He hadn’t come back for her. When the queen had finally melted Siobhan’s prison away, she’d been furious. She’d ranted and raved and made sure Siobhan knew: her little brother wasn’t coming. He was three days late and Siobhan was at the Winter Queen’s mercy.
The queen had said Bosco was still alive so that meant one of two things: either her little brother was in deep trouble—again—or he didn’t care enough about his big sister to come to her rescue.
And she didn’t believe that, no matter what the queen had said. Either way she would find out. And either way, she owed the queen a debt. A debt filled with the weight of the blood price of either a brother’s love or a brother’s life.
She took off the heavy gold necklace and left it on the bedside table. Feeling cold without its purring heat, she pulled on her clothes, one piece at a time. Her suede breeches felt softer than she remembered. Her shirt smelled like a crisp winter’s day, fresh and clean. Her boots had been polished and the laces had been replaced with brand new sinew. Even her vest, embroidered with love by her mother in bright red and green threads on the white, seemed brighter and more vibrant. She traced the intricate pattern of frost flowers, tears welling up in her eyes.
A hundred years lost. What must her mother and father think? What had happened in her village? Had the queen taken vengeance for the theft of her latest toy?
Siobhan sank down onto the bed, holding the vest in her hands.
What had she done? Saved Bosco only to expose an entire village to the evil of the Winter Queen? And what would happen to her now, sworn to a dragon with a reputation for scouring the countryside for maidens to devour?
“I’ve heated some soup for you.”
It all seemed so normal, but it wasn’t. There were no windows in the large room and she was being nursemaided by a man who looked like he should be breaking ice for a living. For such a big man, he moved with feline grace through the clutter, setting a tray on the small round table in the corner with two chairs that seemed to be the only uncovered surface.
“Thank you.” She quickly put on her vest, leaving her jacket on top of her knapsack, walked over and sat down in one of the chairs. There was only one bowl of soup and one spoon. “Aren’t you eating?”
“It’s all for you. We need to get your strength up.” At her concerned look he added, “I ate earlier, don’t worry. I’m taking you on the tour after this and I don’t want you collapsing on me.”
She spooned up deer meat, vegetables, and broth, letting the hot broth warm her insides. “Mmm, this is delicious. Did you make it?”
“Let’s just say I had it flown in.” He smiled at her and she warmed even more. He had nice teeth, clean and white, and very sharp.
She swallowed. “Atavantador brought this. For me? But why?” Why would the dragon, who’d made it clear that she wasn’t his responsibility, go to all that trouble?
“Dragons are actually very lazy and it was easier to fly to the nearest village than to let you starve. We don’t actually have much of a kitchen here, just a cold storage where I keep a few things.”
“No kitchen?”
“There’s one in the palace proper, but it would have to be cleaned out. It’s, um, rather a mess at the moment. The last occupants were goblins. And besides, it’s a pretty far trek to get there.”
“Palace?” There was only one palace near her village, the Winter Palace. She shivered. “Where are we?”
“We are tucked away under the mountain of Cairngloss.”
She stopped eating. “Cairngloss? That’s leagues away from the Winter Palace across the Giant’s Shoulders.” They must have traveled for hours and hours to get here, flown over the wide mountain range and the Forest of Pines. And she didn’t remember any of it. She looked around the room with more knowledgeable eyes.
Cairngloss had been built thousands of years before by the Galatian gnomes, dug out of the insides of a massive mountain in the middle of the Forest of Pines. And abandoned long before she’d been born. “My people avoid this place. It has a—” she caught herself and substituted “—a reputation.”
“It wouldn’t be about a certain dragon, would it?”
“Yes. Among other things.” The heat of a blush crept up her neck. “It’s also supposed to be haunted.”
“It is, but the ghosts are all in the main palace. Nothing will bother us here. Even ghosts leave dragons alone.” He stood up. “Finished?”
She looked down at her empty bowl in surprise. “I ate that fast.” She felt a lot less wobbly, the warm energy of the soup filling the hollow place in her stomach. Amazing what a little food and sleep, and being warm and dry, would do for you. “It’s been so long since I’d eaten, I think I’d forgotten I was hungry.” She smiled at him and he smiled back.
Warmth zinged along her nerves and she ducked her gaze away from the strange intensity of his eyes. “Thank you,” she managed to say. “I was really out of it.”
“A hundred years of hibernation will have that effect. I once hibernated for over two hundred and fifty and when I woke up, I ate an entire herd of cattle.” He winked.
“Really?” She laughed. He was funny and charming, and she had that odd feeling again that she’d talked to him before. “A whole herd? Not sure where you’d put all that food.”
What he was doing serving the dragon was anyone’s guess. She looked closer at him. With all that muscle under his hunter’s garb of light shirt and vest, he was much bigger than any of the Tuathan. He could be Fir Bolg, but she thought he was too tall for that. Not that she’d ever met one. There weren’t too many of them left, just a few down in the Black Forest far to the south.
“You’ll see. You think you’re full now, but we’ll take the tour and give that soup a chance to fill your bones, then I bet you’ll want your own cow. Or maybe two.” He stood and offered her his hand. “I recommend a jacket. There’s no heat and Cairngloss is entirely underground. Now, I’ve told you my name. You should tell me yours.”
“Siobhan.” She reached out, taking his hand. “My name is Siobhan.”
He took her fingers in his and bowed over them, brushing his lips across the tips. Heat rushed along her skin from the tips of her fingers all the way to her cheeks.
She tugged her fingers back, resisting the urge to rub the tingle on her skin away. “Do...do I know you?” She knew she’d remember if she’d ever met anyone with eyes like his, but somehow she kept feeling a sense of déjà-vu, and she wasn’t sure if it was a good thing—or a dangerous one.
He smiled, as if holding a particularly good secret. “No, Siobhan, you don’t know me. Yet.”
She grabbed her jacket, put it on and fastened each toggle, feeling like she was donning a coat of armor against his easy familiarity. She glanced at her knapsack and sword. She hesitated and gave him a quick look. She didn’t know him, and much as nice as he was being to her, she didn’t trust him. In the icy world she’d grown up in, smooth pretty surfaces were likely to be death traps.
He followed her gaze. “You can take them if you like, but you’ll be perfectly safe with me. And we are coming back.” He waited patiently by the door as if her decision didn’t affect him and he had all the time in the world.