Undeniable (The Druids Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

just as the door to the flat open.
    “Get your butt out here or you’ll get nothing but crust. I’m starved.” The Changeling shouted.
    “Be right there.” Peyton stepped into the shower, claimed a liberal sprinkle of water over his person, and then shut off the water before he stepped back out. With a fresh towel around his hips, and another one scrubbing through his hair, he emerged with a lazy stroll. The open pizza box adorned the coffee table, along with a couple of bottles of Guinness. Peyton snagged a slice of pizza on the way to his bedroom. With his mouth full, he called back to the Changeling. “No mushrooms next time.”
    “Then next time you get it yourself.” Deacon propped his foot on the coffee table, not too close to the food, and switched the station to a rugby game.
    Surely, Deacon didn’t intend to hound his every step for eternity. Peyton hoped this as he dressed, the door to the bedroom a quarter of the way open to keep an ear on Deacon as much as to keep him from getting suspicious. Not that the Changeling needed much of an excuse for that. It wasn’t like Peyton gave him a lot of reason to trust him. Their history spanned a lot of deception and backstabbing, as well as reluctantly working together, and it looked like that wasn’t going to change any time soon. It’d been that way when they’d worked for the wizards, and it was that way again under Credne, only the roles between him and the Changeling had reversed.
    Karma, Deacon had called it. And he wasn’t kidding.
    Frenemies wasn’t a good way to describe their dysfunctional association, but nothing else seemed to fit better. Screwing each other over and periodically trying to kill each other aside, he’d known Deacon longer even than London, and most of his history with the wizards tangled with Deacon’s time with them. And to be fair, Deacon was probably right. Getting Peyton cursed by a Sidhe was almost poetic in its justice.
    But cursed or not, he wasn’t out of this game, yet. Even if it was a game not so much about winning as surviving.
    Dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and a gray pullover with the sleeves pushed up, Peyton returned to the main room of his flat. Only half-listening to the game, he set himself up with another slice of the pizza, a Guinness, and his laptop. Time to hit the research. “Was that image of the bowl accurate?”
    “It’s a cauldron, mate. Get it right.” Deacon slumped in the sofa when the other team scored. “Oh, come on! They should have got that!”
    Accessing the hidden partition on the hard drive, Peyton checked the files from the last time he hacked the wizards’ corporate server and backed up everything he could get his sticky fingers into. Escaping the wizards had always been his hope, and his plan. When London put the opportunity in front of him, he’d barely hesitated long enough to be certain she had the skills to pull it off. Even figuring that she fell a little short, Peyton knew he could tip the balance either way, and he’d opted to end his conscription to them.
    Sure, it had benefited the fey, but that hadn’t been his reason.
    Benefiting the fey wasn’t his reason now, either.
    Peyton tipped the bottle back as he considered the files before him, then pulled up the search function. Credne thought the wizards made off with the cauldron. If they had, there would be a record of it, including photos.
    Finding the image didn’t take long. Credne had gotten it right, down to the filigree of the design. Even with mundane photography and bad lighting, the beauty of the fey treasure stunned the eye. It was the details of the chain of possession log, which the wizards had been as meticulous in keeping as they were distrustful of each other, that had him slumping back in his seat with a thoughtful frown.
    The wizards had possessed the cauldron alright. And it had been in the safe in the Brightner Building when it came crashing to the ground.
    Just bloody perfect.

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