Faery Tales: Six Novellas of Magic and Adventure (Faery Worlds Book 3) Read online

  FAERY TALES

  Six Novellas of Magic and Adventure

  Six separate novellas from six bestselling authors, packed with faerie magic and adventure. Enter these fantastical realms where dark powers lurk and the ordinary world can be transformed in a heartbeat to a place full of mystery and treacherous enchantment.

  Faery Tales multi-author bundle copyright 2015. Published by Fiddlehead Press. Individual stories copyright 2015 by the respective authors. Licensed for your use only – please do not copy, share, or upload. Support indie authors!

  All rights reserved. Any resemblence to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Want more multi-author bundles filled with fae magic, romance, and adventure? Scoop these enchanting collections up for only .99 cents!

  FAERY WORLDS

  FAERY REALMS

  ~FAERY TALES TABLE OF CONTENTS~

  THE MORRIGAN – Phaedra Weldon

  Irish folklore student Tam Kirkpatrick finds himself the focus of dark Faery forces intent on stealing his shillelagh. The catch is—Tam never knew he had one, let alone that he was the son of a Leprechaun. Now he must find his shillelagh and claim his heritage, before it’s too late.

  THE SWAY – Amy Patrick

  A member of the Dark Court, Vancia has spent her life among humans—together but separate, hiding in plain sight. Now Pappa says it’s time to put her glamour to use against the unsuspecting humans and worse, agree to an arranged political marriage with the reclusive Light Elven prince.

  HOW TO BABYSIT A CHANGELING - Anthea Sharp

  When a mortal boy is exchanged for a hideous faerie creature, Marny Fanalua steps up to help her friends in their battle against the Dark Court.

  *NOTE * The events in this novella occur simultaneously with Feyland: The Twilight Kingdom. Reading the complete Feyland Trilogy first is recommended if you are not a fan of spoilers.

  FAELEAHN – Jenna Elizabeth Johnson

  Meghan and Cade are ready to pledge their souls to one another in a traditional bonding ceremony of Eile. While sharing their news with friends, the faelah bounty hunter and the princess of Erintara grow even closer as their love is reflected back to them by those they hold most dear.

  *NOTE* The events in this novella take place after the conclusion of Luathara, the third book in the Otherworld Trilogy. If you wish to avoid spoilers, you might want to read the first three Otherworld books (Faelorehn, Dolmarehn and Luathara) before reading.

  ARRANGED – Julia Crane

  Magick’s been restored on earth but it comes at a crippling price. With the planet on the brink of destruction, an unlikely pair must work together to try to bridge together a lifetime of hatred. Will their forbidden romance bring their worlds together or tear them apart?

  WITHOUT ARMOR – Alexia Purdy

  The Unseelie are up to no good…

  My name is Benton, and I hunt the darkest of creatures in existence.

  Especially when they get unruly and try to invade my home, the human realm.

  Betrayal, broken hearts and uncharted magic…I never saw it coming.

  ~FAERY TALES CONTENTS~

  THE MORRIGAN

  THE SWAY

  HOW TO BABYSIT A CHANGELING

  FAELEAHN

  ARRANGED

  WITHOUT ARMOR

  Table of Contents

  FAERY TALES

  THE MORRIGAN

  THE SWAY

  HOW TO BABYSIT A CHANGELING

  FAELEAHN

  ARRANGED

  WITHOUT ARMOR

  THE MORRIGAN

  OAK & ASH & THORN

  Copyright © 2015 by Phaedra Weldon

  All rights reserved.

  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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design © 2015 by Damonza.com.

  Thank you for purchasing and reading The Morrigan. It would be greatly appreciated if you could take a moment and leave an honest review of this novel within the guidelines of your favorite retailer.

  QUALITY CONTROL: If you find typos or formatting problems, please contact [email protected] so they may be corrected.

  If you want to be notified when Phaedra's next novel is released and get free stories and occasional other goodies, please sign up for her mailing list by going to: http://tinyurl.com/n4vrpwc

  One

  Oh crap.

  That was the thought running through Tam's mind as he watched the group of thugs form a threatening circle around him. It was after midnight, and he'd just left a drumming circle inside one of the dormitories at Harvard Yard. Since he didn't live on campus and it'd started out as a nice spring day in Cambridge, Tam had decided to forgo his Harley and walk the grounds.

  Bad mistake.

  Some of the other folklore students, like himself, had filled him in on some attacks on campus, all suspected to have been from the same group of guys in matching black hoodies and carrying pipes. And not the kind to make music with. The victims had survived, but all had ended up in the hospital.

  "You should be really careful, Tam," Janet Bostwick said before he left as they packed their drums.

  "Why me? Do I look like a victim?"

  Harold Jamerson, a psychic student, but Irish folklore enthusiast, had chimed in. "You look like the other victims. Five in all and they all had your general look."

  My general look? "They're attacking short, dark haired guys with funny names?"

  "Same build, same hair and face shape." Janet had nodded.

