The Toll (62 page)

I wouldn’t.

He’s not hurting him,
merely spending time with his son.
No, I
wasn’t going to say a thing, not that I could anyways, since I
never see him. No, I’d let sleeping dogs lie. It’s probably better
this way.

Better for who?
A small part of me wondered.

As the sound of Calder’s
steady, even breathing reached my ears, and the shuffling of large
feet as they crept out of the room, a thought struck me. Eyes
popping open wide, I frowned as I stared after the opening to the
room.
Does this mean he’s changed his mind
about me?

****

Three weeks after that, I had my
answer.

Since Calder had been born, with the
exception of waking whenever he cried out, ready for his nightly
feeding, I slept heavily.

The tension in this labyrinth of cave
cubbies, long halls and right and left turns, had grown
increasingly tense. You could taste it in the air, things, ominous
things, yet to come, were brewing.

Ketik and Quaz steered clear of me,
not even wishing to walk down the main hall which led to my room
anymore. Detouring around, they used the lesser used, more
unpolished routes, rather than have to even see me, which led to my
increasing discomfort and the small but growing wish to leave,
deepening my unease. Still, I felt pinned, hemmed in. Even if I’d
wanted to, I couldn’t leave. Just thinking about it had me shaking
so bad, wracked with dread and an innate sense of doom, I struggled
to get through the day without pulling my hair out, one huge
hand-filled clump at a time.

I’m slowly going mad. Is
this what Troll is experiencing?
My heart
lurched at the thought. If he would just show himself, and maybe
talk to me, we could figure this out, help each other through it. I
hated the rift between us, and despite his claiming I’m his, all
the things he’d said in the lake, reducing us to nothing more than
sex, kept me in my place.

I felt something lately, maybe a break
in the bond, gnawing at me. I know he didn’t mean it, what he’d
said, but lies, when spoken as truth, can blacken the
soul.

And maybe the reason I didn’t leave
was actually because I really don’t want to. Maybe I’m waiting for
Troll to stop looking like something out of a nightmare and start
acting like the disgruntled ruffian I’d come to know, the ornery
troll, my Troll, that I’d foolishly come to love.

Love. Pfft. What a fickle
word.

Whenever I tried to press
Quaz about Troll
—Where is he? What’s
keeping him? Why doesn’t he come?—
if I
could actually catch the wily Ornthren off guard, he was always
quick to rush off.
How could such a large,
lumbering beast escape me so easily?
It
was like magic.

Hmph. Hah! Come to think of
it, it probably was magic.

I would have searched for
Troll myself if I’d thought it possible, but the few times I’d
tried proved fruitless. He’s avoiding me, everything inside me said
so, the many times I’d wandered around this huge underground cave
system, only to end up right where I’d began, lent proof.
But why?

He doesn’t really want
me.
That was the thought weighing on me,
like a sack of bricks, as I’d fallen fitfully asleep.

****

Warm, full of warmth. The soft growl
rustling my hair had me rolling over. Blinking my eyes open
owlishly as long, bony fingers dug into my hips, gripping me tight,
I let out a coarse scream, slapping at the large body looming over
me.

Panic engulfed me and I
almost screamed his name, but it wasn’t
his
face looming over me, or
his
hands gripping me,
they were Troll’s.

A deep, feral snarl had me jumping,
gaze focusing on his emaciated face.

“
Mine,” he snarled into my
shocked gaze, glaring down the length of his nose at me as his
nostrils flared, the ends of our noses touching.

My scream died in my throat and I
gaped up at him. Black eyes, soulless and dark, black as pitch,
were narrowed, slitted and angry, bearing down on me.

“
Mine,” he growled, chest
rumbling as he pressed his torso onto my chest. He was stating,
undeniably, what part of me, particularly, he felt he had the right
to lay claim.

Though quiet for the moment, stunned
to it, I strongly disagreed.

His ribs were all showing, huge frame
and bone structure at odds with his current shape and appearance.
Ghastly, frightening, he was a thing of dreams gone bad.

“
Mine.” Hot and hard, his
length pressed into my thigh, digging in hard enough to make me
wince. This wasn’t Troll, this was someone else, this male was
feral, and wild—a beast.

“
Troll,” I gasped,
wriggling underneath him as I reached forward, ignoring the warning
snap of his teeth, gripping his wrists tight. Shoving at him, I
implored beseechingly, “I know you don’t know what you’re doing,”
the glazed look in his eyes agreed, “but I won’t do this with you,
not now, and not like this. I’m not your... I’m not your
whore.”

Flinging my hands off easily, he
grasped them, pinning them over my head. “Mine.” Voice gone a
little deeper, more vehement, his hips pressed harder.

“
I’m not yours, for sex,” I
ground out.
I’m more than that.
I knew what he wanted and what was about to
happen, all the air in my lungs leaving me in a harsh exhalation. I
wasn’t ready—it’s too soon. “Troll, please.” It was pointless, he
wasn’t Troll at the moment, he wasn’t Gersthart, or Bektam, or
anything, there was no right frame of mind. He had none. He was
pure madness—the curse incarnate.

Hissing between clenched teeth, he
shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut tight, warring with
himself. Rocking slowly, in some kind of trance, growling softly,
if only to himself, it was like he was trying to snap himself out
of it, but simply couldn’t.

The roar he let loose, right over my
head, lifted his chest, giving me enough room to kick out at him.
Not up to his full strength, he took the brunt of my heel, flying
back in a shower of blue sparks as I shouted out in
surprise.

Landing on the floor with a harsh,
bone jarring thud, his back slammed into the wall, leaving another
crater-sized hole for me to stare at, next to the wall that had a
Quaz-sized one.

Calder started crying right then and
Troll’s eyes shot up, the black absorbing the entire orb retreating
until white irises slowly peeked through.

