The Seven Year King (The Faerie Ring #3) Read Free Page B

want revenge. This is war.’
    Tiki took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. The Stone of Tara had roared—she was the rightful Queen of the Seelie Court. Now she needed to claim her throne.

Chapter Four
     

    D ain stood among the shadows of the Great Hall, his hands shackled with iron, a rope cinched so tightly around his neck it was an effort to swallow. Pain radiated from his face and so many parts of his body from the beatings he’d received it was as though he’d been lit on fire. A guard stood nearby, his razor-sharp spear aimed at Dain’s back, waiting to pierce his heart if he made a threatening move.
    Before him, Donegal, the Winter King, sat on the golden Dragon Throne. The king watched the raucous celebration being played out among the UnSeelie Court with a furrowed brow and clenched jaw. Today was Beltane, the day the UnSeelies were obligated to return control of Faerie to the Seelies for the next six months. Donegal had murdered the previous Seelie king, O’Riagáin, and had planned to claim the Seelie throne as his own, in an attempt to rule all of Faerie—but the unexpected arrival of a new Seelie queen, confirmed by the cry of the Cloch na Teamhrach , had thwarted his plan. Now he was forced to concede the throne to the new queen today.
    Dain closed his swollen eyes and an image of the Seelie queen filled his head. Tara MacLochlan. An emotion he was afraid to name warmed his chest.
    His life had been a lonely one.
    Believing he was an only child, Dain had been told his mother, Breanna, had died in childbirth, leaving him with a weighty guilt he’d tried to escape by pretending he didn’t care—about anything or anyone. No one had spoken of his father, leading him to conclude the man had done something shameful that was best left buried and forgotten.
    He’d been a beautiful child and had grown into a handsome young man—his looks and sharp wit giving him confidence and charm. Many sought his favor, but there were none who he’d allowed himself to care about.
    Kieran, the old faerie who had raised him, had been kind and had tried to show Dain the love he craved, yet Kieran was a man of few words and had little experience in raising a child, especially one as smart and willful as Dain had been. Larkin had been a surprising ally in his younger years, but then she’d disappeared. It was only later that he’d learned she was risking her life as a spy in the UnSeelie Court.
    As Dain grew older he sensed Kieran had secrets, which slowly created an ever-widening gap between them. When he’d gathered the courage to ask, the old man had said the time wasn’t right yet to share what he knew.
    Then one day, without a word, Kieran had disappeared. Even now, the loss was like a sharp pain in Dain’s side, making his breath catch. The guilt that perhaps he hadn’t shown the old man how much he’d loved him, was ever-present, even now.
    He’d searched everywhere—had Kieran become ill? Been attacked? Taken prisoner by the UnSeelies? It was that quest that had given him the courage to become a spy—to risk his own life hiding among the UnSeelies, pretending to be one of them—in the hope of finding and saving the old man.
    But he’d been unsuccessful.
    He’d never known if Kieran had been taken against his will or if he’d simply become tired of caring for an unruly child and had decided to leave. The one fear Dain had never voiced out loud was that it had been something he had done—something that had made Kieran stop loving him—that had caused the old man to abandon him without a word.
    It was only in the last few months, upon Larkin’s dramatic escape from Donegal, that she’d revealed part of the truth—that Breanna had died giving birth to twins—that he had a brother who lived in London and that Dain himself was half mortal. She’d told him that his brother was equally unaware of their relationship, but had learned he had some connection to the world of Faerie.
    Dain’s curiosity