But he spent all that time parading outside in the rain, of course he’s clean!
“Trolls don’t lie, my mate.” Skarde leaned down and nipped her lips, then pressed something into the palm of her hand.
“Soapwart,” she said with awe. “I completely forgot all about this beautiful plant. You really have been holding out on me.” Delilah gently shoved her mate in his chest. “What else are you hiding, hmmm?”
Skarde whispered lowly, “Well...I do have a little–” he stopped talking and began to tickle her without abandon.
“Ahh! Stop, stop you’re tickling me,” she shouted, then giggled while trying to thwart his efforts but to no avail.
Eventually, he stopped, then dipped the soapwort petals into the spring water and rubbed them to make a nice sudsy lather.
"Turn."
She turned around as he commanded. Sudsy hands swiped up and down her back, neck, shoulders, arms and then her front. Her mother used to bathe her, but it never felt this good. Delilah washed her intimate parts for herself, and was thankful her mate didn’t seem offended. When she was finished, Skarde held onto her as she dipped back to wet her hair, but before she could grab another handful of soap wart, her mate tsked her for impatience.
"We need to do this more often." A tight knot formed in her belly. Often wasn’t much of an option with Skarde hibernating for the winter. Just knowing they were going to be separated for several months every year made her heart lurch.
Her ears tingled as her mate approached with another kiss. "Stop thinking and enjoy."
"It’s so har–" Her words turned into a moan while his fingers slid into her hair, massaging her scalp completely clean. Delilah closed her eyes. It was like he was physically washing away all her troubles at the same time until she was nothing left but a steaming pile of goo.
"Your turn," she sighed, finally snatching the remaining soap wart from his hands with a giant grin.
"If you insist," he grunted, spinning around to give her his back.
She couldn’t help but admire the strong muscles lining his back. As she scrubbed his body and inspected each line and curve, Skarde shivered under his touch. It was obvious how aroused he was, and if her body wasn’t so sore she’d have taken it upon herself to take him into her body, but she couldn’t. A little time out was required.
Feeling confident and bold, when she finished with his back and most of his front, her fingers trailed down his massive chest and chiseled abs, down the trail to his jutting member. She slid her hand over his shaft and stroked him.
“By the gods Delilah, your hands feel like silk against my skin,” he groaned, then wrapped his hand around hers, showing her how he preferred to be handled.
“Mmmm. You can continue,” she insisted, pressing her perking breasts against his back.
Skarde groaned, stroking faster. “I wish this was your cunt, but I can’t deny that your hand feels exquisite.”
Kissing his back, she felt her mate pump his hips into their joined hand, but what shocked her was the way he pulsed beneath her fingers until he grunted loudly and his milk poured from his body into the spring water.
Delilah squeaked when Skarde turned on her, lowering himself below the water to taste between her thighs. Her eyes closed, as she placed her hands atop his head, gripping him for dear life. His tongue swished back and forth across her clit and down to her slit, until an explosive orgasm rippled through her body, leaving her weightless and well pleasured, again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Skarde
Over the next several weeks, Skarde and Delilah fell into a routine of sorts. He remembered to wake early enough so he could pleasure his mate in all the ways he could think of, then set a brutal pace so he could check all his traps. Time was working against him. While he spent every possible moment with Delilah, he knew he was running out of time to prepare for winter. Every waking hour was torturous; hunting, fishing, increasing his stores until he came home to his mate. Most evenings when he arrived home, he was already exhausted, but the feeling of coming home to his mate made his hard efforts all the more worth it.
By the gods, she will have everything she needs to make it through without me.
Some days he caught many prey while others, he came back to his den empty-handed, but thankfully, no matter what he came home with, his mate welcomed him with open arms. Usually she’d talk about her day, sharing her list of accomplished tasks; prepping the garden for the next year, and planning her next sewing project along with other tasks she would busy herself with. Then they would share a meal and lay in bed together afterward. Not every evening was spent between her delicious thighs, much to his dismay, but the nights where they did make love were the nights he wanted to never forget.
“I just don’t understand why we need to have so much food stored up. Is it really that difficult to hunt in the winter?” she asked, casting him a questioning gaze as she continued to sweep the floor just like every other evening.
Skarde’s heart lurched in his chest, he had yet to tell her one of the biggest secrets unknown to anyone but trolls; a secret far more hidden than that of their existence. It was something his tribe never spoke of directly in fear the word would somehow get out. He knew he should tell her, and he wanted to, but never found the right time, and with winter quickly approaching he could no longer keep the secret from her.
“I’m not sure,” he replied, almost choking on his words.
“What in the world does that even mean?” Skarde’s ears twitched when he heard her whisper to herself.
He busied himself for the time being trying to work up the nerve to tell her what she really needed to know by finishing lining up the stacks of wood against the cave wall. He nearly had enough to ensure she wouldn’t go without fuel for the winter, but if the winter were particularly harsh, it might not suffice. Her skin was so soft and sensitive, and the brutal winds would assault her morning, day and night, and it worried him. She would most definitely need the fire to be going constantly or she’d freeze.
