If Delilah was being honest with herself, she was just waiting for it all to end.
This was the final straw. She was done. Her father was right. She felt like she was nothing more than pitiful, useless and worthless, as he always declared when he got into one of his moods. All that strength and will to fight for her freedom had blown out like a flickering candle flame with no oxygen to keep it ablaze.
Drawing breath as if it were her final one, she finally came to terms with her situation. And before she could lose her nerve, she peered over her knees to make her final request.
“All I ask is for you to be gentle.”
The creature stood in silence with his arms crossed over his chest and his honey lemon eyes focused only on her. As if he could hear the erratic beating in her chest, his thick brows furrowed deeper.
Was that bewilderment she saw in his expression?
It was hard to tell in the dark, when shadows lined his face and every other surface was so far back in the cave.
Nerves crawled from the inside of her stomach and outward, enticing her to bite her nails. What was he waiting for? Did he want her to scream like Mathias and Roy had? Was he hoping she’d beg for mercy?
Delilah had zero energy to scream, or any desire to beg. She was far too past that.
Unraveling her hands from her knees, she wiped the remaining tears from her eyes and sat up. “Well, go on then,” she urged with a slight wince when her words came out harsher than she’d intended.
If her father was still alive and heard her speaking to a male in such a way, he’d have whipped her senseless. The thought only made her sad. It was such a waste the man he’d become after her mother’s death. With his position on the council, he could have done so much more for Bethania than the atrocities he supported. As painful as his death was, she grieved her father’s death long ago.
“Go on then what?”
Huh?
His deep voice was masculine and inhuman and generally sounded confused. It reminded Delilah much more that she wasn’t speaking to someone from her village, or a human for that matter, but a beast. Perhaps one of the ones she heard about as a child, the ones that spooked little ones from wandering into the forest. She didn’t have a good look at him before she foolishly cornered herself in here, but she’d seen enough to know that he wasn’t exactly human.
“Speak plainly, human.” He dipped his chin making his gaze much more penetrating.
The male pulled her out of her thoughts with a softer voice, rid of the aggression that laced his words moments before her breakdown. However, his question and change in demeanor only sparked her irritation.
“You’re the one that needs to speak plainly. You’re the one that said I had to die. I’ve been sitting here waiting.”
“You’ve been waiting for me to kill you?” he asked in a quiet voice. “Why?”
“It’s not like you’re giving me a choice in the matter…and I don’t have it in me to fight you. Not that I could even if I wanted to.”
Even if she wasn’t sitting on the floor she knew he’d tower over her or any other human she’d ever met with his domineering height. But it wasn’t just that, he was impressively broad. His shoulders were wide, arms and legs thick as a tree. Muscles upon muscles. And that’s only based on the blurry glimpse she got before he followed her into the cave. There was probably more to him, but without the proper lighting, she couldn’t make out much of anything else.
Regardless, there was no fighting this one if he wanted her dead. She was good as gone. By her guess, not even the entire mob after her could take him down.
“And what if I did?”
Huh?
She realized she must’ve been stuck in her thoughts for some time because now he knelt on one knee in front of her. The distance between them was so little his breath gently fanned her face.
Hickory smoke and pine. It was a refreshing scent, strong, but not overly bearing except for the fact it reminded her of food and how empty her stomach was. Oh, how she wanted to eat something.
Gulping over her growling stomach, she met his golden eyes for the second time. It was the only part of him she could see clearly. So human, but not. No human had eyes so bold or that glowed in the shadows the way his did.
She shook her head, knowing he was watching her, waiting for a response to his question. One she’d long forgotten the context to.
“What if you did what?” she asked curiously.
“Let you have a choice in a matter.” His response was short and curt and somewhat strained. It gave off the impression that his words were not reflecting what thought he had in his mind.
“You’d give me a choice?”
“Perhaps,” he thoughtfully replied as his eyes shifted from her gaze to elsewhere, seemingly surprised by his own answer and was now lost in his mind having a conversation she wasn’t privy to.
“After all that?”
“All what?”
Less daunted by his presence and undeniably different appearance, as hidden as it was, she pushed off the ground and stood on shaky legs, placing some distance between them. “All of this.” With a mind of their own, her hands gestured between the two of them before she continued speaking. “It wasn’t even ten minutes ago you were growling at my back stating I had to die, it was out of your hands and there was no choice in the matter,” Delilah stated matter of factly, then turned away from him to face the entrance of the cave, watching the rays of light filter through in a downward slope that ended near her feet.
It wasn’t her wish to remind him of those details because she didn’t want him to change his mind, but it was important for her to know if he was being serious or playing minds with her, despite claiming his hatred for mind tricks.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Really?” she asked, swiveling her chin over her shoulders to steal a glance at him. The ridiculousness of her situation was becoming stranger with every passing minute. “So I can live? You’ll let me just go? Just like that?” she asked, containing the spark of hope before it grew too large and out of control.
