Curse of the Troll

by Emma Hamm

  The sneer on his face likely gave away his thoughts. “Troll Queen,” he muttered, getting up onto his feet and crossing his arms over his bare chest. “I’m afraid I don’t know why you summoned me. There is still time in my curse.”

  A man had to try, didn’t he?

  The Troll Queen saw right through his words. She smiled, all sharp teeth and pride. “You’ve lost, dwarf. You can give up the bravado now.”

  “I haven’t lost yet. She’ll come for me.”

  The Troll Princess tilted her head to the side. “She? Mother? Who is she?”

  “No one you need to worry about, my pet.”

  The look shot toward him might have lacerated his skin if the Queen had any magic left to her name. He knew transporting him from her magic-made castle would have depleted her of any power she had for a little while yet. He could toe the line if he wanted to.

  Donnacha grinned and stepped closer, watching the Princess’s eyes look him up and down as if he were something she wanted to feast upon. “She is a faerie princess who far outrivals you. The most beautiful woman to have ever walked this earth, and the strongest creature I’ve met in my life.”

  The Princess’s eyes darted toward her mother. “What does this have to do with me having him?”

  Before the Queen could reply, Donnacha interrupted. “Everything. It has everything to do with you and I, because I am well and truly hers already.”

  “Enough,” the Troll Queen snapped. “You are no one’s but mine. Wasn’t that the deal we made? You could try to survive my curse, but if you didn’t, then I own you body and soul.”

  “I didn’t make that deal. No one made that deal but you.”

  The Troll Queen shrugged. “Semantics. I cursed you. That means we have a deal whether you wanted to agree to one or not. And now you’re here.”

  “I won’t marry your daughter under any circumstances.”

  “You don’t have to marry her.” The Troll Queen began to laugh, and her daughter joined in. The booming noises lifted to the ceiling with the last of his hopes. “My dear Donnacha, I don’t want you anywhere near a throne. You aren’t marrying her at all. You just have to…satisfy her. Long enough for an heir to be born.”

  Gods, he didn’t want to think of that. No wedding, just a slave to a creature such as her.

  There had to be a way to stall. A way around this so that Elva could get here.

  Donnacha didn’t doubt she would come for him. She was too strong to let someone take something from her this easily.

  The Troll Kingdom was difficult to find, true, but she would manage. And when she arrived, he knew she would take action. In the meantime, he had to make certain he wasn’t completely broken when she did get here.

  Squaring his shoulders, he met the gaze of the Troll Princess. “You’re happy with this arrangement?”

  She nodded and wiggled her shoulders into the stone. For a second, he thought she was getting comfortable until he realized she was scratching her back.

  He shook his head, telling himself to get through this. He could distract them, and he didn’t intend on distracting them with his body. “Then you will forever be less important, less beautiful, and certainly less powerful than the woman who came before you.”

  That caught her attention. The Troll Princess sat up straight. “Why? I am clearly better than she could ever be.”

  Disgusting. He schooled his features into a smooth expression. “If you don’t marry me, Troll Princess, then you will only have claim to my body. What you want a claim to is my heart, so that long after you are done with me, your mark will linger. So I will be yours forever.”

  “Forever is an awfully long time,” she mused.

  “Forever is a gift of immortality, and by denying that, you are forever making yourself second best.”

  Perhaps it was cruel to bait her such as this. She was, in mind at least, just a child. The Troll Queen had never allowed her daughter to live her life. The princess was sheltered, spoiled, and downright mean. He hated taking advantage of someone like this. It wasn’t in his nature to use others.

  And yet, Donnacha realized he didn’t feel quite as bad as he should. The Troll Queen was finally getting a dose of her own medicine. And it felt really, really good.

  He met her angered glare head on. No longer would she use fear to make him do what she wanted. Donnacha had been bound in chains for so many years, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be free. She wasn’t going to like this new version of him.

