by Emma Hamm
“You’ll keep me up with that infernal shivering,” she snarled, pulling more of them over herself. “Stop it.”
The grin on his face spread wider. “I can’t help it if I’m cold.”
“Then get out.”
“Can’t do that either.” He folded the furs around himself more tightly, reveling in the feel of them against his fingertips. Had fur ever felt this soft? He could only remember it as a distant item in a life he’d thought long gone.
Warm, he crossed his legs and placed his hands on his knees. Perhaps in this form Donnacha could remember more of his life. He’d spend the night reliving what it meant to be human. Knowing what his family had felt like in the moments when they had sang into the darkest parts of the earth, coaxing gold from between the stones.
Just as his mind settled, he heard her quiet words.
“Did you mean what you said, earlier?”
“About the people who hurt you?”
She didn’t reply, but she didn’t need to. Donnacha knew what she was asking for. He didn’t try to touch her, didn’t move at all. Instead, he inhaled slow and deep. “Our parents forgot to teach us that monsters don’t just live in darkness and under our beds,” he said quietly. “Sometimes they live in the minds and hearts of people. Those are the dangerous ones. The real things we should fear.”
The mattress beneath him trembled. “And if they say they love you?”
Gods, she made his heart hurt. “If they love you truly, they will love the waves and the calm seas. They will love the sunlight and the storms. A person who only loves parts of you doesn’t love you at all. And if they could harm any inch of your body, then they didn’t love the whole of you.”
“That’s what I thought,” she murmured.
He listened to her shift, rolling over and turning her back to him. This strange woman was more than just a warrior sent to watch him. She was broken, fractured along the edges of who she should be. Just a bit, but more than any other warrior would have admitted.
Donnacha waited until her breathing evened out before he allowed himself to truly stare at her. To watch the outline of her ribs expand and the way her golden hair turned silver in the moonlight.
Who had hurt her? And why did that suddenly seem far more important than breaking any curse?
7
Elva held the blade over her head, muscles burning, lungs working in overdrive. It was a good kind of hurt. The kind of ache that meant she was alive, she was well, and that she was capable of fighting still.
She’d found the small garden hidden in the center of the castle. It wasn’t much, just a natural hot spring and a small patch of green. But there wasn’t any ice here, and that meant she could take off the straps of nails and actually walk as she was used to.
Of all the things to get on her nerves here, she hadn’t expected it to be the cold.
Steam rose in the air from the spring. It coiled in lazy wisps that tangled around her legs when she got too close. The heat was welcome, the touch was…not.
She slashed down hard with the sword, battling an invisible enemy. The man who had appeared in her bedroom three nights in a row was bothering her. How could he not? His words were haunting in their effect.
Men should have their hands removed if they touched a woman unwillingly? Of course, she agreed. She’d wanted to chop off their heads as well, but how many people had admitted such a thing to her?
He had arrived each night nearly at the same time. And each night, he sat at the foot of her bed.
Elva knew he waited until he thought she was asleep to continue with his strange routine. At first, she’d thought he was there to haunt her as some kind of mythical creature who would crawl into her dreams and make her see things that weren’t there. Or perhaps he was going to take advantage of her the moment she let her guard down.
He hadn’t done either. Instead, he appeared to meditate. He crossed his legs, braced his elbows on his knees, and then…sat. For hours without moving. Almost like a statue or some kind of strange gargoyle who had decided she needed protecting.
She whirled, light bouncing off the blade as she dipped low and shoved the sword up. If there had been a person standing in front of her, she would have gutted them. A pity there wasn’t. Elva could use a fight to blow off some of this steam.
She didn’t understand the man who had made it quite clear he had no interest in bothering her. Yet, he was in her room every single night.
Was he really some kind of guard? The clurichaun had said she shouldn’t leave her room at night. Strange things, the creature had said. What did that mean? Were there spirits who haunted the castle, or was it the bear she had to worry about?
Not that Elva was really all that worried about the furred creature. He hadn’t appeared in quite some time. In fact, she hadn’t seen him since the first day she’d arrived.
Yet another odd happening in this place. If he’d asked for her specifically, said she was the only one who had to travel to his castle, then why would he ignore her once she was there?
There were too many questions and not nearly enough answers. She didn’t know which way was up anymore. But she’d be damned if she would wait much longer for an explanation. The next time she saw the bear, she was going to demand he give her…something. Anything.
Like he knew what she was thinking, the heavy sound of paws interrupted her thoughts. Elva blew a strand of hair out of her face and waited for the bear to arrive. He always seemed to know where she was in the castle. She didn’t want to think about how that was possible.
As she swung the sword through the air, the bear padded into view. His nails clicked on the ice hallway that opened up to the small garden at the center of the castle. Then, she couldn’t hear him walking at all.
For such a large beast, he was rather quiet. She wondered if that was how he’d managed to sneak up on Scáthach and her warrior women. Not a single one of them had realized he’d arrived until he was waltzing into their home like he owned the place.
Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” she commented, holding her position until her arms burned.
