“What’s got ye lookin’ like that, Nugget?” Troll questioned curiously, blinking down at me, dumbfounded, as my lips tipped up slightly.
I could have told him what I was thinking, told him everything, and as I opened my mouth, eyes bright with emotions, about to do just that, something stopped me.
Humming a jaunty little tune that had him quirking a brow at me, I tapped his chest. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Knuckles rapping across his unyielding flesh, I announced, “It beats. I mean, I really thought I’d hear a walnut clunking around in there, if it hadn’t molded yet.” Grinning mischievously, full of cheek, my hand splayed across his chest, massaging between the thick slab of muscle. “But, lo and behold, here it is.”
“I’m bein’ serious, ye foul wench,” he grumbled, swatting me on the ass. “Now shut up an’ let me love ye.”
Pretending to have to think it over, I tapped my finger on my chin, free hand propping my head up as my ear rested on it. “Mmm. Give me a moment, I need to think about it.”
“Wasna askin’, female,” he growled softly, taking me with him when he crushed me to his chest hard, rolling us over, fisting a handful of my hair at my nape as he took my lips roughly.
Waiting until I was a squirming mess beneath him, writhing with want, he pulled back just enough to have me calling out in protest before he grinned. “Och, see, now that’s how I like ye.”
Gripping his arm, I leaned in and bit, waiting until he howled out in protest before I let go. “And that is exactly how I like to see you.”
“Howlin’ yer bleedin’ name in protest?” he barked, studying his arm to see if I’d actually broken the skin, lips thin, eyes narrowed, incredulous.
“Yes.” I nodded, expression completely serious, and even managed to keep a straight face as I did.
Troll broke first, snorting quietly, then smiling slowly, releasing his arm to dive back down, invading my personal space as I willingly invited him to. Arms wrapping around his neck tight as our bodies aligned, our lips brushed.
“Blood thirsty wench,” he growled affectionately.
“Grumpy old troll,” I murmured right back, tone just as affectionate, nipping his chin.
Entering me slowly, careful since I was still quite tender down there, he rocked his hips slowly, brushing my lips with soft, passionate kisses. “A dozen, then?” he murmured low.
Pausing, my lips pressed to his, I pulled back enough to eye him warily. “Children or orgasms?”
A naughty grin split his face. “Does it matter?”
Scowling up into his face, I tugged at the top fold of his ear. “I’d been kidding. It was a joke. What would you do with a dozen babes?”
“Is that a no, then? Ye be wantin’ more?”
“Har-har. Very funny. Don’t push your luck, Troll.”
“Orgasms it is, then.” His smile was nothing short of wicked as he winked.
“High goal you’re setting for yourself, troll-lover.”
“Mmm.” He buried his face in my neck, rumbling softly, “A male can hope, eh?”
Epilogue
“You’re staring at me.”
Brushing a thick hand over Calder’s head, ignoring his son’s grunting protests, he leaned in, brushing his lips with mine. “Canna help it. Watchin’ ye eat that peach is doin’ dangerous things ta me nethers.”
Sighing heavily as I took another huge bite, juice dribbling down my chin, I chewed slowly, giving him a dirty look.
“That good, eh?” he murmured huskily, tongue peeking out to chase it, nibbling little kisses along my neck. Making loud chomping noises into my skin as he teased my flesh, as if he was about to munch on me, purely for Calder’s benefit as he cheered his Papa on, I giggled, shoving him playfully away.
“Knock it off, you.”
“Canna help it,” he fake growled. “Ye’re sweet and juicy, like that peach.”
Calder, sitting between us, slamming a stack of wooden blocks noisily against a thick pan, turned upside down for his noise making enjoyment, crawled a few paces away, taking his things with him.
“It’s a sign,” Troll rumbled gleefully, gladly taking his spot.
“A sign of what?” I mumbled around a mouthful of succulent peach.
“For me ta be showin’ ye.”
Finishing off my last bite, I handed the pit off to Troll, grimacing as he popped it into his mouth, quickly glancing away as he ate it in two jaw cracking, crunching bites.
“I don’t see how you can do that.” Cradling my own jaw, as if in sympathy, I shook my head.