  The Queen reached out and took her daughter’s hand. “Now, dear, don’t fret. You don’t have to marry a man to control him completely and utterly.”

  “I don’t?”

  “Of course not. He’s already our little slave to toy with as we wish. What he wants doesn’t matter. What you want matters.” The queen stroked her daughter’s face, running a long-nailed finger from forehead to jaw. “My beautiful little girl.”

  Gods, he didn’t even like being in the same room with them. They made him sick. Or maybe that was the smell of the rotting food in the corner. Either way, he didn’t want to linger here longer than he had to. Which meant he had to finish what he’d started.

  “Sure,” he said, raising a brow, “listen to your mother. But I think any young, remarkable woman such as yourself should have a wedding.”

  “What’s that?” the princess asked, turning skeptical eyes to her mother.

  Ah, so the princess didn’t exactly trust the queen. Not surprising since most trolls ate their young, at least a few. The queen only had the one child. No one else had fathered a sibling with her, and he couldn’t blame the princess for not trusting her mother. He could play off the tension between them.

  Donnacha lifted a hand. “Only the most extravagant ball a faerie could throw. In the courts, weddings are planned for years. The bride will wear a gown of white gossamer, so beautiful it makes the crowd cry. The groom is dressed in a suit that fits the bride’s request, and then he places a ring on her finger more lovingly than the stars in the sky.”

  Poetry seemed to work on the creature in front of him. The princess’s eyes glazed over as she imagined the tale he painted. He had a feeling she was more interested in the crowd adoring her than the rest of it, but he knew how to captivate an audience when he wanted to.

  “And the dwarves…” He stepped forward, forcing her gaze back to him. “We sing a wedding song that is more beautiful than any other, a song from the soul, pledging ourselves to the woman we love.”

  She leaned forward, nearly falling out of her chair before snapping out of it. The princess nearly threw herself at her mother. “Mommy! I want a wedding! Exactly the wedding he said. I want to be the most beautiful woman in all the land.”

  The Troll Queen held her daughter in her arms and stared at him with malice in her gaze. She hated him. Of that, Donnacha was certain.

  But she could deny her daughter nothing.

  The Troll Queen held the princess against her skeletal chest and nodded at Donnacha. “Fine. If it’s a wedding you want, then it’s a wedding you will get. Until then, Donnacha of the dwarven clans, you shall stay in my daughter’s room with her, pleasing her every whim.”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t, your majesty. Rules of a wedding forbid the groom see the bride the days before.”

  The princess immediately pulled back and snarled at him. “I’ll see you beforehand, or there will be no wedding.”

  “Then you must remain pure.” He hated the words rolling off his tongue. What was a pure woman? Was it possible for anyone to remain so, simply because no man had touched them? “Otherwise, the marriage is nothing more than an elaborate play.”

  “I like plays,” the princess said with a huff.

  “But the faerie courts do not.”

  He had her there. He could see the moment when she agreed with him and decided she’d listen to all he had to say. It didn’t matter that he was lying through his teeth. He couldn’t lie with this woman wh
o wanted little more than to rape him.

  The first time he’d seen her, she had ordered a hundred doves so she could tear their heads off their bodies while alive. The second time he’d seen her, delivering jewelry his father had made, she had called on another troll to scrub her feet, then kicked the troll black and blue when it didn’t scrub hard enough.

  He refused to entertain the whims of not only a childish person, but a cruel one at that.

  The Troll Queen sneered at him then nodded to one of her guards. “You’ll stay in the dungeon then. Where bars can keep you two apart, but she’ll be able to see your pretty face whenever she wishes.”

  “Oh, Mommy, thank you!”

  14

  “Why did the king want her anyway?”

  “Well, I don’t know the answer to that any more than you do! Just keep your trap shut, and then our debt is paid.”

  “I don’t think it’s right to be dragging a lady through the kingdom when she’s not even awake. What if he wants her for some nefarious deeds?”

