Chapter 6
Chapter Six
RAGNAR
He didn’t like being cruel, but she would have to be tougher to be a troll wife. This creature had barely lasted a few hours on his shoulder before vomiting.
Humans were delicate. He would need to ensure she ate and drank enough water during their travels to keep her alive, but he did not know how much of either she needed. Clearly, she would have different needs than his own kind. Her people were more delicate, softer than the trolls. He wasn’t sure if she could go a full day without food, let alone a week like his own people could.
Regardless, she would need to be capable of significantly more than what he’d seen thus far.
He was... worried. And that feeling didn’t settle well with him. He didn’t want a wife he had to worry about. He’d wanted a sturdy woman who knew how to hunt and fish and all the things she would need to do while he was out in the war bands as their healer. She would need to be able to take care of herself while he was gone. And this little creature?
He doubted she could even bathe herself regularly. She thought it made her sick .
Striding through the trees and toward a clearing nearby, he was pleased to see the rest of the trolls had already started making camp. The black dyed hides were hand stitched with gold threads in runes for protection, good rest, and warnings in case anyone snuck up on them while they were asleep. Among those rune borders were markers for each family. He and Gunnar had the same stitchings on theirs. Twin bears, both of them fighting each other in a great battle until the end of time.
Their father would have been proud to see his family story still on the war tents. After all, it was their great-great grandfather who had found the two bears all those years ago. Their lineage was that of the bear tamer, the troll who had found the bears and brought them home with him.
Gunnar waited for him at their tents, seated outside of one with a fire already started. “You left her in the stream?”
“You saw?”
His brother grinned and shook his head. “The entire campsite is talking about the troll who shoved his wife into the water. We’re taking bets on what she takes in retribution. Your cock or your ears. I bet on the cock.”
If only. Trolls valued a woman who knew how to fight, and troll wives were known to be the fiercest among them.
“My troll wife is meek,” he muttered before ducking into the tent his brother had set up for him.
“What?” His brother’s squawk echoed before Gunnar thundered into the tent after him. “What do you mean, she’s meek?”
“I mean, she’s little more than a ground mouse hidden in a hole. I scolded her, ordered her around, shoved her into a stream, and not a single word. She’s delicate, fragile, everything she should not be.” And that terror was already consuming him.
His brother had done little to set up the tent’s interior. Normally he would have layered plush rugs inside this late in the evening. They would keep her feet warm in the icy wind that always crept through the forest this time of year. He’d have to get those out of the crates, along with the clothing he wanted to bring her.
But none of the bridal clothing he’d made for her would fit. He had spent his entire life learning how to stitch and sew and design clothing that would befit a troll wife, but all of it had been made for a much larger bride. A creature who would have, without a doubt, been his match in every way.
Two crates in the corner held all of his travel gear, and he marched over to them and opened up the one on the right. There were furs there for the bed he would eventually make, and the bridal clothing that he’d brought with him.
Bright baby blue leathers would have made any troll wife hiss a happy sound. He’d taken time to learn how to string pure silver into a thread he stitched into them. The dress was designed to hang off the shoulders of his wife, showing the graceful lines of her neck, which were his favorite part about women. The strong lines of her shoulders would be bare for him to linger on and kiss, to drag his tusks along the muscles there. But the dress was far too large, and the pattern wouldn’t fit her.
His troll wife wouldn’t want to wear anything that told the history of the trolls. She wouldn’t care about the time it had taken him to carefully stitch, line by line, how his people had been born from mud, fur, and scales. How the elves had created them, and how the trolls had freed themselves.
Besides, allowing her to wear such a garment felt like a denial of the bride who should have been. Sighing, he reached beyond the beautiful blue fabric to grab one of his own shirts. It was plain cotton, but it would have to do for now.
Standing, he turned to face his brother’s frown.
“What now?” Ragnar snarled.
“You would give her that to wear?”
“What else should I give her? I didn’t have enough time to stitch her anything else. The bridal wear was made for a troll, brother. She’s hardly the size of our children, let alone a full grown troll wife.”
There it was again. More anxiety. More nerves churning in his belly because she was so much smaller than he’d expected. Would she even be able to keep up with them? Would he be forced to carry her for the rest of their days? What would he do when he was older and incapable of carrying her such a great distance?
Gunnar clapped his hand on his shoulder, giving Ragnar a little shake. “She deserves the honor of any troll wife. I know you’re struggling with this, brother. But it will look bad in the eyes of our people.”