Unfortunately, winter not only came early on the mountain because the weather dropped significantly faster, but it was also more brutal than anywhere else. While he didn’t know this for a fact, Astur had informed him many years ago and he took his word for it.
Once he was finished he skewered some rabbit meat and sat down next to his mate. She was sitting on a pillow she’d stuffed with the feathers she’d collected from the goose he’d killed earlier in the week—the very same one she scolded him for killing, apparently they were good for eggs, but it had been so long, he’d simply forgotten—wrapped in something she called a shawl. Every kill he’d brought home he had skinned, prepped and dried so she could make more clothing, but it wasn’t just clothing she made.
Aside from the pillows she’d stitched together, she also created a set of flaps, as she called them, and had him string them up and over the cave entrance to prevent the cool weather from pouring in. While he noticed little difference, she claimed it had. So as much as he thought it was a silly thing to do, if it made her feel better he was all for it.
“Skarde, why have you been so quiet? What’s going on? Talk to me.” She nudged him with her shoulder after they both finished eating in silence and she took up another sewing project.
He couldn’t contain the tension his body was holding, but he refused to keep his secrets from her any longer. Gripping his forehead, he finally relented. “I won’t be around for winter,” he sighed rather deeply and turned to face her head-on, uncertainty filling the air.
She wore a deep frown and paused what she was doing. “I’m sorry, but I’m not following.”
He kissed the crown of her head, watching her curls bounce as she swiveled her neck to face him. “I know.”
“Are you going to enlighten me or keep me in the dark? Oh is this a guessing game?” she asked excitedly, enthused by the idea.
Her smile almost broke his heart because she truly didn’t understand the predicament t
hey faced. One his admission and two, knowing he’d be leaving her alone for several months to tend to herself. He believed in her, but he didn’t want her feeling alone and abandoned.
“It is not a game, my mate. Know that I would never willingly keep you in the dark,” he murmured in her ear. “Forgive me.”
She reached up and caressed his face. Skarde shuddered under her caring ministrations. The heat of her palm stroking other desires within him.
“There’s nothing to forgive. I trust that you’ll share when you are ready,” she explained softly. Her sapphire eyes were full of assurance.
He grunted, appreciating that she wasn’t forcing the matter, but perhaps maybe that’s exactly what he needed; to stop holding onto the last secret he guarded.
“During the first snowfall, my body will slowly start to shut down until I eventually fall into a deep sleep; hibernation,” he finally admitted with a slight wince.
“What? For how long?”
Skarde did his best to ignore her frown, he disliked how much the look gripped his heart. “Until it’s warm enough for all the snow to melt. Usually a few weeks before spring officially starts. Though it is entirely dependent on the weather. Some years I have hibernated much later and some years it barely snowed and my body simply ignored hibernating altogether. ”
“I wish you could ignore it now. The weather has been rapidly declining. Winter is coming early, that’s a fact,” she said solemnly, biting her lip.
Skarde’s heart broke into two and he cupped her face and planted a light kiss on her lips. Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, she pulled her body against him. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be here with you, the only difference is that I will be the one to slumber this time.”
She tapped his chest. “That’s not fair. I hardly consented to being bitten by that darn snake.”
Her smile brightened her face and Skarde was all the more happy that his little joke brightened the mood.
“How much time do you think we have?”
“Maybe a few more weeks at most, but I’ve long had a feeling that this year would be different. At first, I thought it was the weather, but now I know without a doubt it was you. You seeped your way into my heart, changed my entire perspective on life. You’re my heart, my everything, you’re my mate. That’s why I have been stockpiling all the food and the wood, among other things. It’s the reason for all the extra hides. It’s going to be a long winter, and it will be tough, but I know you can handle yourself. You won’t go without, I promise.”
Delilah giggled.
“You find that amusing?”
“No, I just never heard you talk so much all at once before, well...not in a long while at least. You are more like the silent type. Silent and broody.”
“I’m not broody,” he refuted her accusation which was clearly wrong.
“You can deny it all you want, but my mate is very broody, but luckily for me, he is also very sweet when he wants to be,” she winked at him.
Skarde snatched her up into his arms, setting her in his lap and wrapped his arms against her. Then he inhaled her intoxicating scent. It not only grounded him, but it reassured him that she was his and she wasn’t going anywhere. He might be hibernating soon, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t miss this.
“It’s alright big guy, I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
***
A few more weeks had passed, and Skarde was feeling the effects of the cold. It was seeping into his body like a poison and as much as he wanted to ignore it, he couldn’t. It was time to face the truth; his hibernation was upon him. There was no doubt in his mind. Any moment now he’d slow down to a crawl until his eyes refused to open until spring came around and woke him up.
His stomach twisted in knots.
Closing his eyes, he listened to his mate hum a foreign tune as she moved about outside. It was comforting, and he knew she made the extra effort to do it just for him, and he hated that he needed to tell her it was time.
“Delilah,” he called, but his voice had become so hoarse in the last few minutes it was difficult to say much.
