I Do Believe in Faeries (The Cotton Candy Quintet Book 3)
Read I Do Believe in Faeries (The Cotton Candy Quintet Book 3) Online
Authors: Erin Hayes
I DO BELIEVE IN FAERIES
by Erin Hayes
Abby knew that life wasn’t fair.
That’s why she turned to the Fair Ones.
Abby thinks she’s a disappointment. Even though she’s grown up in a family of powerful witches, she can’t use magick, she can’t connect to nature, she can’t do anything special – she’s just a normal human.
And normal isn’t good enough for her.
When faeries offer to grant her one wish, she doesn’t hesitate to wish for magick of her own. But wishes require a sacrifice. And that sacrifice is her friend Alaina's unborn baby.
Magickal or not, Abby has to make things right. She ventures into Tír na nÓg to rescue the infant before it’s too late. There's only one problem. Once she’s there, she may never be able to leave.
Also by Erin Hayes
The Cotton Candy Quintet
I Do Believe in Faeries
I’m Not Afraid of Wolves (Coming Summer 2016)
How to Talk to Ghosts (Coming Halloween 2016)
The Harker Trilogy
Damned Either Way (Coming Fall 2016)
Life is but a Nightmare (Coming Fall 2016)
Jacob Smith is Incredibly Average
Head Case: A Weird Science Romance
Leg Work: A Weird Science Romance
I DO BELIEVE IN FAERIES
Enchanted: The Fairy Revels Collection
by Erin Hayes
Cover art by Lori Parker at Contagious Covers
Stock photo by Julia Caesar
Editing by Lindsay Galloway at Contagious Edits
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidences are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2016 Erin Hayes
No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
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Special Thanks
A special thanks goes to Monica Sofia Igreja, who offered up the name Lucas for a special character. Thank you so much. I can’t wait for you to read it here.
Dedication
For Chris. You make all my wishes come true.
Table of Contents
Read Christine’s story this summer in:
Chapter 1
“Abby, are you coming?”
I looked up from the Pinterest boards on my iPhone and pulled out my earbuds. “What?”
My sister Jordyn stood in the doorway of the kitchen, her purse in one hand and the keys to Mom’s Honda Accord in the other.
“I’m heading up to Jacksonville to see Alaina,” she explained, spinning the keys absently.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to remember who Alaina was. Nothing came to mind.
Jordyn sighed and flipped her too-cool pink hair over her shoulder. “Alaina Hoover? One of my mermaid friends?”
Ah, now I remembered. Jordyn used to be a professional mermaid, and Alaina was one of her teammates whose troupe trained in Jacksonville.
“She’s back in town?” I asked. “I thought the mermaids were still on tour.”
Jordyn shrugged. “Well, Neptune and Christine are still on tour with the other mermaids—I guess they were able to find replacements in Los Angeles.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Anyways, Alaina’s back because she’s expecting her baby.”
I made a face. “Ew, babies,” I joked.
Jordyn rolled her eyes, disagreeing with my weird sense of humor. Sometimes I wondered if we were really sisters or if I was adopted. It would sure make sense.
Jordyn was happy for the first time in a long time. I suspected it was more than coming back home after being gone for three years—she had a boyfriend here to make her feel special. Meanwhile, me… Well, I wasn’t feeling special.
“I already told you all of this earlier and you said sure,” Jordyn groaned. “Now I’m starting to think you were listening to One Direction again.
“Probably.” I was always listening to One Direction.
“Come on,” she pleaded. “You need to get out of the house and stop looking at hot guys on Instagram.”
My cheeks blushed. “I’m looking at prom dresses
on Pinterest
, thank you very much!”
She smirked. “It’ll be good for you.”
“Why do you want me to come along? She’s
your
friend.”
“Because Mom thinks you’ve been moping around the house, and I want you to meet some of my mermaid friends. Now, are you coming?” With a quick swipe of her hand, she used magick to hit the home button on my iPhone from afar, closing my app.
“Hey!” There was more anger in my voice than I should have had, but it wasn’t fair that Jordyn was able to use magick to tease me when I couldn’t reciprocate.
