He reached up in the golden candlelight and cupped her cheek. “You’re even more beautiful with these eyes,” he whispered. “You’re a walking heartbreak, you stunning woman.”
She held her breath as he drew her down, his breath fanning across her lips. He inhaled deeply, his chest touching hers, but he didn’t kiss her. Instead, he merely held her in place while he asked, “If this is a dream, then kiss me.”
Oh, how Elva wanted this to be a dream. The sadness in his voice was almost more than she could bear.
She leaned forward before she could rethink her decision. Pressing her lips against his was the answer to a question she’d had for years.
Yes, his mouth seemed to say she could have him. She could have all of him without the guilt, without the fear, without the ghosts in her ears telling her she’d never be good enough. And, damned, if it didn’t feel like he’d just healed a broken part of her soul.
His hands flexed against her back, then Donnacha pulled back enough to breathe. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”
“No.”
He stared into her eyes, smoothing aside a curl that had fallen in front of her face. “Listen to me, Elva. I need you to find me.”
She furrowed her brows. Find him? He was right here in her arms, and she was quite certain she knew exactly where he was.
“East of the sun and west of the moon,” he continued. “Remember that. Say it.”
“East of the sun, west of the moon.” It was an impossible place. There wasn’t a way to get in those directions.
“Good,” he said. “I’m so sorry you were pulled into this.”
And then, he disappeared.
She only had a moment to realize before she hit the bed. “What?” she cried out before the floor tilted. The ice itself heaved and opened a tunnel where the wall had been. Had the castle entirely turned on its side?
She couldn’t hold on and, with a scream, she slipped out of the bed, hit the ice, and slid down the tunnel.
Shards of ice tore at her skin and bedclothes. Elva covered her head with her arms, feeling them become slick with blood almost immediately as more and more shards sank into her flesh.
The wind blasted by her ears as she tumbled wildly from the castle, only to be tossed into the frigid air. She pinwheeled her arms, trying to turn her body before she struck, but to no avail.
Elva hit the snow hard, rolled through it, and settled in the cold. Breathing hard, she turned just in time to see the castle crumble. She did not have time to escape before the large chunks of ice and stone rained down upon her head.
13
Donnacha landed on his hands and knees. Hard stone met his body, sending a cracking pain to ricochet through joints. He’d be fine. They knew that or they wouldn’t have summoned him so quickly, but that didn’t mean he was happy about the treatment.
Her kiss still heated his lips. He wanted to touch them, but knew the Troll Queen would see the movement. Instead, he darted out his tongue to catch the lingering taste of her.
Ambrosia and caramel, he realized with a pleased grin. He’d never forget that was what she tasted like.
“Welcome, dwarf.” The Troll Queen’s voice boomed through what he assumed was her great hall. It wasn’t much of one.
He looked up, casting his gaze over the gray stones and the dingy interior. It looked as though it had never been cleaned. Piles of refuse were heaped in the corners, food slopped on the floor, and dirt that had been tracked in from the outside smeared the stones with brown. Or perhaps it was blood. The trolls were a rather brutal race.
The Troll Queen sat with her daughter in twin thrones at the head of the room. She was as thin in person as he remembered her with a skeletal body that appeared to be made out of stone. Hard eyes stared at him in disgust. Long nails tapped against the arms of her throne as if he was the one wasting her time.
The daughter, however, was just as awful as he remembered. Where the mother was made of stone, her daughter was made of bark. The Troll Princess was a horrid creature, wrinkled and brown with knots of color along her skin, making her appear mottled. Tusks rose up from her bottom jaw to nearly touch her cheeks, above which beady eyes stared at him in hunger.
“The dwarf!” the Troll Princess exclaimed. “Mother, did you bring me the dwarf?”
“I did, my sweet.” Her mother reached out to run a hand over her daughter’s head, three clumps of thin hair sticking to her fingers. “Isn’t he what you wanted?”
“He’s perfect.”
Donnacha tried to still the shiver that danced down his spine. He knew what the trolls wanted him for. They couldn’t procreate with each other. Somewhere in the troll inbreeding, they’d managed to doom themselves. Or at least, that was what the rest of the faeries thought.
Unfortunately, this meant they were now kidnapping other faeries and forcing them to help bring children into the world. This was rather hard when the kidnapped individual was male, but he was certain they had ways of getting around that.
The sneer on his face likely gave away his thoughts. “Troll Queen,” he muttered, getting up onto his feet and crossing his arms over his bare chest. “I’m afraid I don’t know why you summoned me. There is still time in my curse.”
A man had to try, didn’t he?
The Troll Queen saw right through his words. She smiled, all sharp teeth and pride. “You’ve lost, dwarf. You can give up the bravado now.”
“I haven’t lost yet. She’ll come for me.”
The Troll Princess tilted her head to the side. “She? Mother? Who is she?”
“No one you need to worry about, my pet.”
The look shot toward him might have lacerated his skin if the Queen had any