Skarde stood up on shaky legs, his body nearly refusing to carry his weight. “Delilah...please, come here will you?” He tried calling out to her again, but he doubted she could hear him over her humming, or the flap that kept most of the heat inside.
He made his way over to the wall to use as support, his heart nearly breaking in half. He wanted to tell her, wanted to hold her and kiss her before his slumber took him, but he knew that if he made his way outside, it would be impossible to make it to the small spot she’d set up for him in the back.
The pain in her eyes when he explained that he wouldn’t be hibernating in the front with her was more than he could tolerate, but it was a deep seated instinct to hibernate deep in the caves, and it was something he couldn’t just abandon.
“Skarde? Are you alright?”
He heard the shuffle of her feet as she made her way over to him. Hands roamed his neck and face.
“You’re so cold,” she commented. Then her brows dropped and she shook her head when it dawned on her. “No! Tell me we have more time.”
The strain was immense, but he managed to cup her face. “It is. Will you help me to my spot?”
She nodded, then quickly ran to the fire and made a torch. When she returned, she wrapped one of his arms over her shoulder and they both made their way into the back of the cave, where he hibernated each winter, but this winter was special. His mate had sewn him a comfortable pillow just for him, and an additional blanket to soften the ground so he wouldn’t wake feeling achy and sore.
Grunting, he lowered himself to the ground with her assistance and made himself as comfortable as he could get. The pillow helped.
Delilah blew out the torch and snuggled against him. “I wish I could stay with you all this time, but I know how much you value your privacy during your sleep.”
Her voice was low, and sweet and if he wasn’t so tired he would have responded. He was deteriorating quickly. All that was left for him to do was close his eyes and let slumber take him, but for the sake of his mate, he held out for as long as he could.
She began to hum something, knowing how much her voice pleased him, and eventually was lulled into sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Delilah
She woke in the dead of night and reached for her mate, but he wasn’t there.
“Skarde?” Delilah called out to him, her mind addled by how tired she was, and then it hit her like a gust of wind.
He was hibernating somewhere in the back of the cave. It happened every time she woke, and it was becoming unbearable how often it felt like she had lost him, over and over again.
Delilah sat up and was immediately blasted by the cold winter air, brutally forcing its way into the cave, chilling her to the bone. It was all thanks to the damn entrance flap, whipping around erratically like it was its mission in the world. No matter how often she secured the darn thing down, it would break free again. The sound it would make whenever it would snap free usually made her jump. She figured by now she’d be used to it, but she wasn’t. Delilah attributed her jumpiness to the loneliness she felt without Skarde around.
Missing him didn’t even begin to cover how she felt. She missed the way his arms wrapped around her as she snuggled against him, or how he kissed the top of her head and whispered loving words in her ears, sharing meals and talking about their day and making love in the furs like the world around them didn’t exist, even the way he would sometimes snore in the middle of the night. Just thinking about him made her heart beat agonizingly slow in her chest.
Delilah wiped the tiny tears from her eyes knowing everything would be just fine. Her mind whirled around, secretly whipping up the perfect way to greet him when he woke. She knew he would be tired and unable to move for a while as he’d previously explained, but there were things they could still do.
She grinned just thinking abou
t wrapping her mouth around his thick member, the way he would place his tongue on her. Surely that was a thing, right? Even if it wasn’t she knew there was no way he’d refuse such a deliciously naughty idea.
Wrapping a fur around her body, she finally got up headed toward the cave entrance to deal with snow blowing inside.
Grabbing a wooden bowl she filled it with snow and then secured the flap she’d sewn weeks prior, noticing the pitch black sky. Morning was still hours away, and yet, while she had no idea how long she’d slept for, there was no going back to bed in her current state.
“Please for the love of all the gods, don’t come undone again,” she begged the scrap of fabric despite knowing that no matter how often she secured it down the sheer force of the wind eventually blasted it open again.
She didn’t mind it too much. She was alive, safe and healthy. She assumed the villages had long since given up on finding her. Perhaps they believed her to be long dead, perished in the wild like the criminal they thought her to be.
Instead she was grateful. Her new life was far from easy and many days it grated her nerves. Like tonight, when the fire that should have kept through to morning had seemingly blown out some time ago. Delilah grabbed a handful of wood and tossed it into the pit.
Wrapping her hands around a long wooden branch beside her, Delilah stoked the fire, agitating the nearly burnt out embers, roaring them back to life. She had to be careful and not allow the fire to get too big or it would smoke up the cave and she’d have to remove the flap to air it out. It was the only downfall to having the flaps.
While the cave was nice for what it was, providing shelter from the harsh elements, and offering a somewhat safe place to sleep at night, it was far from perfect. Skarde had been right. Winters on the mountain were far worse than what she was used to. It made her all the more grateful for his preparations. She only hoped it would be enough. Even though wood lined the entire side of the cave, and winter started with what had seemed an endless supply of food, Delilah knew she was running out. If need be she could run out for a quick trip to get wood, but food? That was another matter entirely.
The Lonely Troll Page 17