Delilah learned the hard way that it was easier to hope for the worst instead, because it was much more difficult to be let down that way. If by chance fate graciously looked upon her that day, she would feel nothing short of blessed. It was a shame those days seemed to be nonexistent; a thing of the past.
“No.”
“No?” She arched her brows with a slight bit of defiance. What was his game? To kill her with his indecision? She almost laughed at her private joke, but scratched above her lip with her palm covertly covering her mouth, suppressing her laughter. She didn’t know him well enough to know his reaction.
He sighed. It wasn’t short and sweet, but long and drawn out as if he was completely exasperated with the situation and ill-equipped to deal with it. Clasping his thick fingers around her wrist, he gently pulled her outside.
She immediately lifted her forearm, placing it on her forehead to block the blasting sun from burning her eyes. Leading her to a stumpy log, he forced her to sit, then brushed past her and out of sight before she had a chance to get a good look at him with the better lighting.
Delilah wasn’t entirely certain what was happening, but she adjusted her body so the sun was positioned behind her, so she no longer had to squint her eyes to focus on the beautiful scenery in front of her. Trailing her focus from left to right at the evergreens and shrubs in front of her, she peered over her shoulder, surprised to find herself all alone.
Time stood still as a lake frozen over while she considered making a run for it.
Where could I go that I wouldn’t be found by him or the others?
After mulling the idea around for a bit, unable to come with any places, she realized this was probably some test of sorts. Besides, she’d no idea where she was, or how far she’d traveled since leaving Bethania. So instead of wasting her time with an impossible and horrid idea, she tossed it out of her mind before it could take roo
t. She may have become bolder since fleeing for her life, but crazy? No. She definitely was not crazy.
Nervous, she bit her fingers down to short stubs as she waited for his return. Her knees bounced up and down as if a bolt of lightning had struck them and filled them with the roaring energy of mother nature.
What is going on? Why does he want me to sit here?
An armful of varying wood pieces abruptly dropped to the ground in front of her with a loud thud. Startled, a loud gasp escaped her throat and she placed a hand on her chest to steady her erratic breathy and thudding heart.
He angled his face in her direction and his confused yellow eyes pierced her into a trance she couldn’t look away from.
“You startled me,” she whispered, trying to catch her breath.
“You will find a lot of startling things out here if you don’t keep your guard up.”
She nodded in agreement. It made sense; she was in the wilderness. There were probably a lot of things out here she didn’t know existed. Heck, she didn’t know…creatures like him existed.
Her eyes became wider still when he stood from his crouched position after assembling the wood and lit the pile ablaze, starting a fire, then turned to face her fully. With the sun shining in the sky and the shadows of the cave long gone, she got her first full look at him. And was more than just shock that rolled through her.
His impressive height would be daunting to any human, especially with arms crossed so tightly against his chest and a frown capable of making anyone feel guilty. It was as good a time as any to study his face, and that’s exactly what she did.
The hair on the top of his head was pulled back into tight braids which cascaded down his back, but the sides were left straight as an arrow, tucked loosely behind his ears. They weren’t human ears either. Jutting from the sides of his head, they were wider and stood out just a little bit further, but the most noticeable trait was how they were only ever so slightly rounded at the pointy tips. Tentatively, she traced the edges of her ear with her fingertips. Yes, his ears were definitely more pointy than her own.
His forehead was slightly larger and protruded, and his brows were thick as the fuzziest caterpillar she’d ever seen. They led down to a broad, flat nose and thick lips. Unlike her flat teeth, he had two sets of tusks sprouting upwards from his bottom lip. One much larger, nearly the size of her pinky, which sat on the outside, and a significantly smaller one which sat inward beside it.
Flicking her tongue over her canine teeth, she presumed his teeth were much sharper. And powerful too, given that his jaw was a tad wider, offsetting his face ever so slightly.
Overall, his face wasn’t hideous as she expected for a creature, but in a way she doubted he was a creature or beast, not with having four limbs like herself. His face could almost pass as human if it wasn’t for the fact he had tusks and his skin was a mixture between slate and forest green. Even the hair that grew along the ridges of his lower jaw was slightly pruned as if he shaved in a manner of which the men in her village did.
Delilah swallowed the thick knot forming in her throat as her eyes trailed the rest of his broad body. He was practically naked, except for the primitive fur that covered his...manly parts. With heat suffusing her cheeks, she turned her head away. It may be his choice to prance around in the nude, but it was unbecoming of a lady to look. Despite being nearly twenty-eight, she was unmarried, and given the harsh reality she was nearly raped twice, miraculous she was still a virgin and had never seen so much as a bare shoulder on any man. As inappropriate as it was, she had seen more of this one male than she’d ever seen of anyone else.
Clearing his expansive throat, he forced her to shift her curious, yet shy gaze back to him.
“You will tend this fire and when I come back, you will cook our meal. I will decide what I should do with you then,” he stated with a finality that promised consequences should he be disobeyed.
He left her again in a haze of confusion. She didn’t dare admit the slight bit of attraction she felt toward him. One because it seemed wrong given they weren’t even the same species and two, there was no way she could ever trust a man again. Human or not. Especially one that had planned to kill her and now kept her as some sort of captive.
