“He did what?” Skarde asked again. This time he was standing in front of her. He clasped her wrists and pulled them away from her face and knelt down in front of her.
She could see the hatred written across his tightened features, but beneath them was nothing but support. And it was all for her.
“He would whip me until I bled,” Delilah shouted.
Chapter Seventeen
Skarde
Rage coursed through his blood and it was worse than the bloodlust. Only with extreme focus was he able to stop himself from traversing down his mountain, finding his female’s father and killing the wretched human himself. The only problem was the male was already dead and from what he remembered it wasn’t a warrior’s death.
He couldn’t help but feel elated that the vile male had been denied. It was almost laughable, to simply fall at your feet and die. It was pathetic.
Skarde froze over the previous thoughts that flew past him in his mind when he realized he considered the human female his. He wanted to correct himself by claiming once again she was only his captive, but that felt...wrong.
Then the beatings came.
Tied me up.
Whip me until I bled.
He was kneeling on the ground in front of her, her hands clasped in his own, but it wasn’t enough to erase the horrifically vivid images her words created.
Growling, he pulled her against his chest and held onto her with dear life. She tensed for a moment and then sagged against him, circling her hands around his back.
He didn’t know how long he sat there holding her, but something strange happened. Slowly but surely, every moment she lay pressed to him, the vile images of her father torturing her disappeared from his mind. It was only then he understood the true nature of this kind of touch.
Comfort.
When she first tucked herself against him, he had to admit, he was confused. There was a brief moment where he planned to push her away, until she sobbed like a youngling and told him of a story worse than his own. So he let her stay and take any comfort she could from his presence. But when she told him of the beatings, he couldn’t bear to hear any more. If it wasn’t for the obvious need in her eyes, and desperate sound to her voice he would have simply ripped out his own ears to not have to hear such vile things again.
Skarde stilled when she cried again. His female cried a lot, but he couldn’t blame her. After all she had been through, years of torture at the hand of her family; she was a survivor.
“Those tears are not worthy of him,” he growled, hating that she leaked for the man who seemingly ruined her life. His eyes desperately darted around his surroundings searching for something, anything, perhaps another human male to slate his need for vengeance. Alas, there was only the serene quiet of the mountain. The flowing river, the rustling of wind flowing through the trees, and various wildlife milling about.
“I’m not crying for him,” she replied between quiet sniffles.
“Then why do your eyes leak? I can feel the wetness on my skin.” Skarde snorted and looked down but only saw the crown of her head, where her brown curls sprouted like a tangle of roots.
“I’m relieved. These are...happy tears.” She raised her head and met his gaze with a smile so soft that melted the anger straight out of his heart.
“I do not understand.”
Skarde had never heard of such a thing. When he was a youngling and was separated from his own family due to his foolish mistakes, he cried. He cried for a long time, begging the gods and King Erike for help. Help never came, and neither did his sire or mother, or any of his tribe. But never once had he cried happy tears. The notion made little sense.
“Please just keep holding me. I’m so tired of feeling alone.” she quietly begged and squeezed him harder.
There was that word again. Alone. He held onto her as tightly she clung to him understanding all too well what she meant. Having no one. No one to talk to. No one to understand. No one to hold and comfort you in the darkest hours of your miserable life.
He had been alone for so long until he found Astur, who never seemed to age. They were like family but only because Astur was alone too. Alone in a world that didn’t belong to him any longer, it seemed. Alone to never see his kind again. But not as alone as Skarde, because he had a tribe, somewhere out in the world, but most important, Skarde had her.
The human female that invaded all his senses, made a mess of all his morals, changed his view on the world. The female he should never have saved. Never have told his secret, never have held in his arms to comfort. Yet here he was, unable again to put his foot down and stop helping the human female who was so much like him.
“You’ll never be alone again. I forbid it.”
"You can’t–”
“Silence, female. You will hear me out as I did you." Skarde closed his eyes and continued to hold her. “I too was alone. I understand what that can do to someone. It’s worse than an axe to the chest.”
“When I was a youngling, barely sixteen years of age, I often competed with my siblings for our sire’s approval. He was a good troll, and sired many of us, but I was the youngest. The weakest…” Skarde trailed off at how foolish he had been, perhaps if he didn’t have so many brothers and sisters, maybe he wouldn’t have done what he’d done.
“After everything I had learned about the world, I went hunting alone. Our tribe was relocating, the territory was new to me, but the need to hunt and prove my worth was beyond my capability to see reason. I snuck out early, before anyone knew I was gone.”
“Sounds like you were on a mission. I don’t have any siblings, but I have seen the competition between people that do. Especially boys.”
“I guess I was,” he grunted at the similarity between their kinds. Males were more competitive than the female trolls, even though females were also known for their brute strength and strong convictions. “I tracked a squirrel and shot it with my bow. Several times. I was a lousy shot back then and almost missed my target. I began to clean my kill when I heard rustling in the distance. Distracted, I left my kill and my bow and followed the sound.”