Shrugging, he dusted off his hands and stood up. “Dinna see how ye can prefer the flesh ta the center.”
“It’s soft and sweet, and it tastes good.” Peering at his outstretched hand questioningly, I took it, letting him hoist me up.
Large hand roaming my back, he tugged me into his chest, nuzzling the top of my wild hair. “Think ye’ll be likin’ this.”
“Ready, then?” Quaz called, popping his head into our living quarters.
Troll nodded and went to scoop Calder up, dodging his pudgy little hands when his pan arm swung. “Och, enough, ye wee beast. Got a surprise fer yer Mum.”
“Mum?” Calder, still not quite all that talkative yet, swung his gaze between us, his little brows dipping. “Prize?”
“Yes,” his papa’s deep voice rumbled quietly as he nodded, hoisting him up on his shoulder, where Calder’s little hands dropped the pan with a resounding clash, in favor of holding onto Troll’s head. “Do ye remember Mum’s surprise?”
“Yep. Yep.” My little boy’s head nodded enthusiastically, thumping his chest with a closed fist. “Beast help.”
Walking back to pick up his pan, I set it in the small chest at the end of his bed, hurrying to catch up.
“Might want ta grab tha’,” Quaz called, motioning towards Bay.
Snatching the item up, I smiled my thanks, hurrying out to trail after.
Troll had built Calder a small sleeping pallet, a miniature of ours, full of soft furs and thick sheets, as well as a small blanket I’d fashioned out of one of my worn skirts. His ‘Bay’, he calls it, and Calder refuses to sleep without it.
“Oi, Nugget, hurry yer bum! Aint got all day!”
“I’m coming, you impatient old coot,” I muttered, nudging Quaz when he boomed out a laugh.
“An’ quit flirtin’ wit’ me kin. Dinna want ta haveta pummel his ar-” Glancing at Calder and remembering my last tirade on cursing in front of little ones, still bearing the burn marks on his thick grey bum, he corrected, “Hide.”
“Maybe we’re plottin’ yer imminent demise,” Quaz called after him.
“Pfft. Nugget? Never.” Waiting until we caught up with the pair, he leaned forward, telling his brother in a loud whisper, “She’s hooked, ye see. Canna get enough of me bloody co- Oomph!”
“It will be exactly that,” I huffed over his words as he rubbed at his belly, feigning offence, “if you keep that up.”
“What’s that, then?” Quaz asked my retreating back as I strode ahead of them, ignoring Troll entreating me to come back.
“A bloody, ahem,” my eyes raked over Troll’s tamptet meaningfully, “you-know-what.”
“Hah! Hear that, brother? Gonna bleed yer meat if ye keep sassin’.”
Grunting, gaze following me when I stopped at the mouth of the catacombs, my bonded smoothed a hand over my back, the other clamping Calder’s legs to his chest, working his way up to my nape as his fingers massaged the tension out of them. “Come now, love,” he murmured, “tell me ye dinna, an’ I’ll let it drop.”
Choosing silence over gracing that one with an answer—seeing as to how it was more rhetorical than anything—he nuzzled my temple, slipping his hand down to grab a handful of my ass.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Pig,” I admonished, grinning when he chuffed and let go.
“Prig,” he shot back, gripping my hip to tug me close as he led me down a dark, rough-hewn t
unnel.
I’d never been this way, the walls more jagged, natural looking, than the rest. I knew better than to wander too far, the ‘combs, deep past where Troll’s cell had been, filled with Other that had gone mad.
A sort of prison for the mythical gone berserk, Ketik was their overtaker, the gate keeper to Ornthren and Other alike who’d lost their minds to some madness or spell or another. It gave me a smidgeon of respect for the purple-eyed degenerate, though we still bickered constantly.
Incapable of caring, indeed, I thought for at least the hundredth time in so many months.
“Think ‘o’ somethin’ good if yer gonna pick at her,” Quaz muttered from behind us. “If she was anythin’, the way ye two go at it like rabbits, prig is no’ a word I’d choose, eh? An’ she’s only feisty when ye curse in fronta the beast.” A slow smile spreading across his face, he chuckled, “Sometimes we get ye talkin’ in fronta the wee one, just to try an’ get ye ta slip. Madder than a wet hen, an’ over a few dirty words? Hah!”