While he hadn’t actually hurt her yet, there was still some lingering fear he would end her life should it suit his needs. Thankfully, for the time being, it seemed he hadn’t.
Between everything she went through when her father, whose death she still felt partially responsible for, Mathias, who destroyed her childhood and ability to trust in a blink of an eye, and the guardsmen who taught her that real justice doesn’t exist in the world, Delilah wasn’t ready.
She wasn’t ready to deal with this humanoid creature, she wasn’t ready to deal with her past and she certainly wasn’t ready to deal with the strange emotions she knew she shouldn’t be feeling.
If only her mother or Mrs. Violet were here now. She desperately needed their kind words and consoling shoulders. Delilah only hoped she’d have enough strength to pull through this, because heaven only knew how close she’d been to giving up when she sat at his feet beneath the mercy of his blade.
Chapter Eleven
Skarde
After forcing her out of his den, albeit as gently as he could given how delicate her body was despite the spark of inner strength he saw inside her, he left her by the fire to retrieve his kills from earlier. Well that, and he desperately needed to take a breather.
After living for so long on his own, the only thing that helped to clear his mind was the peace and quiet that his home afforded him. The sounds of whistling trees, birds singing for their mates and prey lazily grazing, reminded Skarde of who he was. A hunter. A troll.
Not a human sympathizer. Not a human sitter.
The problem was the more Skarde spoke with her, the more the lines between what was right and what was wrong continued to blur until he wasn’t sure what side of the spectrum he was on. His morals seemed to be off-kilter and it threw him off balance. He began to say things he wasn’t sure he meant, offering things he wasn’t sure he should, and claimed things he wasn’t sure were true. It was confusing to say the least.
While her soft voice spoke, it slowly pulled the anger out of him and he began to believe that perhaps sirens were more than just witches of the sea, because the soft-spoken female had a way of making him understand and sympathize with her in a way he believed was never possible.
A troll having sympathy for a human? Unheard of!
However, despite his lack of moral judgment, his problem remained the same. A human should not know of his kind’s existence. But was it his right to end her life if he was the one that condemned her? That reason didn’t sit well in his stomach, which churned angrily at the thought. How could he kill her after all she’d been through just to survive? How could he kill her after she willingly sat at his feet and waited for the final blow? How could he end her life when she thanked him so graciously in the throes of death and tried to repay what she thought was his kindness in the only way she could?
His issue now did not lie in when or how she would die, but how he found it so unbearably difficult to see his mission through, that he’s willing to let her live. That’s why he distanced himself from her, so he could sort through his thoughts without her bewitching influence. That, and the way her brilliant eyes shone with embarrassment when they roamed over his body. It made him uncomfortable how much he enjoyed basking beneath her heated gaze.
When he was a youngling, it would have been inappropriate for another to look at him like that, but now that he was an adult and his tribe long gone, he longed to impress a female troll with his body and prowess, not some human.
While he highly doubted that she stole such long looks from him because of some attraction she had for him, he decided he would be forceful enough to prevent her thoughts from swaying in that direction anyway.
I caught her off guard, that is all. Just be amicable enough that she�
��s treated with the respect a female deserves, but nothing else.
After wrapping the varduush in several large leaves, he dug a hole in the ground to place the meat for when he was ready to smoke it later. The ground was cool, and kept most things fresh and prevented rot if the hole was deep enough. While his stomach was perfectly capable of handling bad meat, Skarde preferred his meat fresh, unlike some of his cousins who claimed that the longer the meat sat, the sweeter it tasted.
Disgusted, he gritted his teeth at the memory of such meat on his tongue. He was forced to eat such meat when he was younger, on his own, and still learning to survive.
Never again.
Satisfied with the hole he dug, he grasped the deer by the nape of its neck and headed over to the fire where the female still sat. The fire was low and unstoked. The flames were gone, replaced by tiny embers.
Frustrated, he tossed the deer at her feet, then gently placed his bone dagger atop it.
“What is the meaning of this? I asked you to tend the fire, not sit on your hands. What use do I have of you alive if all you’re capable of doing is running, hiding and crying like a youngling?” he demanded.
Without hesitation, she knelt on the ground, picked up his dagger and sliced away strips of meat off the carcass.
He almost found it amusing how she kept her lips sealed despite his outburst because he caught sight of the brief look of hatred on her face before her curly hair got in the way. And by his judgment, she was pissed off enough that they probably wouldn’t even need the fire to cook their meal tonight.
Good. It’s better if she hates me.
Keeping her within his sight, he gently removed his spear from his back to examine the damage from the other day when he pulled it from the bottom of the river. The slight bend was still there, but a crack had formed directly in the center of the bend and spread outwards. Grunting his annoyance, he sliced through the fine threading around the head of his spear with a claw, freeing the tip from the shaft, then snapped the wood in half and tossed it into the fire.
The Lonely Troll Page 7