Looking back, he was beginning to realize he was an even bigger fool than he once thought. To leave precious food and tools behind? What if he came across a bear or another predator he was too young to fight. No, he knew he wasn’t just foolish, he was also downright short-sighted.
“What did you find?”
“Humans.”
Skarde felt her tense up and heard the quiet gasp she tried to secretly muffle against his chest, but his hearing was impeccable. He may not have the vision of a Faulken, but Astur’s hearing could not match Skarde’s. At times, it was a useful ability and other times, it was a downright nuisance. Excellent hearing aside, he knew exactly what she was thinking.
“I did not kill the humans,” he chuckled lightly then picked up a strand of her curly hair between his fingers. He had wanted to touch it the moment she had emerged from the river, clean as ever. It had looked so soft compared to the coarse hair his kind grew. And he was right. It was soft. If his memory served correctly, it was as soft as silk.
Skarde inhaled. The curls that sprouted from her head smelled like fruit. Similar to the berries they ate along the way as they traveled. He inhaled one more time, allowing her gentle scent to flow through his nostrils. It seemed to calm him.
“What happened to them?” she curiously asked.
“To who?”
“The humans?”
Skarde looked to the river, listening to the burbles as water flowed over branches and rocks. “I do not know. I merely followed them in hopes to gather information and bring back to my tribe, to my sire. But the forest was dense and I was eager. I failed to see the rise of the sun up into the sky, by the time I realized that I realized how far I traveled it was too late. The humans’ route had twists and turns, and I lacked the foresight to mark my path. I was lost.”
“Oh Skarde, I’m sorry you went through that. It sounds like
you were just trying to protect your people. Your parents were probably so worried. I bet they never let you out of their sight when they finally found you.”
Sorrow rippled through him. “They never found me,” he admitted quietly.
“Huh?”
She lifted her head to look at him, but Skarde couldn’t bear to look at her. It was hard enough to admit his foolishness, but this was his greatest mistake.
“Skarde, what do you mean they never found you?” she desperately urged him for answers.
She even adjusted herself to face him head-on, but he simply ignored her questioning gaze and turned his head and looked elsewhere. The crows perched on their branches, the stripped dogbane down the river, the buck with the tangled antlers across the river. Anything but her, and the kind eyes that would tear apart when she realized the truth. His truth
“It’s okay, you can tell me. I’m here.”
Her reassuring words cracked at his protective walls. They were like a force of nature battering against a beaver dam, one holding everything he wished to keep hidden from the world at bay.
But in his moment of weakness, he relented.
“It was the last time I ever saw any of them.”
Delilah shifted, using her small hands to guide his chin toward her. “I’m so sorry, Skarde. To be so young, and alone. I don’t know how you survived, but you did. That’s truly awful. Even more so because it sounds to me like you blame yourself.”
He could feel Delilah squeeze him slightly, as if she was offering the very same comfort he gave her, letting him know she was there for him and that she wasn’t going anywhere. It gave him the strength he needed to accept responsibility and to stop blaming the humans for his mistakes.
It was never his task to keep the tribe safe, nor was it his task to follow the humans and discover what they were doing. He should have immediately turned back and reported it to the tribe’s leaders or his sire, not investigate on his own. Especially since they were the reason to move in the first place.
“I blamed the humans even more so. It is only now I’m coming to truly accept my responsibility in my fate. It is not the humans’ fault that I was curious and had something to prove. That is mine and mine alone.”
“No!” She snapped. “You were a child and made a mistake, but it was a noble one. It may not have ended how you intended it to, but you sacrificed your family, your tribe all so you could keep them safe.”
Delilah angled her head up to look at him while he spoke. Her eyes were still red and puffy. No doubt from all the tears she leaked. It only made her brilliant blue sapphire eyes shine even more. It had been a long time since he’d seen such a gem, but the canniness was undeniable. How he failed to recognize the likeness before eluded him, but now that he knew, he could never look at her stunning eyes and not think of the gods.
It was believed by his people that instead of golds, yellows, oranges and reds, the gods had sapphire eyes. It was also one of the other reasons King Erike was so revered. Not only was he intelligent and strong, and led the trolls to a new era, but some said that he too had the blue eyes of the gods.
It only made him regret his earlier interactions with his Delilah even more. She may not be a god or female troll, but those same sapphire eyes pulled him in like a moth to a flame and it wasn’t because she was a sea siren or witch. It was because in her own way, her beauty resembled everything he had lost; his tribe and the gods he’d angered.
It was as if he was meant to find and save her all along.
It was at that moment, the walls Skarde built around himself shattered. He was no longer guarded by some delusion this female was vile or wretched like he had so desperately wanted to believe. She was innocent, pure of heart and all things good.