“I’ve been busy.”
“Doing what?” Elva carefully drew her sword down, the movement slow, no longer pretending to fight. Instead, this would build her arm strength for the time when she did have to fight. “If there’s no one else in the castle, then I doubt you have many lordly things to do.”
The bear chuffed out a breath and paused next to a blueberry bush that was, somehow, laden with berries. “Lordly? I’m not that.”
“I didn’t call you a lord. I said the things you’d have to do were lordly.” A small grunt escaped her as her arms began to shake. “And considering you’re not doing them…”
“You’re rather prickly. You know that?”
Of course, she was. She had to be. After all the things Elva had gone through, all the people who had tried to take advantage of her… She couldn’t count the reasons for her not to trust just anyone who walked into her life. There were too many of them.
She spun, whirling and tossing the sword from hand to hand. When she stopped, she lifted the blade above her head again and pointed it at him. “Give me a reason to not be prickly.”
It almost seemed as though he smiled. “I have no interest in changing you, faerie woman. What did you say your name was again?’
He must be saying that to get a rise out of her, but damned if it didn’t work. Sweaty, tired, and now growing angry, she let the blade drop. “You don’t even remember my name?”
“I haven’t had a reason to. Like you said, we haven’t talked in a while.”
“Elva,” she snarled. “The woman who you insisted come to the castle and get stuck in this frigid place for some unnamed reason. Were you just lonely?”
When he shrugged, she grew even more infuriated. Did the creature not care that he’d ripped her out of her life? That he’d somehow managed to convince the most powerful warrior in
the known world to just give her up like she was nothing, no more important than all the other women in the camp?
The sword shouldn’t touch the ground. It wasn’t her sword or even her weapon of choice, but Scáthach would have words for her if she didn’t keep the blade well-oiled and sharp. Elva held it away from the ground and made her way to the small stone benched tucked into the bushes near him. She’d sharpen it, clean the whole thing if she had to, but she was getting answers out of this beast now.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“You may call me what I am.”
“Bear?”
“It’s as good a name as any.”
Elva slumped onto the bench, reached underneath it for her small pack, and rummaged through it for the oil and cloth she always carried. “It’s a terrible name to call someone.”
“Would you prefer to make up a name for me?’
“If that’s what it takes.” She looked him up and down. “You look like a…Liam maybe.”
“Liam?” He huffed out a breath and laid down next to the bush. “Hardly.”
“So you do have a name.” Elva hadn’t been wrong. There was more to this beast than simply the form he had taken.
She looked over the blade in her hands. She hadn’t let it touch anything else, so it didn’t necessarily need the oil. However, she preferred to make certain it was done right. If not for Scáthach, then for herself. The repetitive motion cleared her mind.
“I had a name. It’s not one I use any longer.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“There’s no use for it when there’s no one here to call me by name.”
Elva grumbled, then poured oil onto the cloth in her hands. “Are you certain of that?”
The bear shifted. His head reared back, and he tilted it to the side, eyeing her. “Quite certain there is only me and you.”
Oil slicked the blade of her sword. She scrubbed a particularly difficult tarnished spot, one that had been there since she’d had the blade but still annoyed her all the same. “And if I said I’d already met two other people who lived here? Besides yourself and now me.”
“Two?” the bear repeated. “That’s not possible.”
Elva let the silence stretch between them. The bear was chuffing out heavy breaths, but she wanted to focus on the sword. Or at least, make him think she was focusing on the sword. Internally, she was trying to plan the right way to say the next words to him. She’d enjoyed the perks of having wine in her room every night since it made sleeping here a little easier and she didn’t want to give up the clurichaun just yet.
“Why does it seem you’re more surprised that there are two, and not that someone else lives here?” she asked quietly.
“I’m surprised someone has slipped under my nose.”
She didn’t think that was it at all. Staring at him, hoping she could see past the guard of fur and dark eyes, Elva shook her head. “No, I don’t think it’s that. You know there’s a man appearing in my room every night, don’t you?”
His jaw gaped open, revealing sharp, dagger-like fangs. The bear struggled with his words for a few moments before he hung his head. “I was aware.”
“And you allowed it to continue? Or did you know it was going to happen before I was here and didn’t think to warn me?”
“I had no idea…he would show up,” the bear grumbled.
She arched a brow. “Then if you know of him, who is he?”
The bear shook himself. “He’s a traveler, you could say. Someone who is now tied to the castle and cannot leave its grounds.”
“A traveler,” she repeated. Somehow, it didn’t seem likely the man was anything of what the bear claimed him to be. He was far too…odd. Too different and far too talkative for him to be anything other than a faerie. She just didn’t know what kind he was.
“Why are you asking?” the bear inquired. “It seems you have an interest in him.”
“An interest in the man who arrives in my bedroom each night uninvited? Yes, I do. I’d like to know whether or not I need to slit his throat in his sleep.”
“Has he fallen asleep? Seems unlike him.”
She narrowed her eyes at the bear. “I don’t need someone to be unaware to kill them.”
