She leaned forward, nearly falling out of her chair before snapping out of it. The princess nearly threw herself at her mother. “Mommy! I want a wedding! Exactly the wedding he said. I want to be the most beautiful woman in all the land.”
The Troll Queen held her daughter in her arms and stared at him with malice in her gaze. She hated him. Of that, Donnacha was certain.
But she could deny her daughter nothing.
The Troll Queen held the princess against her skeletal chest and nodded at Donnacha. “Fine. If it’s a wedding you want, then it’s a wedding you will get. Until then, Donnacha of the dwarven clans, you shall stay in my daughter’s room with her, pleasing her every whim.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t, your majesty. Rules of a wedding forbid the groom see the bride the days before.”
The princess immediately pulled back and snarled at him. “I’ll see you beforehand, or there will be no wedding.”
“Then you must remain pure.” He hated the words rolling off his tongue. What was a pure woman? Was it possible for anyone to remain so, simply because no man had touched them? “Otherwise, the marriage is nothing more than an elaborate play.”
“I like plays,” the princess said with a huff.
“But the faerie courts do not.”
He had her there. He could see the moment when she agreed with him and decided she’d listen to all he had to say. It didn’t matter that he was lying through his teeth. He couldn’t lie with this woman who wanted little more than to rape him.
The first time he’d seen her, she had ordered a hundred doves so she could tear their heads off their bodies while alive. The second time he’d seen her, delivering jewelry his father had made, she had called on another troll to scrub her feet, then kicked the troll black and blue when it didn’t scrub hard enough.
He refused to entertain the whims of not only a childish person, but a cruel one at that.
The Troll Queen sneered at him then nodded to one of her guards. “You’ll stay in the dungeon then. Where bars can keep you two apart, but she’ll be able to see your pretty face whenever she wishes.”
“Oh, Mommy, thank you!”
14
“Why did the king want her anyway?”
“Well, I don’t know the answer to that any more than you do! Just keep your trap shut, and then our debt is paid.”
“I don’t think it’s right to be dragging a lady through the kingdom when she’s not even awake. What if he wants her for some nefarious deeds?”
Elva snapped awake as quickly as she’d been knocked out. She regulated her breathing, deepening it so the creatures around her wouldn’t realize she could hear them now. They didn’t need to fight just yet. She wanted to know what they were up to.
One of them jostled her head. “The king of the dwarves? He’s not likely to want her for anything other than questioning. The man is loyal to his people to a fault. She probably did something to hurt ’em.”
“Hurt them? Her? Look at her. She’s nothing more than a little slip of a girl.”
He was wrong about that. Elva knew she was a lot larger than she’d been in the bad old days when her frame had been much more feminine and not quite so muscular. He could have a pass for the comment, as long as they let her go the moment she opened her eyes.
The one to her left, the one with the higher pitched voice who wanted to sell her off like a prized horse, snorted. “Oh if the king of the dwarves wants her, she’s a lot more than some little slip of a girl. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was some kind of faerie royalty.”
“What, is he collecting those kinds of faeries now?”
“Just know he’s got a chip on his shoulder about the whole thing. Last time he saw one, they stole the legendary sword of Nuada.”
Ah, that would be Eamonn, the current king of the Seelie Court. He’d taken the sword back when he was fighting Elva’s ex-husband, his twin brother. The sword could control an entire battlefield with just a thought. It was rumored to control the minds of anyone around it. From what she’d heard of his battles, the sword could actually do that.
The other man to her right with a deep voice picked up her limp arm and waved it at the other creature. “How dare you? He’s a good man, and he wants to help people. That’s what he’s always told us.”
“And you believed him?”
“Of course, I believed him. He’s got no reason to lie.”
Gods, they were like an old married couple. Elva tried to sense where she was, but could only figure out that they’d placed her body on a cart. It shook down a dirt path while the wheels squeaked.
She cracked her eyes open just a bit. The man to the left was dressed in a red hat and a matching cape that fluttered around him. He walked next to the cart with a scowl on his remarkably grotesque face. He was round as a berry with light fur dusting his entire body. A tail wriggled behind him, prehensile and clearly agitated.
Damn. Far darrig.
They were the worst sort of faeries to deal with and known to be the most sluttish, slouching, jeering, mischievous phantoms. They were going to sell her off to the highest bidder, and she didn’t have a chance to argue for herself.
Not because she was going to stay silent. Elva had no intention of that. But because far darrig were far beyond reasoning with. They didn’t care about her or anyone else.
Opening her eyes completely, she jerked her hands from her lap. Tied. Damn it they’d thought of everything.
Of all the faeries the dwarven king could
