Betrayals Read online

  Also by Kelley Armstrong

  THE CAINSVILLE SERIES

  Omens

  Visions

  Deceptions

  THE CITY OF THE LOST SERIES

  City of the Lost

  A Darkness Absolute (coming soon) THE WOMEN OF THE OTHERWORLD SERIES

  Bitten

  Stolen

  Dime Store Magic

  Industrial Magic

  Haunted

  Broken

  No Humans Involved

  Personal Demon

  Living with the Dead

  Frostbitten

  Waking the Witch

  Spell Bound

  13

  THE NADIA STAFFORD SERIES

  Exit Strategy

  Made to Be Broken

  Wild Justice

  COLLECTIONS

  Men of the Otherworld

  Tales of the Otherworld

  Otherworld Nights

  Otherworld Secrets

  Otherworld Chills

  PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA

  Copyright (c) 2016 K.L.A. Fricke All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. 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 permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2016 by Random House Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Distributed in Canada and the United States of America by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

  www. penguinrandomhouse. ca

  Random House Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Armstrong, Kelley, author

  Betrayals / Kelley Armstrong.

  (A Cainsville novel)

  ISBN 9780345815200

  Ebook ISBN 9780345815224

  I. Title. II. Series: Armstrong, Kelley. Cainsville series.

  PS8551.R7637B38 2016 C813'.6 C2015-908562-4

  Cover design by Terri Nimmo

  Cover images: (hound) (c) Alexandre Cappellari / Arcangel Images; (sign) (c) Clipart Design / Dreamstime. com

  Text images: (bird silhouette, this page) (c) Lhfgraphics, (sign) (c) Clipart Design, all Dreamstime. com

  v4.1

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Kelley Armstrong

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  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

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  About the Author

  FOR JEFF

  CHAPTER ONE

  I woke to the sound of horses. It took a moment for me to remember where I was--in the forest behind the Saints' clubhouse. I'd gone for a walk with Ricky which had turned into a chase that turned into victory sex and an exhausted drop into sleep on the forest floor.

  I reached for him. When my fingers thumped down on cold earth, I scrambled up. "Ricky?"

  Don't panic.

  He wouldn't have wandered off. That was our pact after the last time I woke up alone in these woods, when Ricky had been lured away and nearly killed.

  As I yanked on my clothing, a hound's baying cut through the night. I spun and caught a flicker of distant fire.

  A scream sounded deep in the forest. A man's scream. I yanked my switchblade from my pocket and--

  "Liv?"

  Ricky's groggy voice. Then his hand on my calf, and I looked down to see him on the ground where we'd been sleeping.

  "You weren't there," I said, and he knew exactly what I meant, rising with a curse as he reached for his jeans.

  When a low growl reverberated through the air, I strained but saw nothing.

  "Is that a hound?" I whispered. "A cwn?"

  One glance at Ricky's face told me he hadn't heard anything.

  "I heard a man scream," I said. "And now growling. There was baying earlier. It think it's one of the--"

  A snarl. Then another cry, and I turned fast, catching a glint of red eyes and the faint outline of a giant black dog.

  "Over there," I whispered. "It's--"

  Ricky had disappeared.

  "Damn it, no."

  Something crashed through undergrowth, running away, but I blocked it out, squeezed my eyes shut, and focused. "Ricky."

  "Here." Warm fingers clasped mine. "Hold hands for safety. Just like in kindergarten."

  I told him what I was seeing and hearing. Pinpointing the source was impossible--it would come from the north, then the southeast, then the west.

  "I think someone's been cornered by the hound," I said.

  Now the woods had gone silent. Eerily silent. I clutched Ricky's hand.

  "I'm still here," he said. "Oh, and when we went out for lunch yesterday, you said your brownie tasted like it'd been dredged in sawdust, so I dropped off one from Uppercrust for your afternoon break."

  He was proving it was really him I was talking to. "Thanks."

  "Covering all the bases. Was the brownie good?"

  "It was awesome."

  "And the dude being menaced by the giant hell-hound?"

  "Apparently gone."

  "Huh. Do you want to go grab another brownie?"

  "It's after ten."

  "Is that a challenge? I can find--"

  His voice faded, and his figure shimmered against a backdrop of rubble.

  There was no rubble in this forest.

  I could still feel his hand, though, so I gripped it tighter, and his figure came clear again.

  "Did I go somewhere?" he asked.

  "You started to."

  "Huh." He peered out into the night. As I looked around, he said, "Still nothing?"

  I shook my head.

  "We know it's not the actual Hunt. I'd hear it if it was." Ricky had Cwn Annwn blood himself and recognized the sound of them. "It's a vision, which means you have a message pending. So do you want to get it? Or leave it on vision-mail for a while?"

  When I didn't respond, he said, "I'd rather you got it. I know the fevers are easing off, but I still don't like you having visions when you're alone."

  "In other words, just get it over with."

