Her laughter rang in his ears. He stared at the floor, horrified that he’d fallen under her spell yet again.
He had thought the curse could be broken. Hope had bloomed in his chest, and that emotion was more dangerous than rage or wrath could ever be. He’d thought… Gods, he’d thought he could do something more than just be stuck in this body as a bear with a Troll Princess as his intended bride.
His life wasn’t anything like he’d imagined. As a boy, he’d thought mining was his future. That someday he would take his father’s place and create beautiful instruments made of gold and silver ore. He’d thought life would be more than just disgust at himself, at the creatures who had cursed him, at the future barreling toward him with nothing to stop it.
“Come now, Donnacha, you’ll insult me. My daughter is the greatest creature to ever live, and you are the one who is going to marry her. Be a little happier, or I’ll find it an insult.”
He couldn’t be happy. How could he be happy when he knew a troll would await him in the marriage bed? That he’d have to…
Donnacha gagged.
The Troll Queen snapped at him, her mouth opening wider than should be possible and sharpened teeth flashing. “Careful, dwarf. You might anger me.”
A flash of magic filled the room, and then the Troll Queen was gone. The mirror reflected only his own dejected stance.
What was he going to do? The faerie woman wasn’t going to come here, of all places. She didn’t even know why he had summoned her here. And she never would because he couldn’t say a single word about how he’d turned into a bear or why this castle had appeared out of thin air.
He should give up now and go with the trolls. Yet something in him refused to relent so easily. He couldn’t, not yet.
Donnacha had to put his faith in a faerie noble. He huffed out a breath, stood, and made his way to his own room. There wasn’t a single fiber in him that believed she’d come here. Why would she?
Faeries didn’t care about anyone other than themselves.
5
Elva brushed a branch away from her face, snarling as it tangled in her hair. Go to the bear’s home, Scáthach had ordered. Find him, watch him, learn if he’s the dangerous creature they all seem to think he is. And if he was? Kill him.
Right. Just kill the bear.
That was supposed to be the hardest part of this mission. Not journeying through the forest with all the faerie creatures trying to distract her. Not the trees that snarled in her hair and clothes, nor the branches that tried to rip her hair from the root. And it certainly wasn’t supposed to be her own frustration, telling her to get out of the forest now and let the humans deal with their own messes.
She grunted as another branch smacked her in the face. “Fine, that’s it.”
Elva drew her blade and started hacking at everything that stood in her way. The trees were supposed to be honored, sure. Their roots were deep in the ground, and they’d struggled to survive for years. If they wanted to stand on their own, then they shouldn’t have been hitting her. Every strike made her feel better, anyways. The chip on her shoulder had only grown.
She was a damned faerie princess, or had been. Why had she been the one forced to go? There were plenty of other warrior women who could have done this. They were human, besides. They would have been a better choice to save one of their own. Not the faerie woman who didn’t like humans that much.
Elva tolerated them. Humans were foolish creatures through and through, and she thought them rather pitiful. They needed guidance more than they needed help, but that didn’t mean she wanted to save the lot of them. And the bear had to be human. No faerie would have let himself get so foolishly cursed. Faerie royals were cursed by politicians who moved to take thrones with complex rules and years of study required. Shapeshifting curses were far too easy.
Tree limbs snapped in front of her, nearly hiding the sound of laughter on the wind. The last thing she needed was another faerie seeing her struggle. They’d likely run back to the courts to tell them Elva was on the loose again.
Not that anyone would come for her. She’d made it very clear that no one was to disturb her on this journey in finding herself. Even her mother had been afraid the last time they’d gotten into a screaming match. With all the changes that had happened, killing her own mother didn’t seem like such a stretch. She’d told the woman that to her face.
Elva still savored the memory of her mother’s face whitening in fear. After all that had happened, she wasn’t surprised her mother believed her. This was the same woman who had pushed her into perfection. The same woman who had sent her sister away to the human realm to be a changeling because she was a little different. Because the Raven King wanted Aisling for his own. Instead of protecting her own child, their parents had discarded her like dirty laundry.
Enough was enough. She wanted nothing to do with the faerie courts or their back-stabbing ways. Elva was a new person. She would live with the humans if that was what it took, but she was done making deals with other faeries.
The giggles started up again, and another branch whacked her in the face.
“Let me warn you,” she said, letting the wind carry her words, “I have no interest in speaking with others of our kind. If you try to tempt me off the path, I will not follow. If you try to sway me, I will not listen.”
The giggles continued, almost as if the faerie