For her to be covered in little more than cotton? Of course it would. The entire camp would think he was ashamed of her, but what else could he do?
“I have nothing else to give her,” Ragnar grunted.
Gunnar searched his gaze for a few moments before nodding. “Of course you don’t. I don’t know why I assumed there would be more. Allow me to set up your tent while you go and gather her. Make sure she’s dry.”
Helplessly, he stood there, facing his brother’s disappointment. All he could think to say was, “She thinks bathing will make her sick.”
His brother blinked in surprise. “She does?”
With slow steps, Ragnar backed to the trunks and sat down hard on top of one. He crushed the shirt in his hands, wringing it like there would be some answers in the fabric. “What do I do with a creature who believes the mere act of cleanliness will harm her? I knew the humans were backward and knew far less than our kind, but I didn’t realize I would be bringing an animal into my home. What disease does she already carry? What little else will she know?”
“I didn’t realize the humans were so...”
They stared at each other, at a loss for words. There was no chance for Ragnar to feel better. This troll wife of his was more than disappointing. She was a waste of time.
Gunnar sighed and ran a hand over his head. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. She’s your wife now.”
“Not yet. There is still another step.”
“She will be,” Gunnar insisted. “The Bone Reader saw it, as did the king’s seer. You will be her husband and she will be yours to take. You can fight it all you want, or you can accept it and learn how to...”
“Don’t say it.”
“I wasn’t going to say love her , brother. I was just going to say learn her .” Gunnar circled his hands in the air. “Her. Learn. All of it. There are differences here perhaps you do not understand, but it’s a choice. This is the first time any troll has mated with a human, but it’s for the betterment of all our people. You will bring about a new age of elven blood.”
Would he? Ragnar reached for the tips of his ears, slowly dragging his fingers along the piercings there. “She doesn’t have pointed ears, Gunnar.”
“Maybe humans don’t.”
“Even with elven blood?”
Something was wrong here. He could feel it. He might not have been the warrior that his brother was, or the tactician their father had been, but Ragnar had always trusted his gut. And right now, his gut was saying something was terribly wrong.
Perhaps Gunnar felt the same way. His brother’s gaze narrowed before he said, “There is no way to know unless you ask her. Go get your troll wife, Ragnar. There are many reasons for you to speak.”
He supposed there was. But he was enjoying his time away from her. In the tent alone, he didn’t fear what she would say next, or what she wouldn’t say. There was something off about how she took whatever he yelled at her. She didn’t seem to care when he was rude or downright mean. She just curled into herself, even when the others laughed at her fears about the water.
A troll wife should argue. She should fight. She should shout at all the others to not laugh at her because she didn’t know these things. Then she should demand someone teach her.
Perhaps he would have to do it for her. The mere thought made his heart skip a beat in his chest. If he fought all her battles for her, then when he was gone, she would have no one to fight on her side. She would be picked on by all the other trolls. She would be the weakest among them.
Heading out from his tent, Ragnar stomped through the woods and told himself that his fears were unwarranted. She could take care of herself. He would return to the stream and see she’d already made her escape attempt. He’d track her through the woods easily, because there was no human who could hide from a troll in their own home, but it would reassure him that she at least had some sense. A hunt like that would do them both good.
He would be able to hunt her down and ease some of the anger in his chest. She would be able to get some of her own anger out in attempting to trick him through all of her tracking knowledge. And once he finally found her, perhaps much of their fears would lessen about the other.
When he arrived at the stream, already prepared for the hunt, he did not find a trail of scent growing cold and footsteps hidden in leaves. Instead, his dirty little creature was seated on the edge of the stream in the muck. She was plucking handfuls of sand out of the water and scrubbing her skin nearly raw. In some way, he understood why she was bathing like that, but now there was sand all through her clothing.
Clothing she still had on.
Why would she bathe with her clothes still on? The wedding dress had been ruined when she’d fallen from his shoulders, smeared with mud and specks of vomit. The fabric wasn’t meant to get wet. Already he could see some of it disintegrating and floating away in the shallow current.
He crouched, watching as she lifted her arms to her hair and... Was she rubbing sand into her hair as well? That was going to take forever to get out.
She’d bring sand into his bed tonight. The absolute horror.
Not to mention she still hadn’t realized he was right behind her. Where was this creature’s sense of self preservation? At the very least, she should have felt his eyes on her. The hairs on her arms should have stood up in fear, but no. She was just grunting and grumbling under her breath as she washed herself. Not a single realization that there was a hunter watching her every move.