  Elva snapped awake as quickly as she’d been knocked out. She regulated her breathing, deepening it so the creatures around her wouldn’t realize she could hear them now. They didn’t need to fight just yet. She wanted to know what they were up to.

  One of them jostled her head. “The king of the dwarves? He’s not likely to want her for anything other than questioning. The man is loyal to his people to a fault. She probably did something to hurt ’em.”

  “Hurt them? Her? Look at her. She’s nothing more than a little slip of a girl.”

  He was wrong about that. Elva knew she was a lot larger than she’d been in the bad old days when her frame had been much more feminine and not quite so muscular. He could have a pass for the comment, as long as they let her go the moment she opened her eyes.

  The one to her left, the one with the higher pitched voice who wanted to sell her off like a prized horse, snorted. “Oh if the king of the dwarves wants her, she’s a lot more than some little slip of a girl. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was some kind of faerie royalty.”

  “What, is he collecting those kinds of faeries now?”

  “Just know he’s got a chip on his shoulder about the whole thing. Last time he saw one, they stole the legendary sword of Nuada.”

  Ah, that would be Eamonn, the current king of the Seelie Court. He’d taken the sword back when he was fighting Elva’s ex-husband, his twin brother. The sword could control an entire battlefield with just a thought. It was rumored to control the minds of anyone around it. From what she’d heard of his battles, the sword could actually do that.

  The other man to her right with a deep voice picked up her limp arm and waved it at the other creature. “How dare you? He’s a good man, and he wants to help people. That’s what he’s always told us.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Of course, I believed him. He’s got no reason to lie.”

  Gods, they were like an old married couple. Elva tried to sense where she was, but could only figure out that they’d placed her body on a cart. It shook down a dirt path while the wheels squeaked.

  She cracked her eyes open just a bit. The man to the left was dressed in a red hat and a matching cape that fluttered around him. He walked next to the cart with a scowl on his remarkably grotesque face. He was round as a berry with light fur dusting his entire body. A tail wriggled behind him, prehensile and clearly agitated.

  Damn. Far darrig.

  They were the worst sort of faeries to deal with and known to be the most sluttish, slouching, jeering, mischievous phantoms. They were going to sell her off to the highest bidder, and she didn’t have a chance to argue for herself.

  Not because she was going to stay silent. Elva had no intention of that. But because far darrig were far beyond reasoning with. They didn’t care about her or anyone else.

  Opening her eyes completely, she jerked her hands from her lap. Tied. Damn it they’d thought of everything.

  Of all the faeries the dwarven king could have sent after her, he had to send the smart ones. Wandering faeries knew how to capture others. They had no allegiance to any court and thus were completely untouchable by any threats of a court reprimand.

  Angrily, she snarled at the one with the deeper voice. “I’m going to tear out every hair on your body,” she threatened. “One by one until you regret ever taking me.”

  He held up his hand, the long snout at the end of his face twitching with laughter. “Oh, I’m terrified. Just get out of those ropes first, love, would you?”

  She wasn’t happy, and she intended to make good on those threats the moment they untied her. And they would have to untie her to fulfil their promise. The dwarven king wouldn’t want her lying down on a cart.

  Elva tugged at the ropes again. “Where are we?”

  “The Otherworld.”

  Well, at least she was home. Elva stared up at the trees with leaves shaped like stars and realized how much she hated this land. The Otherworld had become a place where she’d been turned into something other than herself. Something pretty and proper who was expected to simper and follow orders.

  No more. She wasn’t that woman, and she didn’t have to be if she didn’t want to be. Unless, of course, her mother got her claws back into her.

  She couldn’t stay here long.

  Lying flat, she blew out a breath. “Release me, and I’ll double whatever he’s paying you.”

  The one on the left chuckled. “Little girl, I don’t think you could really afford us.”