  "I have a look?" The serious expressions on Harold and Janet's faces came back to him as he stared down what he suspected was the same hooded gang. The single light from the building behind him wasn't strong enough to break through the shadows created by their hoods. They'd picked the perfect place to surround him, less than a mile from his house. Didn't accidents always happen less than a mile from one's house?

  Tam wasn't totally defenseless. He had a backpack full of library tomes, all of them weighing a hefty amount. He also had his bodhrán's hard case, something he was now happy he'd paid more money for instead of the soft case. At the time, he'd felt anxiety for spending so much, but given the bodhrán had belonged to his mom, he’d do anything to protect it.

  With the backpack and case on his shoulders, and dressed in a thigh-length peacoat that would constrict his movements, Tam held up his hands. "Hey…look, guys. I got nothing of value."

  "You think it's him this time?" the tallest one to Tam's right said. The guy's voice surprised Tam. It was gravelly and deep. Not usually the tone of a college kid's voice. Unless these weren't college kids.

  "So what if it ain't? We're to keep looking till we find him, and then take it from him." This voice came from Tam's left, from a medium-height hoodie. The voice had the same graveled timber. What is up with these guys? They smoke too many cigarettes?

  "I'm bet'n it's in that case. That's where he keeps it."

  Oh hell no. Tam turned his body so the case was furthest away. "There's nothing in the case of value." He surprised himself when his voice didn't shake, though the same bravado that kept his timber even wasn't talking to his knocking knees.

  Adrenaline pumped furiously into his system. Everything he'd learned in defense classes told him this would end in a fight. He had to be ready. Of course, he'd paid more
attention to his Irish step dancing classes lately, mostly because of a particular young woman. He doubted he'd be able to dance his way out of this.

  "So why you protect'n it, huh?" Still another voice, graveled and with a slight accent that sounded vaguely Irish, but it'd been polluted with something else. Tam knew what a purer accent sounded like because of his own family and their ties to Ireland. He couldn't tell which of the dark hoods spoke.

  "Let's do it quick," the first one said, and to Tam's horror, pulled a metal pipe out of his jacket.

  They all pulled metal pipes from their jackets.

  Janet and Harold said the victims were beaten with hard, blunt objects. One of the victims remained on life support.

  "Look…guys…I really don't have anything of value. You don't have to beat the crap out of me."

  "Oh, yes we do," the smaller one said. "We have orders to kill after we relieve you of the prize."

  Kill? He narrowed his eyes. "You left the other victims alive."

  "'Cause they weren't what we was look'n for."

  "They didn't have the prize?" Tam shifted his feet into position for one of two options. Fight or flee. What they did next would determine which he chose.

  "No. But we're pretty sure you do." The smaller one slapped his pipe into his other hand. "So, we can do this easy. You give us the case and we kill you fast, or we take the case and kill you slow."

  "What's the prize?" He figured it was a lot to ask, but now curiosity had its grip on him. That was something all the Kirkpatricks in his family had. An abundance of curiosity.

  "The shill—" the smaller one started to say, that is, before the one next to him knocked him in the face with his pipe. The smaller one flipped in the air and rolled into the empty road.

  Tam took that moment to make his move. It was the diversion he'd hoped for. One thing he could do well, besides playing his bodhrán, was run. Fast. He wasn't a tall man, standing at five foot seven without shoes, but he was lean and he kept in shape. It was something his step dad instilled in him when he was younger, after his mother ran out on them. "Keep healthy, keep fit, and one day your body will be your greatest asset."

  Now it was time to validate that advice.

  He heard their yells and the following pounding of their feet on concrete as they came after him. Tam pumped his arms and legs hard as he retraced his steps toward campus, the backpack and case beating against his sides and back. If he could get them to follow him back to Harvard Yard, then the campus police would see them, and maybe even arrest them.

  He heard metal slide against concrete seconds before one of their pipes tangled in his feet. Pain lanced up his right leg as the pipe cracked his ankle. He went down with some speed behind him, and forced himself into a roll to make the impact less painful. Tam wasn't sure if that worked or not, because the agony in his ankle overrode every other rational thought he had. He also felt the burn on his exposed skin, especially his left cheek, where he scraped it against the concrete.

  The group descended upon him before he could get back up on his feet. They shoved him over on his side, holding his arms and legs, as they wrenched his backpack and case from his shoulders. One of them struck him repeatedly in the stomach with a pipe. The pain caught his breath, so he couldn't get in enough air to cry for help.

  Through the pain-induced fog, he heard their voices, as well as the sound of ripping vinyl and the cracking of the case around his bodhrán.

  "It's just a drum!"

  "Don't be break'n it, Tolen." That was the voice of the tallest one. "That might be it. They can shape shift."

  "Och," another said. "Is it him?"

  "Check him."

  Tam fought back as they attempted to strip off his coat and t-shirt. He wrenched his left arm, his playing arm, free and delivered a hard right cross into the hood of the closest one. He let Tam go and fell back as Tam clenched his jaw at the bone-shattering pain in his fist. What the hell? Was that guy wearing some kind of iron mask?

