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