  “My mother is known as the Duchess of Light in the courts. Perhaps you’ve heard of her and my father? Illumin is his name. He can do almost anything you want him to.”

  The far darrig leaned over her until his whiskers touched her cheek. “Can he get our brother away from the dwarven king? Oh, and maybe convince Angus that it’s a bad idea to go to war with the wandering faeries? Maybe also give us a royal pardon for sneaking into the cellars of the Seelie King and stealing almost every sword he had just to see whether or not he still had the sword of Nuada?”

  She stared into his beady eyes and felt her mouth twist in disgust. “No.”

  “Then I think we’re at an impasse, princess.” He patted her cheek. “But it’s good to know you’re worth money for when the dwarven king is done with you. Maybe we’ll take you back and ransom you to dear ol’ Mummy and Daddy.”

  Gods, she hated wandering fae. They were usually weak creatures who were cast out of their courts, unless they were these creatures. Related yet again to the leprechaun, far darrig were creatures without laws.

  Why was she meeting so many creatures related to leprechauns lately?

  “Shut up,” she snarled.

  “Gladly. I didn’t want to talk to you anyway. You’re boring.”

  The rest of the trip was passed in silence other than the sounds of Elva twisting the ropes around her wrists. She wanted to get out, to be able to save herself. However, these creatures really did know what they were doing. They’d tied her so successfully, she wasn’t sure she could have gotten out of these ties with days at her disposal.

  Thankfully, the journey wasn’t days long. Just as the sun was setting on the horizon, the far darrig stopped the cart, clicked their heels together, and slapped their foreheads with their hands.

  When they remained completely still, she sighed. “What are you doing?”

  “Hush, the king approaches.”

  “Care to tell me why you’re holding your foreheads then?”

  The hissed response made even less sense. “It shows respect! You should do the same, faerie princess.”

  Elva didn’t have it in her to try and explain that, first of all, they shouldn’t be holding their foreheads. Their hands should be at an angle to their skull, a salute. And second of all, her hands were still tied.

  A voice interrupted them, the age-old sound of a mountain groaning. She hadn’t ever heard a voice so deep or so filled with pleasure. “Thank you, far d
arrig. You’ve done a wonderful job. I shall offer you my services as repayment.”

  “A job well done indeed, your majesty. You asked for the woman, and we supplied her.”

  “Supplied” was a harsh word. They’d taken her from the rubble of the castle when she’d fallen beneath it. But sure, they could take credit for destroying an entire magical building created by the creature who had cursed Donnacha.

  Elva ground her teeth and stared up at the first stars poking through the sky. Rolling her lips between her teeth, she tried to wipe away her expression that clearly conveyed she was fed up. Done. She didn’t want to be around faeries ever again.

  Crunching footsteps approached her.

  She wasn’t going to look. It didn’t matter if the far darrig wanted to say goodbye to her or if it was the dwarven king himself. They could all go suck an elf for all she cared.

  A face blocked out the stars from her sight. Angus, the king of the dwarves, was very much as she remembered. She’d only met him once at a ball when his people were still part of the Seelie court, but he was just as handsome. His beard had speckles of gray, but his vivid blue eyes were still as pretty as before. Now, she saw something familiar in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the dimples on his cheeks.

  “Hello, Elva,” he said. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  “I thought I’d go for a stroll. Lovely night for a walk.”

  “Little hard to walk with your hands tied.”

  She looked down at her wrists. “Oh this? New fashion statement. It’s all the rage in the courts, but you wouldn’t know that, would you?”

  “Ah, I thank the stars every day I don’t.” He nodded at her wrists as well. “Shall I?”

  “I’d be ever so grateful,” she said sarcastically.

  Angus reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife. The dim light of the moon reflected off the sharp edge. She’d seen dwarven-made blades like this before. They could cut through anything. Literally, anything.

  Once, she’d seen another faerie use it on three-foot thick stone. The blade had cut through it like butter and left a seared edge glowing red.