Furs fell over his shoulders and arms, two or three of them. He couldn’t untangle the heavy masses to guess how many she’d chucked at his head.
“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
