Chapter 5
Chapter Five
MAIA
What the actual fuck was happening to her?
Maia had always had a problem saying no. It was why she’d gotten herself into the whole situation with her father in the first place. He’d been an ailing man, begging her not to let his life’s work die, and frankly, she enjoyed gardening. But did she really need to take it all on? Of course not. She could have married. She could have gone on a great adventure without the ties of an ailing father, who had taken up so much of her time.
Instead, she’d stayed. She’d continued his work even after his death. Which had led her to this moment, slung over the muscular shoulder of a troll who was significantly farther from the ground than she’d ever been before.
And what did he tell her? Not to puke on him.
Her mind whirled at the reasoning for that until all of a sudden, he started to run . Not just trot, not even a slight jog with the rest of them. No, the trolls turned as one and they bolted toward the forest with an unnatural speed.
She went from just being uncomfortably slung over his shoulder to having her stomach slammed down on his muscles, again and again. The repetitive strikes sent her meager breakfast up into her throat and it took every part of her to focus on not vomiting.
Which was probably a good thing. At least she was focused on not embarrassing herself rather than the way the world changed in front of her eyes. Everything familiar disappeared all at once. She barely managed to lift her head and stare at her entire world disappearing.
The castle faded into the distance. The rolling hills that had always framed her home like emerald swaths of fabric disappeared. They ran through waist high fields of wheat, likely shoulder height for her. Sunlight burned against her back until the world sank into darkness.
The stark difference of being in the forest was hard to ignore. The air was colder. Icy shadows lingered on her spine and danced down her legs until it was difficult to remember what warmth felt like. The sun disappeared, left only to be seen in the dappled marks on the ground through the leaves that soaked up all the heat from their rays. As she lifted her head again, pressing her hands against the small of the troll’s back so she could see what they passed by, all she could see were trees.
Maia had spent her entire life living in fields of golden wheat and verdant grass. She had never left the safety of the castle’s shadow, nor had she ever traveled. She’d seen the forest, of course. It surrounded large portions of her home, but it was always far away.
When she was young, other children used to talk about these woods. They whispered how dangerous they were, and how people died when they went into it. Monsters roamed among the trees. Not just trolls, but beings that were far older than that.
Slumped over this troll’s shoulder, she could see why children would believe those stories. So many of these trees were ancient. She couldn’t have fit her arms around them if she stretched herself. The bark was textured, some trees pale silver and others almost white. But the more she stared at them, the more it felt like something was looking back.
Her mind played tricks on her. She swore she could see movement in between the trunks, in the darkness that lingered between the silhouettes of straight lines. It was impossible. There was no one standing there, watching as a woman was taken from her home in the worst case of a miscommunication anyone had ever heard of. But she could still feel their eyes on her.
Swallowing hard, she flopped down when her arms gave out. Her biceps trembled and her stomach ached. Worse than all of it, she feared what the trolls would think once she told them the truth.
She wasn’t the princess. Obviously, they had made some kind of deal with the king, but what was she supposed to do about the deception? With a knife at her back and the king himself threatening her, there hadn’t been a choice. She’d had to do what the king had told her to do, or be stabbed in front of hundreds.
King James hadn’t wanted to give up his daughter, that much was certain. She could appreciate that. No one wanted to be married to a troll, and certainly not the most beautiful woman in the kingdom.
What would the trolls do to her when she told them the truth? They clearly thought she was the princess, and they had made a deal with her people. She hadn’t been thinking about any of this when the king had thrust her forward. All she’d thought at the time was that she wanted to stay alive. And if she was going to do that, then she had to do whatever that priest had said. Parrot the words back. Kiss the man in front of her. Marry, when she had promised herself she wouldn’t do that and risk everything she’d worked for.
Now, she regretted doing what she was told.
Bracing herself again once her arms had rested, she peered over the shoulder that still dug into her belly and looked at the creature who now believed he was her husband. A troll. He really was a troll.
She’d thought she was hallucinating when he’d pulled back the veil. How strange it was indeed to realize, without question, that the monster she’d seen was real. The dappled sunlight played across his pale lavender features, blending into the tattoos that marred his face. The white paint that had been spread across his eyes and torso had been smudged by his hands when he’d wiped his eyes.
