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  Fae's Rebellion

  Queens of the Fae: Book 7

  M. Lynn

  Melissa A. Craven

  Fae’s Rebellion © 2021 M. Lynn and Melissa A. Craven

  * * *

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Edited by Caitlin Haines

  Contents

  1. Tierney

  2. Tierney

  3. Tierney

  4. Tierney

  5. Tierney

  6. Tierney

  7. Tierney

  8. Tierney

  9. Tierney

  10. Tierney

  11. Tierney

  12. Keir

  13. Tierney

  14. Tierney

  15. Tierney

  16. Keir

  17. Tierney

  18. Keir

  19. Tierney

  20. Keir

  21. Tierney

  22. Keir

  23. Tierney

  24. Tierney

  25. Keir

  26. Tierney

  27. Tierney

  28. Keir

  29. Tierney

  30. Tierney

  Epilogue

  Fae’s Refuge

  About Melissa

  About M. Lynn

  Chapter 1

  Tierney

  Tierney O’Shea wished she was human.

  She wanted options. Freedom to make the kind of choices someone like her just didn’t get.

  Instead, she was a fae princess. An heir.

  Okay, so it wasn’t such a bad life. There were the parties. She loved those. And the copious amounts of food laid out at every meal. Tierney liked her food.

  Except tonight, she couldn’t stomach a single bite of the delicious roasted hen with her favorite crisped potatoes, spinach pies, and an assortment of cakes for dessert.

  “Why aren’t you eating, Tierney?” Her father’s voice was gruff, but there was an edge of softness to it. That really described who he was as a fae, as a king. Most fae thought he was all stern tones and icy glares, but she knew the difference. Which was why she couldn’t understand how he could be so uncaring as he played with his daughter’s life.

  “I seem to have lost my appetite, Father.” Tierney stared at the roasted fowl on her plate, as if it too had betrayed her.

  Her father released a long sigh. “You’re being unreasonable.”

  “Me?” Her voice rose an octave.

  “Here we go again,” Toby, her twin, muttered under his breath. He wasn’t turned off his food. No. Toby stuffed his face with all her favorites because he wasn’t the heir to Iskalt. He had no worries weighing him down.

  “Tierney.” Her father’s voice held a warning now. Lochlan O’Shea was not a man most fae trifled with, but his children were hardly most fae. His scowl would have sent anyone else running in the other direction. “You have duties to this kingdom, young lady.”

  “Duties,” she scoffed. “Yes, Father, I’ve been learning about my duties for twenty years.” Twenty years may have been an exaggeration. No one lectured babies on what it meant to rule a kingdom.

  “Do you care nothing for the traditions of this family?”

  “Traditions?” Her tone could get just as dangerous and cold as his. The two had matching tempers, and it tended to throw them into war with one another. She stood, tossing her serviette onto the table. “I think I’m finished for tonight.”

  Without looking back at her father, who was most likely seething, she strode from the huge dining hall. The royal family used to dine frequently with the court, but all that changed when her mother became queen. Now, only the family ate together in the great hall, reserving special occasions for dining with the rest of the court.

  The Iskalt palace had felt even colder than normal the past month with her mother away on a royal visit to Eldur. There was a time when Tierney and her father understood each other, a time when she thought he’d move on from his ridiculous ideas about her future.

  Eleven minutes. That was all that put her in this position.

  She’d been born eleven minutes before Toby, making her the heir to her father’s throne.

  Sconces lit the stone walls as she passed tapestries depicting battles of generations past. There were newer ones illustrating the evil Queen Regan of Fargelsi with a young Uncle Griff at her side. The next one showed the battle for Myrkur and the two fae children who brought down the prison realm.

  She stopped in front of that one, running her fingers over the soft threads, pausing on the face of the child she wasn’t sure was part of her anymore.

  “I miss you,” she whispered. That girl had been bold. She’d been brave. Fearless.

  But that was ten years ago, when she didn’t have enough sense to fear the world. Now, as an adult, she had complete control over her magic, but not over anything else in her life.

  “Seems like another lifetime, doesn’t it?” Toby stepped up to her side, his eyes lifting to the two figures standing before a shimmering wall of magic sewn into the tapestries.

  “Is Father angry?”

  Toby was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t …” He pushed out a breath. “I don’t think he wants to do this to you any more than you want it done. But Dad and tradition have never parted ways.”

  She turned on her heel and took off down the hall to the one place she could hide. “I don’t need you defending him.”

  Toby ran to catch up. “I’m not. It’s just … he’s trying to protect Iskalt.”