It didn’t escape her notice that the beast knew the man didn’t sleep while he was in her room. How would the bear know that unless he was speaking with the human man? Or unless he was the man himself?
Curses didn’t come and go like that. They couldn’t be removed at will except by the original curse giver, and this certainly wasn’t some kind of shapeshifter. He didn’t have the acrid scent of magic that always followed shapeshifters. Instead, she could smell the musty wetness clinging to his fur. He smelled remarkably like a bear.
She’d have to sniff the man when he came into her bedroom next time. That should give her enough of a hint. Changing shapes couldn’t hide that smell.
Again, he chuffed. He wasn’t trying to catch his breath since he was lying down. He certainly didn’t seem angered by anything she said, and he hadn’t moved suddenly. She realized that must be the sound of the bear laughing.
He was laughing at her? Or with her? At the thought that she would kill someone who had wandered into her bedroom without permission?
She glared at him.
The bear shook his head at her and bared his teeth. “Rest easy, Elva of the fae. I know courage runs in your veins instead of blood and that you would roar at the sky if it offended you. I will not tempt your blade any more than I would set myself on fire.”
“You?” she asked. “Or the man in my room?”
His gaze canted back to the ground.
“Ah,” she said, looking back at her sword. “You can’t speak about anything that pertains to your curse, can you?”
The bear did not reply.
“I’ll say it now then. I think you are cursed by one of my own kind. I thought you were a human male at first, but now I think you’re one of the many faerie species. And I think that you are the man who enters my room each night, although I cannot hazard a guess why the curse is lifted at night. Is any of that correct?”
He looked up at her then. “You know I can’t answer.”
There had to be a way around the curse. She’d never seen one before that didn’t have loopholes, and she intended to find one in this. Elva thought for a few moments, then licked her lips. “Can you tell me the name of the man who shares my bed?”
For a moment, the bear looked like he wasn’t going to respond to her. Then, he opened his mouth and said, “Donnacha.” His eyes widened in shock.
“Even that has been taken from you, hasn’t it?” she asked. “The ability to introduce yourself like a person.”
“I am not the man who enters your room at night,” he replied.
“No,” she said with a grin, “you aren’t.”
She’d solved a portion of the dilemma. He couldn’t talk about himself, but he could talk about the other version of himself, it seemed. That was a start. She’d have to ask the bear questions about the man and the man questions about the curse.
This was all rather convoluted.
Elva put her weight into cleaning the blade, trying to distract herself. There wasn’t a reason for him to be cursed. Not that she had seen yet. This man was as complicated to understand as the curse that bound him, but he wasn’t bad. In fact, she’d argue he might be the only good man she’d ever met.
No, that wouldn’t do. She couldn’t think like that when she’d been hurt so many times. He was going to do the same as everyone else did. Whether that was intentional or not, it didn’t matter. Getting close to someone was just an excuse for them to hurt her when they left. And they always did.
She swallowed hard. How could she pull back from this? She shouldn’t have smiled at him. He would take that as something it wasn’t. As an admission he could get closer to her.
Would he use that in bed tonight? Would he try to slither closer to her? To t
uck himself under the covers? Then she’d have to force him to move away. What if he didn’t?
Her throat closed up at the mere thought. She knew how to protect herself in so many ways, but she’d never been able to stop him when she hadn’t wanted to be touched, loved, even thought of. And that was partially her own fault. She’d never told Fionn to stop. She’d never told him she didn’t want to sleep with him, she didn’t want to marry him, and she wanted him to treat her better.
But how could she when her throat had closed up? He’d just wanted her to love him. He was the king of the Seelie court, why couldn’t she love him?
The bear cleared his throat, the sound more growl than anything else. “You’re doing that wrong.”
She looked down at the blade in her lap. “Doing what wrong?”
“You’re putting too much oil on it. You’ll ruin the sharpness if you keep doing that.”
What was he talking about? No matter how deeply she was lost in her own thoughts, she never made a mistake like that. Elva turned the blade over in her lap, then looked up at him with furrowed brows. “I was trained by the most talented of faerie swordsmiths. I’m not cleaning this blade wrong.”
“And I—” He shook his head and corrected himself, “Donnacha was trained by the greatest dwarven swordsmiths. Trust me when I say you’re doing that wrong.”
She snorted. “Faerie swords are known throughout the land as the best swords ever made.”
“And I think you’ll find even the Fae admit that dwarves are better weaponsmiths.” His eyes glittered with laughter. “As much as you like to argue, I don’t think you can win that one.”
Her jaw dropped open as she realized he was right. She couldn’t argue with him about that because the dwarves were the ones who knew how to make the most impressive blades. On top of that, he’d managed to pull her out of a very dark train of thought. All without her realizing it until the anxiety in her mind loosened and she was back, sitting on a bench with a sword in her lap, looking at the bear who had laid his head on his paws and stared up at her with dark eyes.
“Just because I can’t win that argument doesn’t mean I’m not going to try,” she grumbled.