He had tusks. Sharp teeth that curved up from his bottom lip and glinted in the meager sunlight. They were the first thing she’d noticed about the strange creature who had agreed to marry a human. His mouth was broader than her kind, his jaw wider to make room for such impressive teeth. His nose was broad as well, flatter than a human’s and more cat-like. But his eyes. Those eyes were as human as her own.
Maia’s first impression had been maybe he would be kind. He had the eyes of a kind man, and she’d easily read the thoughts that were filtering through them. It had almost appeared that he hadn’t wanted to be there either. The thought of marrying her had turned his stomach, and in that, they shared the same opinion.
But then he’d leaned forward and whispered that he would never be her husband, and Maia felt again the charge of terror that came from those words.
Or maybe that was just vomit pressing against the back of her throat.
“Stop,” she hissed out, trying hard to not spew it all down his back.
“No,” the monster growled.
“Stop, or I’m going to vomit all down your back.”
“I told you not to do that, woman.”
She slapped her hand hard against his spine, not caring if he beat her for the action. If he didn’t stop, she was going to embarrass herself even further. She wanted to tell him that not vomiting wasn’t an active choice, but all that came out was a horrible retching sound.
He stopped immediately and tossed her from his back.
Maia landed in a heap on the ground. Some of it was soft moss, so at least her knees didn’t hurt when she landed, but her right wrist cracked against a fallen log. The blinding pain was a distraction only for a moment before everything heaved out of her body in one impressive projectile mess.
Her captor made a low hissing noise, one that she was certain was meant to be an expression of disgust. She was disgusted with herself, too.
But maybe, if she could pull herself together, she could get home. All she had to do was explain to him that she was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. He’d wanted a princess for a wife! She certainly wasn’t that.
Just look at her. There was mud on her wedding gown. It splattered over her knees and left dark wet patches all down her chest. She’d managed not to get vomit on the dress, but the puddle of it in the moss was humiliating enough.
She stared down at the fabric and could only feel angry at what the king and princess had done to her. “Cream,” she muttered. They’d truly expected her to believe that, and she had.
What a mess she was. None of this would have happened if she had just said something. Her entire life was filled with moments like this because she was too scared or too passive to speak up. All of this was her fault and somehow, that made it even worse.
“What did you say?” the troll asked, his deep voice different from anything she’d ever heard before.
The accent there was similar to how the other troll had spoken. She’d never forget the way that green creature had sounded. Everyone always talked about the black tongue and how just hearing it could curse a person.
But it had sounded so lyrical. Like a song or a hymn the other troll had hummed through words, and that made her feel like an absolute idiot even thinking so pleasantly of him. Because so far, all she had seen from these people was callous treatment and vomit.
She ran her hand under her weeping nose. “I said nothing.”
“I have better hearing than humans.” He crouched down in front of her, sinking onto his haunches and not even caring that his pants were loosely tied onto the sides of his legs, and his movements revealed more skin than it should have.
She averted her gaze, just in case it was rude for her to stare. “I know you can hear better, and see better. There are many stories humans tell of your kind.”
“What do you know of trolls? You won’t even look at me.”
Why did he want her to? He didn’t want to be around her, and he certainly didn’t want her as a bride.
So she stared at everything but him. The forest was just as unforgiving, though. She’d always thought there was a romantic quality to the hidden trees and space between the glens. But now, all she saw were the sharp edges of the twigs and the ominous silence that surrounded them.
“I used to dream about walking through this wood,” she whispered. “It was always forbidden for any of us to come in here. But I always wondered what magic was hidden within the trees.”
“There is no magic hidden here.”
“No.” Her voice cracked around the word, and she tried hard to rein those feelings in. “I fear there is very little here for anyone but trolls.”
Even the rocks that poked through the moss were hard, sharp. Her wrist ached where she’d struck it against the log, and her stomach felt bruised. She feared he’d injured her just by carrying her. Her mind whirled, the truth pressing against her tongue even as hopelessness set in.
She should tell him now. This was all just a horrible mistake. If she didn’t tell him the truth soon, he would think she was part of the plan. Would he kill her? Would he do what others had said the trolls did? Skin her alive and then hang her body from the trees?
Finally looking over at the monster that crouched in front of her, she stared at all the pieces of him that could so easily harm her.
His claw tipped hand rested on his knees. The black claws were curved like a falcon’s and left little dimples in his skin, as though even he could not escape their sharpness. They could tear out her throat, even if the massive size of his hands didn’t give away that he could kill her without a moment’s thought. All he would have to do was grab onto her head and twist. The power in the size of his shoulders, in the towering height of him, all of that proved he was a walking weapon.