  She shoved through a door and stopped, turning to him. Around them, high cherry wood bookshelves rose all the way to the ceilings. It took a ladder to get to the very top, and she wondered how thick the layer of dust on those tomes would be. Very few fae entered the palace library these days.

  Except her.

  “Sometimes, I wish he’d protect his daughter.” That had always been the battle within her father. Kingdom or family. Most of the time, he found a way to do what was best for both. All her life, he’d done whatever he could for her, but this was new territory for both of them, and it wasn’t going well.

  Tierney slumped into a padded, brown leather chair, throwing one leg over a rounded arm. “I know, Toby. Don’t say it. I’m being a child.”

  Toby shrugged. “Well, I’m glad you can see your own faults.”

  She reached for the table beside the chair, where she’d left a stack of books, not caring which one she grabbed as she threw it at him. He ducked with a laugh.

  “It’s a good thing you’re a future queen. You never have to become an archer with an aim like that.”

  She groaned. “Thanks for the reminder.” Though, she was actually quite good with an arrow.

  “I live to serve.”

  No, that was what she did. But she smiled despite herself. Every time she argued with her father—and it was frequently these days—she could count on Toby to make her feel better.

  He slid into the chair next to her, sitting properly like a royal s
hould. But these tiny rebellions—slouching in a chair, eating too much food, dancing a bit too enthusiastically at balls—they were all she had to fight this stuffy world.

  She hadn’t realized the door to the library was still partially open until she heard someone yelling in the hallway. “Where are my little heathens?”

  Tierney shared a look with her brother, one that went from exasperation to excitement. They weren’t little anymore, but that voice … they’d missed it.

  They both jumped up from their chairs and dashed into the hall, jostling with each other to get to their mother first.

  Brea Robinson was the most popular fae in all of Iskalt. The kingdom adored her and made them like their father even more for having married her.

  “Mom.” Tierney slammed into her mother, using the human term. Much of their lives were influenced by their mother’s connection with the human realm. As Brea often said, you could take the fae out of the human realm, but you couldn’t take the human realm out of the fae.

  Brea was raised on a human farm, something that seemed exotic and exciting to Tierney.

  Toby always said it sounded terrifying to grow up there, but there was something so exotic about the idea of living among humans and the strange form of magic they called technology. They still visited the farm often, and those were Tierney’s favorite days, but they rarely ventured into the cities.

  Toby joined the group hug, and their mother’s long, dark hair spread over them as if it could shield them from the harsh realities of the world.

  A throat cleared, and Tierney lifted her head to find two men watching them. The first was her father. He had a folder grasped in one hand and conflict in his eyes.

  But the second… Toby broke away. “Logan.”

  Their mother laughed. “I stole him from Eldur for a visit.”

  Logan was the oldest Eldurian prince, and also Toby’s…

  “Can’t you guys go to Toby’s room or something?” Tierney shielded her eyes from their disgustingly adorable reunion, their kiss going on way too long.

  It had been at least a few weeks since anyone had kissed her, and that was weeks too long. Still, there wasn’t much behind those stolen kisses. Not like with Toby and Logan, who just belonged together.

  “Absolutely not,” Father said.

  Their mother shot him a look, and he went quiet, as usual. She turned to her son. “Go catch up.”

  The two boys practically sprinted down the hall.

  “Keep your door open!” she called after them.

  Tierney looked more closely at her mother. She was travel weary but happy. Dust from the road dulled her black riding trousers, as if she’d come directly from the stables.

  Father put an arm around her, giving her an adoring look.

  Tierney turned away, hating all the affection she was constantly surrounded by. Toby got to be in love, even her parents … yet she had to choose her future husband or wife from a pre-approved list.

  With a snort, she walked back into the library and shut the door.

  Her parents didn’t knock before they came in.

  “I see nothing has improved in the time I’ve been gone.” Her mother leaned against a shelf and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Tierney and her father avoided each other’s gazes.

  Her mother sighed. “You two are so similar in your stubbornness; it’s driving me absolutely bonkers.”

  Tierney glanced sideways and caught her father’s lips twitching. Even after more than twenty years in the fae realm, her mother hadn’t lost her human way of speaking.

  “It’s his fault.” Tierney threw herself into a chair.

  “I’m only trying to make this easier.” Her father perched on the arm of the other chair.

  “Easier? How is any of this easy? You want to choose my partner for me. It’s not fair.”

  “It’s how things have always been done for the heirs of Iskalt.”

  “Not for you.” She shot him a glare, daring him to contradict her. “You loved Mom when you married her.”