“Shut it,” Troll snapped, stopping when we reached a small opening that led to a jagged rock facing that just went up and up.
“What’s this?” I asked, glancing around interestedly, purposely ignoring that entire conversation.
“This,” he responded, slipping Calder off his shoulder to hand him off to Quaz. He was too heavy for me to carry for any long stretch, especially now, so I had to relinquish that duty to Troll or Quaz. It stung at first, but what could I do? He was simply too heavy for me.
Ketik, thankfully, spent most of his time in his own space now, if he wasn’t in the ‘combs, and less and less in Under. With the exception of hunts and the small holiday feasts the males put on, I didn’t have to deal with him nearly as much.
Hands running along a particularly sharp lip, my eyes widened when Troll intentionally cut his hand along the edge, drawing an enormous square, big enough for an Ornthren to stand under, in deep red blood.
Closing his eyes, he held his undamaged hand out to me, humming something low in his throat, that odd language of his tumbling from his lips, our runes lighting up, as one, as he laced our hands together.
My body hummed along with his voice, the blood along the wall glowing eerily before it started to pull away from the wall and began to crumble. Blinking at the sight before me in disbelief, a small sheen washed over the new entryway, like a shimmering screen, as it appeared where the wall had just been—a sort of veil. As the sight just beyond was revealed, I gasped and tugged at his arm.
“Like it, then, eh?” Knocking a fist along the wall, he told me, “Closed it after I thought I’d lost ye. Couldna stand ta come back.” Face hardening for a moment, he rumbled gruffly, “too many memories, good an’ the bad.”
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, my fingers squeezed his. “Is it? Is that...?”
Grinning down into my shocked face, he rasped, “It’s yers now.” Lifting a hand up, he showed me the cut slashing across his palm, still bleeding, but sluggishly, already starting to heal. “Gave it to ye. Ye like it?”
“Mine? Is that why you... what the,” I gestured around the entryway he’d just created, “was for?”
“Yep.” he nodded. “Had fixed it so no one else could enter. Now ye an’ the boy can.” Glancing over his shoulder meaningfully, he muttered, “Or fools ye may see fit to let pass for a brief respite.”
Reaching into my skirt pocket, I held my hand out to him. “Well, I was waiting to give you this on a special occasion, but I can’t think of a better time.”
Holding his good palm out dutifully, I slipped my present into it, curling his fingers over it. Shock lit his features when he realized what it was.
Grinning, I kissed his knuckles. “Like it, huh?”
Leaving him gaping down at his prize, I ran through the veil, dancing into the space—our space—touching everything, running my fingers along the table and chairs, over the rim of all the trunk lids, glistening again with baubles. It all looked the same.
Home.
Walking up behind me, scooping me up and pressing my back to his chest, my feet dangling in the open air as he cradled me close, nuzzling my neck, Troll pointed to one of the spaces, large enough to be a room, adjacent to the room that held the pallet bed we’d once shared. “Figured the wee beastie could be callin’ tha’ his own.”
Lumbering over, despite my protests he put me down, he grudgingly released me at the threshold, waiting until I peered inside. Two large chests lined the wall, empty and ready for use, and I could see the spot where his sleeping pallet would go.
My bonded’s chest brushed mine as he stood right behind me, his heat warming me to my toes. “Well?”
“I like it.” Gripping his thick hands in mine, I moved them down my waist, resting them over my stomach. Peering up at him, I smiled at the question in his eyes. “Do you think we could make room for one more?”
“More?” His hands started caressing my stomach slowly, a huge, blindingly handsome grin splitting his normally taciturn face.
Few and far between, I cherished the appearance of those sappy, goofy grins.
Inhaling deeply, he grunted. “Dinna even think ta question why yer scent changed. Thought it ye rag.” Inhaling again as I swatted at him, face a mortified reddish pink, he easily batted me away, still smiling stupidly. “Subtle, but it’s there.”
“You really don’t mind?” I murmured uncertainly.