This troll was a monstrous being, one who had fought her kind for centuries and who would continue to fight them, no matter how much she wished it wasn’t true. And now she was married to one. Bound to him before the gods, and there was nothing she could do to change that now.
Exhaling, she wiped her nose one more time and curled her fingers in her lap. He gave her a look of disgust, but then when wasn’t he looking at her like that?
“I think there’s been some grave misunderstanding,” she said, her voice hoarse from vomiting.
“Indeed.”
Had he figured it out without her having to tell him? Perhaps it had become clear to him that Maia was obviously not the princess. She swallowed hard, “Then perhaps you would bring me back to?—”
“I was promised a princess who was lithe in figure and light in form. One whose bloodline ran deep with elven magic, and who would gift our sons with true power. You are not what I was promised, princess. And in that, I have no trust that your king knows how to tell the truth at all.”
No, no. He had it all wrong. He still thought she was royal, and she wasn’t at all. The words stuck in her throat, too jumbled with all her arguments, that they kept coming out wrong. “Well, that’s because?—”
He stood and all her words dissolved. This troll really was massive. Seated as she was on the ground, staring up at his body, she was forced to face the reality that they were even more different from what she’d thought. Her eyes danced over the swirling tattoos that meandered down his thighs, his bulging calves, all the way down to his bare feet.
She hadn’t noticed he wasn’t wearing shoes. But the tips of those toes were still marred with claws. Black tipped and terrifying, his feet flexed in the soft moss before he made a noise like a growl.
Maia blinked up at him, ripping her gaze from the sight of those strange feet.
“I have no faith in humans. Nor do I have any respect for your kind. I should have known, elven blood or not, that you would be little more than a dirty creature who only knows how to wallow in the muck. Now, get up.”
Tears stung Maia’s eyes. She was more than that. She was a talented woman who knew how to make plants grow and how to give people happiness at the sight of bright flowers. But in this moment, clothed in only a ruined wedding dress and the tattered remnants of her pride, she stood.
He watched her with a cruel gaze before clasping his clawed hand around the back of her neck. That massive, warm palm felt like a shackle that closed around her neck.
“You have wasted my time,” he snarled. “Now we must make camp here for the night. It is not a good place for us to sleep, but your foolishness has cost us too much time.”
He was the one who had thrown her over his shoulder. He was the one who had pushed her to the end of reason.
But she remained silent and seething as he marched her through the woods like a misbehaving child. Figures appeared in the shadows, moving out from behind trees where the trolls had been listening. They stood there watching her. Their gazes burned as he moved her through the crowd until they came upon a little stream.
Was he going to drown her? She wouldn’t put it past the monster who gripped the back of her neck.
He gave her one hard shake that made her teeth rattle. “Do humans not bathe?”
“We do,” she ground out through gritted teeth.
“When was the last time you bathed?”
“Last week.”
Filtered laughter rose from the trolls who had followed them. Her gaze slanted to the side, seeing the wall of multi-colored flesh and muscles. No one here would give her even an ounce of pity. No one would step in on her behalf.
The troll who had his hand around her neck released her as though she had said she was ill with the plague. “Trolls bathe daily. Sometimes more if the work is hard.”
“That’s how you get sick.” The words slipped out, a little too bitter and biting to be safe. She knew better than to talk like that. Maia knew what happened when she talked back to men. Curving in on herself, she waited for the slap or the shove that would send her onto her knees.
Instead, there was a long pause, and then deep guttural laughter.
They were all laughing at her. Every single one of them.
She curved her body tighter, rounding her shoulders and trying to make herself smaller. Then came the hand that she knew would hurt. He planted his palm between her shoulder blades and shoved her into the stream.
Her feet slipped on the algae-covered rocks and she fell onto her hands and knees again. Not quite as painful as the last time, but still making her wrist scream in pain.
But she ground her teeth and didn’t let them know it hurt. She’d never let anyone know it hurt.
Her husband’s laughter died to a snarl. “Clean yourself, troll wife. And take off those rags. I’ll return with clothing more suited for you.”
He turned to leave, weaving through the trees with the other trolls. They almost made no sound as they moved, leaving her alone with her desolate thoughts.