  "Take it slow. Keep hold of m
y hand. If you can't hear my voice, come back. And if you can talk, tell me what's going on so I know everything's okay."

  I nodded. Then I stared out into the forest, picturing what I'd seen a few minutes ago--rubble amidst the trees, nature reclaiming a human encroachment. Like the abandoned psych hospital. Like Villa Tuscana. Two other places where I'd seen fae visions. Ruined places, rich with fae energy, stolen by humans then falling to rubble, Nature slowly reclaiming what was hers, restoring balance.

  When I heard a childish giggle, I turned, expecting to see the little girl who was so often my guide in the visions.

  "Are you here?" I asked.

  A laugh answered. Still girlish, but different from the first. I looked around. Piles of brick and stone and crushed mortar littered ground already blanketed in moss and vines. When I turned toward Ricky, I could see him faintly and feel the pressure of his hand. I told him what I saw as I led him toward that girlish laughter.

  "Pou eisai?" a girl said, and though I didn't recognize the words, I knew they meant Where are you?

  The other girl answered in the same language, telling her companion that the point of the game was to find her. The first girl let out a victory laugh, hearing her target, who shrieked as she realized she'd given herself away.

  I stepped around a half-crumbled wall and saw a campsite--sleeping bags and backpacks--tucked into what remained of a room, the roof mostly intact. When I came closer, I saw more bags. Not a camp but a squat for the homeless.

  The girls laughed again. One darted past. She was in her late teens, older than I expected, given the games and the giggling. Another girl zoomed from a hiding place. She launched herself at the first, and they fell, tumbling together and laughing.

  Then they went still. Absolutely, unnaturally still. That youthful joy vanished in a blink, and when I looked into their faces, I saw two other girls--prostitutes--sitting on a bench. I'd spotted them six months ago while searching for an apartment. When they'd looked at me, I'd seen that emptiness in their gaze.

  These were the same girls, recognizable now only as they presented that soulless gaze to the world. Then that disappeared, and the girls looked normal, though still solemn, their eyes dark with worry and concern.

  "He's found us," the second one said in that foreign tongue.

  The first girl made a noise in her throat, an odd rattle, as her sharp gaze darted about. "Go warn the others," she whispered.

  The second one shook her head vehemently. "I won't leave--"

  The first girl spun and grabbed her by the throat, and when she spoke, her words came carried on a hiss. "I said go." She gave the second one a shove.

  Still the girl hesitated, but her companion stomped in her direction with an urgent "Go!" and she took off through the trees. The first one watched her and whispered, "Be safe, little sister." Then she turned and, once again, her gaze emptied. She took a step toward the forest.

  "I know you're there," she said, speaking English now. "I have what you want." Her voice took on a coy lilt. "I have everything you want. You need only come and take it."

  She stepped toward the forest, her hips swaying, and when my gaze lowered to those hips, I saw her belt. Snakeskin, like she'd been wearing the last time.

  The girl walked into the forest, still calling to whomever she sensed there. I hurried after her, but when I stepped into the forest, all that was left was her voice, and even that was growing faint.

  I stopped to listen and--

  A scream. A horrible scream.

  Like those of the fae. The dying fae on the grounds of Villa Tuscana.

  Dragging Ricky, I ran toward the sound. I heard a hiss. I caught a glint of scale and of fang. A man howled. Then he cursed. That scream came again from all around me, and I spun, but there was nothing to see, nothing more to hear, just that terrible scream.

  A thump, like a body hitting the ground. An odd rasp, like a death rattle. Silence.

  I kept walking, kept listening. Breathing. A soft scrape. A grunt. The whisper of fabric. The smell of blood.

  My hand tightened on Ricky's. A single moonbeam swept the clearing, like a peephole into another world, and I spotted a foot. The girl's foot. Bare. Her toenails painted red. The beam moved over her supine body. Her leg. Her snakeskin belt. Then her torso, her shirt pushed up, stomach painted as red as her nails, a slash of crimson that split her belly in two. A hand reached into her stomach, and I fell back as the moonbeam moved up a man's bloodstained arm. I could see the girl, dead on the ground, but I focused on him, as that light passed over his shoulder, to his head, fixed on the girl. Then he turned, and I saw the face of a man maybe thirty, fair-haired and bearded.

  The moonbeam passed and the scene went dark. I hurried forward, hanging on to Ricky, and found myself in an empty clearing. A sob sounded to my left. Another joined it, rising to a keening cry.

  I was back at the ruined building. The dead girl had been laid out in the grass, her ripped stomach covered with a jacket. Four teenaged girls ringed her. All wore those snakeskin belts. They wept and they wailed and they gnashed their teeth, and when they did, I saw fangs, growing and retracting, as they cursed the girl's killer in that foreign tongue.

  "Why do you wait?" a voice asked, and I turned to see the youngest girl. She was small and thin, with pupils that kept contracting sideways into slits.