  Even with one down, there were still four more. He managed to kick one of them holding his legs just before a pipe struck the side of his head. The sound rang in his ears and slowed his reflexes. The pain didn't feel right. Tam had been hit in the head plenty of times in his life, scrapping with friends, at the dojo, and even with his sword master, but never had the impact caused such a warp in his sense of reality.

  He no longer had control of his body as they finished removing his coat and shirt, though he did react to the cold temperature. It might be March, but it was still cold at night in Massachusetts.

  "Look at his arm!"

  "It's the mark, you see it? This is him!"

  Mark? My arm? Does he mean my tattoo? He had a Celtic knot tattoo around his upper left arm. How was that a mark? And more importantly, a mark for what? Certainly not a gang, unless there were secret Irish gangs. In fact so secret, they hid their tats? Tam tried to speak but his words slurred, and his vision just wasn't working right. For starters, when he looked up at the one holding his bodhrán, the tallest one, he thought he saw…

  No…it wasn't possible. The guy's hood was back and his head… I've got brain damage. That's it. They knocked my brain against my skull, 'cause that guy looks like a troll. A big, horn-wearing, tusk-sprouting troll.

  "Boys, we found our prize. Put the torque on him and bring the van around."

  Torque?

  His question was answered when someone put something cold and burning around his neck. His body went limp and his thoughts spiraled into a dark, confusing place. He could see and feel, but he wasn't in control. He heard squealing brakes, felt himself being lifted over someone's shoulder like a sack of potatoes and then dumped onto a cold, metallic floor.

  The tall one with the troll head spoke. "Clean up the street. Don't leave any trace. And send a crow to the Morrigan. We have the Unseelie Prince."

  ***

  Tam's next waking thoughts were something he wanted to put back where he got them. They hurt. Bad. And he shook. Cold seeped in through his skin and made his bones brittle. Nothing prepared him for this.

  They'd hung him from his wrists in what looked, and smelled, like a basement. His feet were bound at the ankles with chains, and only his toes, if he pointed them, brushed the floor. A few bulbs hung from the ceiling, illuminating the room. Tam still couldn't speak or really control his movements. Just small things like making sure his head rested against his arms and didn't drop forward so the only things he saw were his feet and the floor, and pointing his toes. A dull ache plagued the muscles along his shoulders and neck as he swayed.

  His body was little more than a connect the dots of bruises and cuts where they'd taken turns striking him with their pipes. And with each hit the pain intensified. So much so that the impact of the hit wasn't what hurt, but the touch of the pipe against his bare skin.

  His ankle burned where the pipe had damaged it. Missing a month of step dancing was the least of his worries.

  They'd left him alone again, for a while. But he knew their questions would start again. Where was it? How do you make it shift? We'll end your pain if you just give us the secret. Tam hated that if he knew what it was they were after, he'd have given it to them long before it got to this point. He was little more than an isolated island in an ocean of pain.

  If he moved the right way, he could see his attackers huddled over the contents of his backpack and the drum. They treated the bodhrán as if it were gold.

  What frightened Tam the most wasn't death so much as what he kept seeing as the instrument of his demise. He thought when he came to again he'd see them as people. Just regular people out beating up on college kids. But when they all removed their hoods, they all looked like trolls.

  They varied, from the size of their tusks to the size of their horns. Some horns curled back to meet their pointed ears, while others stuck straight up before they sloped backward. Their features were different. He'd had long enough to look into their faces and memorize them. Their skin tones were di
fferent shades of gray. Just…slate gray.

  I'm hallucinating. I'm dying. And my mind wants me to think I was killed by mythical creatures from fantasies so I won't be so upset to die at twenty-two. That's it. That's gotta be it. Because if this is real…

  The big one, called Magnus, moved from the table and strolled over to Tam. He made sure Tam could see his face. "I'll admit. You've held up longer than the others. But we know it's you, Tam Lin. You can see us for what we are, and only the Unseelie can do that."

  Tam hadn't been able to talk the entire time, not with the torque around his neck. He simply stared, mute, and waited for the blows to start. He tensed when Magnus reached out to him, but he didn't strike.

  The troll took off the torque, and as he pulled it away, Tam could see what it looked like. He'd seen them before, in museums and at the local Renaissance Faire now and then. A semicircle of metal, carved like the heads of two dragons with the same tail, facing each other.

  That simple half-circle of iron is what kept me helpless?

  Not that removing it did him any favors. The volume of pain increased by a thousand, and he moaned before he could stop himself. It was odd to hear his voice again.

  "The torque dulls the pain as well as your wits. It's what keeps the Unseelie in line. You have one more chance to tell me where it is, Tam Lin."

  Tam took in several deep breaths and used that opportunity to look around. He took in more of his surroundings. He was pretty sure they were in a basement, he just didn't know where. And he didn't know if the stairs on his right led up to a house or a business. And if he were at all successful at getting out, where would he go? He was pretty sure the ankle had swollen and wasn't useable.