it at him as hard as I can. He ducks easily to the side as if he's nothing more than shadows. The sword sinks into the wall all the way to the hilt, knocking chunks of drywall and the ceiling onto the floor. I threw it hard enough that the handle is still vibrating.

  "You missed," he taunts out loud.

  "I won't always miss, Phobe." The next thing I know, he's in front of me, his eyes lit up like lamps.

  "When you say that name... I like it. Say it again," he says with a toothy smile. He’s taken to teasing me like this as often as he gets a chance. Sometimes I think he creates opportunities to do it.

  I eat that up too.

  "Fuck. Off." I’ve said it a hundred times in the last month but this one feels half-hearted at best. He’s starting to get to me and he knows it.

  "I like it when you say that too." He turns away from me and points at the map I have spread out on the table in the center of the room. It shows all of the ‘known’ Schoth camps in this part of the world. Several of them have now been crossed out, us ruling out the bad intelligence we got from the humans. Someone has gotten in their ranks and fed them false information in an attempt to distract us from the true targets. It was working too. Phobe has fixed that leak, which means that everyone guilty in that base is dead and there’s only smoking piles of rubble left.

  That’s what I’d do.

  His voice interrupts my wayward thoughts. "When do we go after the fun ones?" This is one thing that both versions have in common. The eagerness to kill, to feed, and when he's like this I can see my Phobe bleeding through. Especially when he turns eyes to me that burn with heat—and not just for killing.

  I’m a little surprised he’s asking me, because he’s more than capable—as he’s proven over and over—of going after big targets on his own. I smell a motive. He always has one; even this incarnation of him does nothing without reason. Some things not even dying changes.

  "Tomorrow soon enough for you?" I try to keep it light; he already noses around in my head, there's no reason for anyone else to see how much he upsets my equilibrium.

  "No, but it will do." He walks to the table, leaving a million things unsaid between us. One day soon they’ll come out, whether I want them to or not. I exhale and cross to stand beside him. Everyone gathered perks up and watches us with anticipation.

  Harsh truths incoming. "First thing, try not to die. I can't babysit anyone, so don't go in unless you're sure you can fight for yourself. Second thing, this is war—save your mercy for those who deserve it." I meet each person's eyes as I speak. They need to understand that this is real, and I'm not holding their fucking hands anymore. "Now, this is the plan..."

  I outline how we’re going to eliminate each decoy camp in our path to the real targets, quickly, while trying to save as many humans as we can. The Schoth, no matter whether they’re farmers or warriors, detest humans and are either killing them, eating them or enslaving them. I won’t leave innocent people to that. They have no defense against the invaders and their human military isn't able to effectively help them.

  “I’ll be sending scouts to each camp and everyone will be given one of those fancy human phones that can call from anywhere—don’t fucking lose it. Adriem, you’ll be leading a team with the shifters. Show them what their ancestors are like, eh?” He chuckles and waves to the shifters who peel off to follow him. I turn to look at the Blood Prince; he’s an arrogant prick who thinks he’s way more powerful than he is… but he’s stronger than most Schoth.

  “Bloody P., you take the vamps and Adriem’s brother, Urilch, and head east. We need to clear a path to the ocean and get rid of those portals. There’s a lot of heavily populated human cities on the East coast and I’d rather not see millions of deaths when they can be prevented. Keep in contact.” He nods after staring at me for several seconds. Phobe looks at him until he scoots out of the room with his small group in tow.

  One of these days I might have to whip that guy's ass, just to put him in his place.

  “Jameson, you and Michael will gather the equipment on the list I gave you earlier. I was told by a reliable source that we can make a lot of good use out of the shit on it. Michael, pull in some of your geek buddies and illegally hack your hearts out.” Michael smiles, one that almost reaches his eyes, and grabs the list.

  That leaves Phobe and I alone at the table.

  “Do they realize you saved the hardest stuff for yourself?” he asks me.

  I shrug. “Does it matter? You and I both know that we do more damage than that entire group of people combined, especially you.”

  “You’re always so blunt about it. I like that about you.” I bite back a smile. Initially, I wasn’t keen on interacting with him much at all but it’s been over two months since his res
urrection and like it or not, this more talkative version of him has its good points. This Phobe has no problem telling me what he thinks.

  “Are you sure you just don’t like hearing how badass you are?” I tease. It comes out with a hint of mean, but a lot less than usual.

  “So you think I’m a badass?” he asks, smiling his big, scary smile. Oh, look he has jokes. If—when he does remember everything I hope he keeps the sense of humor. I kinda like it.

  Stop hoping, Iza! I flinch at my own thoughts. No, inner me—I don’t think I can. There’s a point in every situation where it’s too late to stop. I passed that point weeks ago.

  “Are we taking the humans cars to our destinations?” Good, he saw that I have five spots marked for us. I’m using these cute little purple dragon statues that I found at a thrift store. Those places are a hoarders wet dream. I bought quite a few things from there, mostly lampshades with fringes on them, but still.

  Focus Iza. “Yes.”

  “Are you driving?” he asks. I look over at him. Is that a challenge?

  “Yes.”

  “You realize your driving is atrocious.” Yes, yes I do, but I’ve gotten better so he can suck a big one. “Does this car have airbags in them?” I nod, I always check now and no longer get offended when people ask. People get pissy when there’s no airbags or seat belts. “Good then. Let’s go,” he says, turning to walk out the door.

  Yeah, I definitely hope he keeps the sense of humor. He’s an asshole with it but he lets me drive.