  "Are you talking to me?" I asked.

  "Who else is there? You wait and you stall and you play, and we die. They say you do not care. That we cannot expect you to care, and even if you did, you cannot help. You never can. You never do."

  "I don't understand."

  "Do you try?"

  "I'm not good with riddles. You need to be clear."

  She pointed at the dead girl. "Is that not clear enough? You stall and you play and you tell yourself this isn't your business, and so we die." Those strange eyes met mine. "Pick a side."

  I inhaled sharply. "You mean the fae and the Hunt. I have no idea which one--"

  "We don't care which you pick. Just choose and be done with it. The longer you stall, the more they are distracted and the more of us die. Fae are being murdered." She waved at the dead girl. "And where are the Cwn Annwn?"

  "I heard them. I know I heard--"

  "A half-hearted attempt. They are distracted. By you. The rest of us? We do not matter. Lost girls never matter."

  "Tell me what--" I began, but she disappeared, leaving me standing in a forest, holding tight to Ricky's hand.

  --

  Ricky and I were alone in a back room of the clubhouse as I downed my second shot of Scotch.

  "So the young girls are fae," he said. "The same type you saw when you were looking for the apartment. The same two girls even."

  "I think so."

  "And they're associated with snakes--the belts and the hissing and the rattling and the slitted eyes. If we can pinpoint the language, that'll help."

  He attacked the problem as rationally as if fae themselves were a perfectly rational phenomenon. As a child, he'd embraced his grandmother's tales of fae and the Hunt, in some way recognizing them as stories of his past, his heritage.

  "We'll work on the language," Ricky continued. "I'm wondering if that's why they don't care which side you pick--because they aren't Welsh fae. As for the Cwn Annwn being distracted...I honestly can't imagine your situation would distract them so much they'd shirk their duties. I think they're having trouble catching this guy. Which opens another avenue of investigation. Before all that, though, you need to tell Gabriel. Loop him in. Pronto. Otherwise..."

  He'll feel slighted.

  He already feels slighted.

  One would think Ricky'd be happy that I was spending less time with Gabriel. But even before we knew the parts we played in our ancient drama, I would tell him Gabriel had crashed at my place and he'd only joke that the couch must be more comfortable than it seemed. I'd asked him once, point-blank, if my friendship with Gabriel bothered him.

  "You were friends with him b
efore you met me," Ricky had said.

  "I wouldn't exactly say friends..."

  "You were. And I won't interfere with that, because that's how this all goes to shit, Liv. Arawn and Gwynn and Matilda. When they make Matilda choose, everything goes wrong, for all of them, and we aren't going to do that. It is what it is. I understand that."

  "It is what it is? What does that mean?"

  He'd shrugged and changed the subject.

  I checked my watch. "It's late."

  "It's not even midnight. You know he's up, Liv."

  "It can wait." I got to my feet. "We're supposed to be at the club tonight to socialize, and it'll look bad if we're hanging out back here."

  He opened his mouth, and I knew he was going to push me to call Gabriel, so I picked up the pace and was out the door before he could say another word.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The choice the fae girl mentioned was one I'd been putting off because, as I'd told her, I had absolutely no idea which side I would choose. Until six months ago, I would have laughed my ass off at the very thought of such a choice, so obviously straight out of a fairy tale. Which it was, quite literally.

  I was the living embodiment of Matilda of the Hunt. Matilda of the Night. Mallt-y-nos. In Welsh myth, Matilda was a noblewoman who refused to give up her love of the hunt, even for her bridegroom, and so was cursed to ride with the Cwn Annwn--the Wild Hunt--forever.

  In reality, Matilda was a dynes hysbys--a cunning woman or witch--born with blood from both the Huntsmen and Tylwyth Teg, the Welsh fae. The two kingdoms shared the girl, who'd grown up friends with the princes of both, Arawn and Gwynn ap Nudd. To avoid conflict, the young men had agreed not to court her. Arawn kept his word. Gwynn did not. In the fallout, the two made a deal. If Matilda went to Arawn on her wedding day, she'd be his, and the world of the fae closed to her forever. If she stayed with Gwynn, the world of the Hunt would close instead. Of course, neither told Matilda about the pact.

  The night before her wedding, Matilda left for one last hunt with her old friend, Arawn. As she saw the gates to the fae world close, she raced back, only to be consumed by the fiery abyss. Unable to save her, both young men blamed themselves and each other, and their worlds had been at odds ever since.

  The story doesn't end there. There was no end, no satisfactory conclusion. So the cycle keeps repeating. New players are born to take over the roles--not reincarnations, but humans from the proper bloodline and with memories of those distant ancestors. Whichever side possesses Matilda will win the battle for survival. Each has its champion: Arawn and Gwynn, who are supposed to woo her to their side. Ricky is Arawn. And Gwynn in this particular round? That would be Gabriel.