  “You forget, Tia, when I met your mother, I was a prince without a kingdom. No one would have called me the future king when my throne had been stolen. I was lucky to fall in love with a fae princess. After I fought for my throne, I couldn’t have kept it without your mother at my side. But even after all of that, if Brea had never come into my life, I too would have had to choose a partner from among fae royalty or the noble families of Iskalt. It just so happens that your royal peers are either related to you or are as close as your own siblings. Iskalt nobility is our only option.”

  “Nobility.” She rolled her eyes. “What does that even mean?”

  “It means they come from ancient lines—”

  She cut him off. “And these noble families … did they come to their rightful king’s aid when he wanted to take back the kingdom? Or were they too busy scraping and bowing to save their—”

  “Watch it.”

  She ignored him and continued. “No, it was the fae who marched with you. And yet, I’m not allowed to choose one of them.” If she could, she’d marry one of her friends from the village. At least then, she would know she could stand them.

  Or maybe Gulliver if he was of Iskalt. Too bad the court didn’t recognize him as such as the adopted son of Prince Griffin O’Shea. That would have made her choice much easier.

  Her father stood, pushing a hand through his hair, and gestured to his wife. “She’s your daughter.”

  Tierney’s mother smiled. “And, my dear douchey Loch, she also has a point.”

  “I know what douchey means now,” Tierney mumbled, trying not to pout. Pouting was definitely not for a twenty-year-old woman. “Uncle Myles told me.”

  Her father cursed Uncle Myles under his breath, and her mother laughed.

  “Well, Tia, your father knows how I feel about this whole selling my daughter to the highest bidder thing, but let’s see what he’s brought us, shall we?” She held her hand out for the folder. “Maybe we’ll find a gem among the swine.”

  He didn’t give it to her. “You’ve only just returned, Brea. You should rest. Go find the rest of the children. They’ve been begging me to tell them when you return.”

  Tierney rolled her eyes. She had way too many siblings now, but somehow, her mother made time for all of them while also helping to rule the kingdom and assist Aunt Alona with magic whenever Eldur was in need of it.

  Brea shook her head. “Tia is the one who needs me now. Rest can wait, and none of the others are about to be paraded around like a cow at the county fair.”

  His brow furrowed like it always did when he didn’t understand one of her human sayings. He’d long since stopped asking her to explain all of them.

  She took the folder from him. “Now, go, husband. Your services are no longer needed.”

  That made Tierney laugh. She loved her mother, loved being around her.

  He stood in stunned silence for a moment before turning and leaving the two women to their own devices.

  “Men.” Tierney’s mother shook her head. “Can’t live with them, can’t lock them in a prison world that no longer exists.”

  Tierney laughed so hard the corners of her eyes watered. “Sorry about that.”

  “Yes, it is becoming quite a problem that my children tore down the prison boundary and saved us all.” She sent her a wink and dropped into the chair beside her. “Now, shall we see what kind of fae your father thinks would make a good match for you? He’s never had the best taste in, well … anything, so I’m a bit scared.”

  Tierney leaned over the arm of her chair to get a look at the first page in the file. The name jumped out at her. “Calton Riley? Really?”

  “What’s wrong with Calton?” her mother asked. “The Riley family isn’t so bad. They’ve used their trade connections to import Eldur beans just so I can have something resembling coffee in the morning.”

  “Mom, I’m not marrying someone so you can keep having your strange, bitte
r drink. Can’t you just go buy coffee in the human realm?”

  “Well, yes, but that’s not the point.”

  “Then, do you have a point?”

  Her mother reached out and pinched her.

  “Ow, what was that for?”

  “You deserved it.”

  “You’re deranged, woman.”

  Her mother put a hand over her heart, her eyes glassing over.

  “What?”

  “You sounded almost human. I’m so proud.”

  Tierney rolled her eyes. “You get proud over the oddest things. Anyway, Calton has perpetually bad breath.”

  “And how would you know that, young lady?”

  Tierney’s face went hot. “Lucky guess.” In truth, Calton had been one of the few noble fae she’d ever given the time of day. Her mistake.

  Her mother flipped to the next page. “Aisling Murphy? Isn’t she the girl who followed you around for a fortnight a few years ago?”

  “Don’t remind me.” Tierney had become friends with Aisling when she was seeing the girl’s older sister, but it was Aisling who’d developed feelings for Tierney, not the older Murphy. She hadn’t taken it well when Tierney turned her down.

  On the next page was a name she knew well. “No, absolutely not.” Veren Rhatigan. “Mom, I can’t do this.” If these were her options … She stared at the thick pile of papers left to go through. Many of the noble children of Iskalt who were around her age.

  But Veren … he was the first fae to hurt her. She’d been sixteen and thought she was in love with him. It turned out he just wanted to be seen with the princess.