Ragnar only had so much patience. He lifted a stone beside him and tossed it into the stream. The heavy plunk caught her attention before she looked over her shoulder and realized he was crouched there.
A myriad of things then happened in rapid succession. She let out an ear-piercing shriek, tried to stand, slipped on the rocks, and then fell backward into the stream. A wave of impressive volume splashed around her, nearly reaching his toes, before surging back into her face as she tried to sit up. It pushed her back underwater, and for a few moments, all he could see were her flailing limbs.
Was she going to drown in knee-high water?
He wasn’t all that certain what to do, considering he was the catalyst for all of this, so he remained where he was. Watching until her head finally crested the water, free of sand now that she’d been flailing about so badly. Spluttering, she shoved all that red hair away from her face and stared at him. Wide eyed. Far too concerned for his liking. Black streaks dripped down her cheeks, likely from the makeup they’d painted all over her. A smear of red streaked from her lips across her cheek as well.
“What are you doing?” she wheezed, her breath sounding a little ragged in her lungs. Likely from inhaling too much water.
“I brought you clothing,” he said, lifting the shirt in his hand. “Don’t you need to remove your dress to bathe?”
“No.”
“How do you get everything underneath clean?”
She stared at him a little longer before rasping, “You just reach up under there and clean it.”
Perhaps she believed that was sound logic, but he didn’t think so. The corset alone covered too much of her ribcage for her to appropriately clean her torso. Not to mention the heavy skirts would make it hard for her to see if there was anything left that she had missed while wiping at all the other bits. Their kinds weren’t so different that he couldn’t imagine everywhere she needed to take care of.
That dress would be the death of her, not the stream. She was so convinced it was cleanliness that would be her downfall, but that just wasn’t true. Keeping wet clothing on her body for long periods of time could actually make a person sick. She would need to dry off. And, like an idiot, he hadn’t brought her a blanket with which to do so.
His shirt would have to do. It was thick enough to soak up much of the water, and he likely had another one lingering somewhere. He wasn’t one to wear a lot of shirts, though.
His stomach churned and his chest grew tight with that anxiety again. He didn’t want to be known as the man who lost his wife to something as stupid as the cold.
“We’re not taking the dress back with us,” he declared.
“Excuse me?”
“Take it off. We’re not returning to camp with that.”
Her mouth parted, those berry red lips dropping open. “The dress stays on.”
“It comes off.”
“I don’t want to wear the shirt you have in your hands. It’s not a dress and hardly enough fabric to cover me.” She crossed her arms over her chest, as if those meager biceps were enough to shield herself from his sight. “It’s simply not done to walk around men I do not know with my legs showing.”
“You’re no longer with the humans.” He stood, letting her gaze trail over his much larger form. She needed to understand that when he told her to do something, it wasn’t because it was a choice. He wanted to keep her safe. “Take the dress off, or I will take it off for you.”
Her features paled at his order. But she nodded, even if the muscles in her jaw jumped a bit as she did so. “Fine. If that’s how it is.”
Ragnar held the shirt out for her. “Good. I’m glad you’ve finally seen reason.”
But she still stared at him, seated in the water, while her lips started to turn purple. “Are you going to turn around?”
“Why would I do that?”
“A gentleman would.”
Ragnar tried very hard not to let any emotion show on his face. “What makes you think I’m a gentleman?”
Gentlemen were the nobles who hunted trolls down in the middle of the night. Gentlemen were the humans who went out of their way to leave his people dying painful deaths and then hang pointed ears around their necks. He did not want to be like any of those people.
Still, considering how pale she was, he supposed he could relent. Shaking the shirt in his hand, he slowly turned and then held it out behind him. “Quickly, fire hair. My patience grows thin.”
They had very little time. The forest was dangerous at night, and there were many creatures who hunted in the silver light of the moon. He needed to get her back to the tent site, back where there were fires to keep away the creatures who would attack even a troll.
He listened to the sounds of rustling fabric and her soft breaths before he felt the slightest tap on his forearm. Glancing down at her, he ground his teeth at the delicate sight. All that red hair had turned dark as blood, plastered back from her face and revealing those strangely rounded ears. But even more than that, she just looked... small. Fairly swimming in the shirt he had given her. The hem reached her knees, and the arms pooled around her fingertips.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice perhaps a little softer.
At her nod, he grabbed the back of her neck and guided her through the woods to his tent.