He just couldn’t believe it had taken him all this time to remember and all this time to realize that Delilah wasn’t some unfortunate mistake he’d made, but a blessing from the gods themselves.
Chapter Eighteen
Delilah
When she first cried against his chest and he simply sat there and listened, but then he did something she didn’t expect, expressing pain and anger for her before encompassing her and sharing just as much as he had.
She didn’t want their conversation to end, they were sharing a beautiful moment and unlike the previous night, there wasn’t a fire to separate them, but even if there was a fire it wouldn’t have mattered. They sat next to each other, clinging onto one another like the world was about to end. Still, the conversation simmered out and they simply rode out the silence after they finished speaking.
She didn’t mind. It was the first time since waking that she truly felt comfortable in his presence and it wasn’t because of the intimacy of divulging their innermost secrets. It was because they both trusted the other enough to open up about the pain they held onto for so long it had become a part of them. At least, that’s how she saw it.
And because of Skarde, she didn’t feel alone anymore. When Mrs. Violet was alive, they had a connection, but unfortunately old age severed their ties.
Skarde hardly looked much older than she was, so it was safe to assume that he wasn’t going anywhere either.
And she knew everything she felt wasn’t one-sided because he hadn’t run off like every other time they spoke, excluding their first night in the cave together. Which she was grateful for because she found it frustrating by the way he’d disappear and reappear with no rhyme or reason.
Clearing her throat was the only thing she could do to ignore the tingling feeling that rose from her belly, through her chest where it blossomed into a warmth hotter that any fire she ever sparked. Recognizing the sensation as attraction immediately caused her stomach to stir at the realization she was feeling things for Skarde she probably shouldn’t.
He’s a troll. You’re human. And he’s keeping you captive.
She couldn’t help but disagree entirely. It was true that he was keeping her captive, but she no longer viewed it as such. Not when she understood his reasoning and how harsh his past was. It seemed keeping his vow to protect his kind was the last tie he had to his long lost family and tribe.
Even if she wanted to run away, knowing she’d take them from him only pained her even more.
Besides, where would she even go? By now all the surrounding villages would know she was a fugitive wanted for her father’s murder. There would be guards posted at every entry point into each village, keeping a lookout for her. Even if she left Skarde now, it was far too late to go to Aurelia or Devonware.
So what did it matter that she was his captive when she had nowhere else to go?
Delilah was starting to feel this was the best place for her. She was safe, mostly comfortable and alive. Furthermore, it didn’t matter how many rules Skarde tossed in her direction, she was more free than she’d ever been in her entire life. As far as she was concerned, this was the best her life would ever get. And if she was honest with herself, she enjoyed her time out here.
Sure she missed th
And while she didn’t know Skarde long, he was kind and almost nurturing in a way. He wasn’t a monster, or a rapist, or a woman beater like many men in her village. In fact, he was the only male she actually felt safe around. Seeing the soft sides of him only made her realize that she could never go back. Even if she wanted a husband and a family. In a way Skarde ruined that for her, because she doubted she could ever get over the trauma humans caused her, and if somehow she managed to, with all the changes that had taken place, she doubted she’d find someone as soft and as kind as Skarde.
He would have made a fine husband...it is a shame we are so...different.
“Thank you for listening.” She said, finally breaking the silence.
She was feeling immensely better about everything. About the way she was treated, about how awful friends and family had turned out, how her father had passed away. It wasn’t easy, and the pain wasn’t gone entirely, but a new emotion took root. Acceptance.
“I think I needed to get that out of my system for a long time now.”
Skarde pulled away and immediately she felt the loss of his warmth against her body. She didn’t know how long they confided in each other for, but she would treasure their moment forever. If somehow things turned bad for either of them, she would remember that moment and get through whatever she needed to and survive.
“I had wanted to hear your story since last night, I didn’t realize how awful it was going to be.”
“Yours was pretty awful too. I couldn’t imagine having to be on my own for all that time.”
Skarde grunted, his eyes glossed over as if he was lost in thought. Delilah couldn’t help but feel for the male. She lost her mother and father, but for a while she did have friends, even if they were few and far between. It wasn’t like everything went bad all in one hour. It happened gradually. That was the case for Skarde. He lost everyone all at once, all because he was a curious child who thought he was doing his sire proud. It broke her heart, and she wished if there was one thing in the world it was for him to be reunited with his family. He deserved that.
But they would never let you live. And he will never let you go...
“Perhaps you wish to take another bath?” he cocked his head to the side, with the tiniest curve pulling at the corner of his mouth.
His question pulled her out of her thoughts she became lost in.
“A bath? Now?” She looked for the sun, hidden behind trees. It was getting late and they probably should return to the cave soon. Besides she had nothing else to wear and she wasn’t planning on stripping down in front of Skarde. They may have come to an understanding of sorts, but that didn’t mean she was comfortable parading around in the nude. Especially how his eyes grew so hungrily the last time he saw her nude.
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