The bear cleared his throat, the sound more growl than anything else. “You’re doing that wrong.”
She looked down at the blade in her lap. “Doing what wrong?”
“You’re putting too much oil on it. You’ll ruin the sharpness if you keep doing that.”
What was he talking about? No matter how deeply she was lost in her own thoughts, she never made a mistake like that. Elva turned the blade over in her lap, then looked up at him with furrowed brows. “I was trained by the most talented of faerie swordsmiths. I’m not cleaning this blade wrong.”
“And I—” He shook his head and corrected himself, “Donnacha was trained by the greatest dwarven swordsmiths. Trust me when I say you’re doing that wrong.”
She snorted. “Faerie swords are known throughout the land as the best swords ever made.”
“And I think you’ll find even the Fae admit that dwarves are better weaponsmiths.” His eyes glittered with laughter. “As much as you like to argue, I don’t think you can win that one.”
Her jaw dropped open as she realized he was right. She couldn’t argue with him about that because the dwarves were the ones who knew how to make the most impressive blades. On top of that, he’d managed to pull her out of a very dark train of thought. All without her realizing it until the anxiety in her mind loosened and she was back, sitting on a bench with a sword in her lap, looking at the bear who had laid his head on his paws and stared up at her with dark eyes.
“Just because I can’t win that argument doesn’t mean I’m not going to try,” she grumbled.
“Argue away mistress of the fae. I like the sound of your voice.” He growled, showing his teeth in an exaggerated fashion that made her duck her head to hide a smile. “You get all snarly, like you’re intimidating.”
“I am intimidating.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think you’re a very brave woman, courageous even, but I don’t think you’re intimidating.”
How many men had said that to her in her life? Elva was too pretty, too smart, too strong. Too much of so many things that it made people run. But it wasn’t fair to complain about something like that when she had everything and nothing at all.
Elva bit her lip and looked back at the sword in her lap, tilting it enough so he could see it. “All right then. If you’re such a scholar, what’s the right way to clean this?”
8
Donnacha pressed his hand against her door, then leaned his forehead against the worn wood. He didn’t want to go in there yet another night and force her to be in his presence.
She didn’t want him there. That was clear as day. How many times were they going to have to do this?
A year. Three hundred and sixty five times was the deal, and each one was getting harder and harder to do.
He played back their conversation about swords and was startled to realize how much he liked her. At first, he’d thought she was nothing more than a simple warrior woman who had found her way to the Isle of Skye for revenge. There were plenty of women there for the same reason, so why should she be any different?
But then she’d figured out his curse. She’d realized a loophole even he hadn’t thought to try, and she hadn’t really even done anything. The way she spoke to him…
Donnacha sighed and backed away from the door. She’d talked to him like he was a man, not a bear. Like he was someone worth taking the time and effort to understand. To learn about who he was. Why he was kind, why he cared about what she thought.
Why he cared to help her clean a sword the right way.
He didn’t have the answers to those questions. He wasn’t even supposed to be talking with one of the Tuatha de Danann. The dwarves were a solitary folk. If he wasn’t cursed, then he would have already been married to a cute little woman with a beard. They would have had children by now, a hole in the ground all for their own, and he’d likely be working in the mines during the day.
It would have been a quaint life, and it didn’t include a tall, leggy, beautiful blonde.
She still hadn’t explained who she was. Donnacha didn’t blame her for that. He’d already guessed her story was one that would anger him. She was too beautiful to be ignored in the Seelie court, which meant he likely was going to want to kill the faeries even more than he already did.
Who would hurt her, anyway? He couldn’t imagine someone wanting to harm her when the sunlight bounced off her hair like it was spun gold.
And it wasn’t all about her looks, although he was dazzled by them often. She was such a fierce woman, more so even than the dwarves. Elva knew what she wanted and took it. But there was something else hidden in her that he tried to dig out. She was a question in his mind that he wanted an answer to. A brave, strange question that boiled down to why she was so standoffish but also so kind under that rough exterior.
The curse tightened at his stomach, pulling him toward a kingdom he wanted nothing to do with. He didn’t want to end up in the troll kingdom. He didn’t want to hurt Elva any more than he already had. It was a conundrum he knew would take a few more months at best to figure out, but that didn’t make it any better.
Blowing out a breath, he pushed at the door.
She had gotten used to his visits each night. The castle had accommodated their needs, creating a small seating area in the corner made of ice. Elva had taken a few of the bed furs and created cushions for them to sit on.
As she had been for