“Come
on
, Abby, stop being such a teenager.” Strong words from someone who was just barely outside of being one herself. I was seventeen, so I was practically in my twenties, right?
I groaned as I got up from my spot at the kitchen island. “You owe me.”
Jordyn gave me a half-lazy smile and smacked me in the butt as I headed out the door.
Oh yeah, it was
such
a good thing having my big sister back in my life.
***
“Oh my
god
, Alaina! You’ve gotten so big!”
I watched as my sister hugged someone who was heavily preggers. Alaina was pretty, I decided, with dark hair and olive skin that accentuated her green eyes. A little older than Jordyn, she had a worldliness to her that my sister and I could never hope to pull off.
“Look at you, Jordyn!” Alaina exclaimed. “You look wonderful!”
Oh great, this is a reunion where both of the gorgeous girls tell each other how gorgeous they are.
Jealousy nagged at the back of my head. It’s not that I wasn’t pretty myself—I was
decent
and I was popular at school, not that being popular made life easy. It’s just, in my world of magick, I had so many things going against me, like being unable to perform magick. Unlike the rest of my family.
I kept my smile frozen on my face as they continued talking, waiting for the moment when one of them remembered me.
Why am I here again?
I could have been picking out my shoes for my prom. Granted, it was a month and a half from now, but I could never start too early. I wanted to impress Christian Meyer, since I doubted he knew I was alive.
Jordyn looked back at me and hooked her arm through mine
“This is my kid sister, Abby,” Jordyn said, bringing me forward.
She called me her
“kid sister”
. I could die.
A brilliant smile spread across Alaina’s face as she saw me. “Hi, I’m Alaina,” she said, holding her hand out for a shake. I took it awkwardly. “You have no idea how much Jordyn has talked about you over the years. I can’t believe we haven’t gotten together like this the entire time.”
Jordyn and I exchanged glances.
“Oh, you know,” Jordyn said. “The timing just never worked out.”
That was mostly true. Mom and I visited Jordyn when she lived in Jacksonville, but we never met her coworkers because we were always in a hurry to get back to our town of Centerburg, Florida, to protect everyone from a borderline psycho killer. Yeah, magick really messed with our lives for a while.
And the absence of it will continue to mess up my life.
Alaina beamed at me. “A sister to Jordyn is a sister to me,” she said. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
We had lunch at this beachside restaurant in Jacksonville that had really good burgers and fried fish. I was here a long time ago with Mom and Jordyn, and it was nice to see that the place hadn’t changed one bit.
Here, Jordyn was in her element. I could tell that she loved the city and the life she made here. I wondered how she felt moving back to little ol’ Centerburg—because all I wanted to do was to leave it—but I think being close to Mom and Luke was the icing on her proverbial cake.
Meanwhile, Alaina was talking about her plans for her baby, how she was setting up a nursery with her boyfriend in downtown Jacksonville. She was on leave from the mermaid troupe, but I got the feeling that she was going to move on to another career to be there for her small family. She was asking Jordyn a lot about how she liked nursing school, so maybe she was considering that.
My ears were itching to hear more One Direction as I listened to them talk. I wanted to slip back inside my iPhone and fall in love with Harry Styles all over again.
“Tell me about yourself, Abby,” Alaina said, turning her green eyes on me.
I blinked, taken aback. “Me?”
“I’m sure it was fun growing up with Jordyn as a big sister,” Alaina said, before she bit into her burger.
Oh, you have no idea.
“Jordyn was the favorite,” I said with a half-hearted laugh.
Across the table, Jordyn frowned and put down the French fry she was about to eat. “No I wasn’t.”
“Oh yeah you were,” I countered, rolling my eyes. “You were always the talented one.”
Jordyn narrowed her eyes as she glared at me. Alaina blinked, unsure of where this conversation was going.
To be honest, I didn’t know where it was going either. I didn’t know why I was being so surly right now, but I think it’s because I just wanted to be left alone at the house on a Saturday. Certain things about my life were irritating me. Mainly the fact that Jordyn could screw things up, but life always worked out for her. And here I was, working my butt off and the needle never seemed to tip.