Rushing to comfort the crying babe, I
picked him up, staying on the opposite side of the room as I backed
into the corner, rocking him gently as I crooned to him softly.
“It’s alright. It’s alright, there.”

Troll just stared at us, unsteady as
he tried to stumble to his feet.

Shaking his head several times, chest
heaving, he gritted out, “Troll... hurt him?”

Watching him closely, I just stared at
him.

Tension in his shoulders ratcheting
up, he snapped, “Hurt lad or no’?” His voice was so deep and gruff,
gritty, it was hard to make sense of him.

“
No,” I said
finally.

“
Troll hurt...” his words
trailed off as his dark gaze traveled down my length, pausing when
they reached my wrists to stare.

Not meeting his eyes, I
cleared my throat. “I’m sorry,” I blurted, “but you aren’t, you
weren’t...”
You weren’t you.
This was worse than I’d
thought
. He doesn’t remember anything when
he goes animal/beast like that. Are we truly safe here with
him?

“
Nugget.”

Taking a deep breath, I slowly peeked
up at him.

As my eyes met his, something shifted,
something finite and fragile, like glass. As his black gaze,
sprinkling with orange met my wide blues, I felt as if it had just
shattered at our feet.

Closing his eyes tight, he murmured,
“Forgive... me.”

As he practically ran from the room,
Quaz and Ketik came barreling in, fighting to get past each other
in their rush.

“
Troll?” I called, but he
was already gone.

Quaz studied the room and the
Troll-sized indent along the wall, scented the fear rolling off of
me, the acrid stench filling the room, glanced towards the rumpled
sheets, and his expression went stone hard.

“
Whatha fuck jus’
happened?” Ketik grumbled, squinting, half awake.

“
Nothin’, an’ none ‘o’ yer
business. Let’s go.” Quaz, with one long look at me and a nod,
left.

Ketik, clearly puzzled by his
brother’s surly snapping, followed after reluctantly. “Dinna be
breakin’ me eldest,” he rumbled ominously, eyes narrowed
angrily.

I lost it right there, bum
landing hard on the bed as I turned to face away from him. “He
deserted
me
,
Ketik. He forsook our bond. The sooner you accept that, the better
off you’ll be. I would have stayed! It hurt me to be apart too! Do
you get that? Understand what that means?” Tears slowly trickling
down my face, I didn’t care, turning my head to meet his gaze
squarely. “I didn’t ask for any of this any more than he did, but I
never betrayed him, never lied, and I never left him out to dry.
Never. You remember that the next time you hurl insults at me like
sharpened spikes. Damn you, and damn me, I love him! Okay?
Shocking, considering how this all started, but I do! I’d thought
we’d bonded before I knew we’d
bonded.
We had a... uh, uhm, a
connection. I haven’t felt connected to anyone like that ever. Do
you know what that’s like?
”
It was hard to continue, but it needed being
said. My hands brushed across my runes absently and my face fell
miserably. “He couldn’t even ask me,” watery blue eyes met his,
“he’d just assumed. I was wrong and I’d tricked him, that’s what he
thought, and that’s all that mattered. I wasn’t given a voice, or a
choice. I understand why he felt that way now, but I’d expected
more. I’d let him in. It hurt. You smell a lie, don’t you?” My head
shook sadly. “He didn’t even believe me then.”

“
You’re human,” he spat, as
if that explained it all.

But didn’t it?

“
I was human, and I was
asking him to give me a chance, let me explain. He wouldn’t even
allow that. By the time he’d listen...” My face pulled tight,
pursing my lips so they didn’t quaver. “The point is, we were both
victims, both of us. We were supposed to be in this together.” My
voice was choking on a sob but I stifled it when Calder grew
restless. “I wasn’t given a choice in any of this, he took mine
again when he decided, again, for us.” Thinking of him deserting
me, dredging it up, burned. “He chose, I didn’t. I would have
stayed.” Sighing heavily, I told him exactly what he didn’t want to
hear. “Whether you wish to blame me or not, you know the truth, do
with it what you will. He did this to himself.”
I would have stayed.
Everything gone
on between us be damned, I would have stayed. I’d accepted all the
broken, dark parts of him as he’d accepted mine—a bond of
souls.
We could have soothed each other...
Could have been broken together.

From the look on Ketik’s
face as emotions poured out of me, the words just tumbling from my
lips, the change in his frown, a glimmer of
something
—Understanding? Sympathy? Dare I
say it, compassion?—
shone through the
cracks. I didn’t need his sympathy or even his understanding, I
just wanted him to quit pinning me as the villain in this piece.
Every snide remark was like a knife to my gut, like looking into
Troll’s soulless eyes, once vibrant and bright, swirling orange,
and wondering,
could I have saved him from
this somehow? Spared him his fate?
But I
couldn’t, and I knew it. He’d made his own choices, this was him
reaping his own fate.

Voice cracking, I finally looked away,
closing my eyes as my lips trembled. “He did it to himself,” I
repeated, if only to convince myself, “remember that.”

Ignore the missive, reap
the fate.

No toll will save a bonded
break.

Rupture

“
Missus.
Psst.
Missus.”

“
Mm. No.” Grunting, I
rolled over, swatting away whatever was poking at my face. Small,
blunt and pointy, it was starting to hurt.

“
Missus!” The small voice
hissed, barely above a whisper.

About to scream and start thrashing
about, thinking I’d come face to face with a Troll-beast sneaking
up on me to claim me when I opened my eyes, I shot up and rolled
across the bed. Eyes darting around, hovering over Calder’s
sleeping crate where he dreamed peacefully, fast asleep, a hiss
slipped past the snarl on my lips. Crouching down, my runes lit up,
blue fire spitting from my eyes.