Destined for Deception ✔️

Chapter 14

It took some convincing, but Ryleigh did in the end manage to get a majority vote in favour of pursuing Cerise over Alder. Even though not everyone agreed that Cerise's betrayal weighed heavier than Alder's slaughter, they did all agree that a Shadow Walker with a small army was more of a threat than a Royal Wolf with a large army. Until they got Cerise off their backs, they had no chance to destroy Alder.

This was nice and all, but Ryleigh didn't actually have a clue as to how they were supposed to find Cerise, let alone stop her. By her estimation, there had to be at least fifty Shadow Walkers alive, and knowing Cerise, she had made sure they trained hard every single day for the past fifteen years. If her suspicions were true, if Cerise had altered everybody's memories to make them more inclined to follow her, then she had a nearly unstoppable army.

Ryleigh loved her people to death, and she knew they were strong, but at the end of the day they were very little more than a chaotic mess of stubborn outcasts. They didn't stand a chance.

"I know that look."

No matter how hard she tried not to let feelings exist long enough to actually register them, her heart fluttered – fluttered, can you imagine? – at hearing Parker's voice behind her. It was disconcerting how much he affected her. Not just his voice, but his smell, and his touch. It wasn't quite what it had been like with Austin, but in many ways it was better. Her body craved his touch because his touch was the only thing that remotely felt like home, and she realised more and more that it had always been that way. Through her twenty-five years of life, there had been two constants: her anger, and Parker.

She was standing in a room on one of the top floors of the mansion, leaning against the wall beside a window and gazing outside at the dense woods. She was growing increasingly weary of living in forests that she would never get to explore, and she knew her people felt the same way. She longed to give them a home. Not just her own two dozen idiots, but everyone Cerise had stolen from her. She wanted to reunite them and to bring them home. After fifteen years, they deserved that.

She let her eyes flit to Parker, knowing full well that her heart rate was going to increase the moment she took him in. She didn't understand what was going on, and it vexed here more than she could describe. How come she was suddenly seeing Parker in a way she had never before? How come she had always been blind to exactly how well-suited he was for her? Was it because of Austin? Had loving him made her soft? Did her heart now desperately seek for someone to fill the void that he left? She didn't want to think that that could be the reason, but she had to consider it. Parker deserved as much. She needed to be sure that she wasn't fooling herself into thinking she was in love with him. But then on the other hand, if she was fooling herself, why did it feel so real? And not just real, but right. And not scary, like falling for Austin had been the most terrifying thing she had ever done, but it felt safe.

He was standing in the doorway, regarding her in silence. He didn't smile at her, and she knew it was because he was still upset with her for messing with his head. She wanted to tell him that she didn't mean to, that she hadn't been lying, that she was as invested in this as he was, but she didn't. Couldn't. There was too much going on to start whatever it was that would start if she confessed the depth of her feelings. Not to speak of the fact that she didn't want to have feelings.

She noticed his brows twitching, angling down towards the bridge of his nose. He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth, cocking his head.

"Is there something on my face? You're staring at me like I'm frothing at the mouth."

She shook her head and turned back to the window. She crossed her arms, pressing them against her chest. Perhaps she could physically crush her heart into obedience, since sheer willpower clearly wasn't cutting it.