Noting my unease, he tipped my chin, bending down, hunching his huge frame over mine to caress my cheek and nuzzle my jaw. “Ye give me things more precious than any bauble, Nugget. They’re worth more than all me trunks. Know why?”
“No.” Curious, my brows raised inquiringly, head tilting slightly. “Why?”
Holding the locket out to me, letting it spin as he held it out on its chain, faint blue glow emanating from it, he explained, “Love be a powerful thing. The importance we place on things, like me bearer did this bauble, her last link to her bonded—me sire—the male she loved, make ’em mighty powerful, so important.”
“And that’s why you require them, as a Toll?”
He nodded as I considered that. “Then, when I offered you my locket, in exchange for Otvla...?”
“That lazy layabout wasna worth the trinket.” Snorting, he shook his head. “She wasna worth anythin’, not even the paste jewelry ye tossed me way, the noisy wench. Couldna have taken yer necklace in exchange, even if I’d wanted to. Meant too much. There are rules we haveta follow, ye know.”
Trolls and rules, though not the human kinds of rules, were more of a guideline than anything, but I felt the Fates had something to do with that, somewhere along the lines, as well.
The chuckle bubbling up in my throat burst free and I choked out a laugh. Then I remembered something. “You know, I’d thought you thought she was worth too much.”
Face pulling into a grimace, he muttered, “What kind of daft idea was that? Ye lost yer mind?”
Shrugging helplessly, I laughed again. “Guess so.”
“Silly, female. That settles that then, eh? Where did ye locket go, anyways?” Fingers circling my neck, he traced lazy patterns along the flesh, a tingling path trailing in his wake.
“Ketik demanded a toll. I threw it at him.”
“Yeah?”
The pleased smile on his face had me giggling into my hand.
“Yeah. Hit him right between the eyes. I tossed the coin bags at him too.”
A surprised grunt left his lips and he kissed me hard on the mouth. “No wonder he hates ye. Bested by me wee little human carrot top.” Fingers drifting through my frizzed hair, he shook his head. “Love ye even more for it, ye feisty wench. Goin’ ta have ta keep an eye on ye, eh?”
Patting his jaw between words, I whispered against his lips quietly, “Never let me out of your sight.”
“Never,” he growled softly, taking my lips once more in a thorough, shiver-inducing kiss.
Pulling back slightly, he nodded as my eyes drifte
d over his shoulders, past his runes and the scars mixed in, then down to mine.
My fingers brushed over them through my top. “But, I don’t have any trinkets to keep my strength, aside from when I had that,” I pointed to the locket, “where do I get mine from?”
“From me,” he said simply.
“You?” I laughed a little at that, but then my eyes widened. “I’m not draining yours to feed mine, am I?” Thinking of our bond, the link that binds us so inexplicably, and all the times I’ve used my powers, I paled.
“Not like that.” Shaking his head, his lips pressed gently to my forehead.
“But they’re from you?”
He nodded once.
“But not from you?” I guessed.
Another nod, and he held up the locket, as if to explain.
And then it clicked. “Are you saying you love me so much, place such a high value on my head, that I... what? Gain strength from the importance you’ve put on... me?”
The light in his eyes brightened, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Mmm. Maybe not yer fool head, but the rest of ye, aye.”
Lids lowering, I slid him a slanted, guarded look. “Are you saying I’m like one of those tokens from one of your trunks?”
Smiling crookedly, he cupped his mother’s necklace in his hand, brushing his knuckles softly over my cheek. “A bauble is just a bauble, ‘til it means somethin.” Lifting his hand, palm down, he let the locket dangle from his fingers, the chain wrapped around the index and middle. “Ye’re worth much more than any pretty ta me, woman. The wee beastie too.
“Oh?”
Bright gaze flickering with emotion, he nodded. “Enough to keep me runes lit, an’ yers, an’ who the fuck else cares, for an eternity.”
“You’re not just saying that to make me feel better about syphoning from you, are you?” Lips pursed, I eyed him warily as he stared down at me steadily, his hands encircling my belly where our babe would soon grow, burning orange gaze unblinking in the face of my disbelief. I wouldn’t let him hurt himself, bending over backwards to keep us both protected, keep our stores of magic filled.
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