He wished he could say her body was at least mildly attractive, but it wasn’t. She looked like a skeletal mix between a wraith and a banshee. Too thin for health, but somehow still clinging to life.
She wore nothing more than a white gown. It hung from her frame like someone had forgotten a coat on a hanger, and it had aged beyond recognition. Although, she didn’t care what she looked like. The Troll Queen cared for nothing other than her own daughter, a creature even more monstrous than she was.
Her smile split wider as she watched his disgusted reaction. “You aren’t happy to see me, dwarven noble? I’m insulted.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want you to believe for even a moment I was pleased to see you.”
“Oh, little dwarf. Are you angry at me?”
“Of course, I’m angry at you. It’s a permanent state of being,” Donnacha growled in response.
She knew this already, but liked to poke at him. Quite literally poking the bear. She wanted to see him angry, and she wanted to know he was suffering in this life she’d created for him. This prison made of glorious ice and stone.
If Donnacha could have killed her, he would have. But the Troll Queen was smarter than to let that happen, something he couldn’t say for her daughter. While the offspring was dumb and slow, the mother knew how to work a curse. She’d never let either of them get close enough for him to touch. Always a barrier of glass stood between them.
He lifted a lip in anger. “What do you want?”
“You met with the warrior women?”
“I did. You already know this, Queen.”
She lifted a hand and touched her hair. The straw strands shifted under her touch as she moved a single one back into place. It was so brittle it rattled when she touched it. “Were they angry at you? Did they threaten to kill you like I thought they would?”
“If I die, the curse is broken.”
“I wouldn’t let you die. I have bigger plans for you, Donnacha. You know that. So? Did they threaten you?”
He dug his claws into the ice. “Is that what your plan was? Do you desire some reason to end them? To attack them?”
“I have no interest in mortal women.”
“Then why ask me to bring one here?”
She looked down at her nails, holding them in front of her as if admiring the ragged ends. “I didn’t ask you to bring a mortal woman here. I asked you bring one with hair like sunlight, whose anger rivals the sun itself. A warrior woman better than all the mortal women in that camp.”
“They’re all mortal women.”
“Except one.” The Troll Queen laughed. “You already saw her, didn’t you? I doubt you could miss the pretty thing.”
Was she talking about the woman who had cleaved the head from the strawman? He couldn’t imagine what she’d want with a woman like that. The warrior was nothing more than mortal. He would have known if she was a dwarf, and she was too tall besides.
His mind stalled out when he realized what she was hinting at. “Did you have me bargain for a Seelie Fae to come here?”
The laughter bubbling out of the Troll Queen’s mouth was almost pretty if he didn’t know what it meant. “Of course, I did! Isn’t that entertaining?”
Oh, gods. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs seized up in horror at what she’d had him do, and his heart started beating so quickly he thought it might rattle out of his chest. A Seelie Fae? She’d had him make a bargain for a Seelie Fae?
He knew what that meant. Faeries weren’t kind, especially those of the royal line. They wouldn’t let something like that go unnoticed. They would hunt him down. Destroy everything he was, his family, his lineage. Donnacha would be wiped from this realm so thoroughly no one would even remember his name.
He looked at the mirror in horror and croaked, “What have you done?”
“I made certain you will never be able to renounce my daughter. The trolls are the only ones who can save you now, dwarf. You might as well accept defeat and come live with us. Otherwise, the faeries will hunt you down.”
“You’ve signed my life away to the courts,” he growled.
“All you have to do is marry my daughter, and you’ll be safe.”
No! He didn’t want to marry her daughter. He wanted nothing to do with the beastly creature who would make his life hell. But the choice had been stripped from his hands now that his family was involved.
The faerie courts didn’t care about him. They didn’t care about his family. They only cared about a deal gone bad, and that meant he was going to need to do something about this.
He had to beg the faerie woman not to seek retribution. He would have to return to the camp on his hands and knees, praying she would see reason when he explained what had happened—the Troll Queen was the one who had made him ask for her. He didn’t care if she came to this ice castle and changed her life to help him.
Donnacha opened his mouth to say this to the Queen, only to be interrupted.
“Dwarf, do you really think I don’t know where you mind will travel? Do you think for even a second I don’t know how that brain of yours works? You aren’t allowed to leave the castle grounds for the next year. That is the deal. You wanted to go and seek something that would help break the curse, didn’t you?”
She’d completely ruined any chance of fixing this. He slumped, sitting on the cold ice his head hanging. “She can’t come here. They will follow her.”
“I doubt a little Seelie Fae will come all the way to Fuar Bheinn just for you. And if she does, then she’ll run very quickly.” The Troll Queen clapped her hands gleefully. “Oh, Donnacha!
