Chapter 14
Fourteen
Bjorn
Bjorn argued until the wee hours of the morning. Astrid was bound and determined that they were not going to go anywhere but to see her sister first, and he kept pointing out that if they did that, they were stuck together.
A part of him whispered that it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Even if she left, he would still have the memory of her, the feeling that there had once been something bright in his life.
Bjorn knew a life without his bound mate would be torture.
He’d seen a few males who had either lost their wives too early, or who had been denied after the binding.
He knew their lives were less without those women.
Their souls always searched for the one they were bound to, even if it was only to feel the brush of their magic for just the barest of seconds.
He didn’t necessarily want to live like that, but... being tied to a woman like her wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened.
Eventually, she fell asleep in the broken bed.
He could still see the anger radiating through her body even at rest. Her fists remained clenched.
Her jaw worked continually. He was certain he’d get an earful about this again once she woke and her mind had had time to consider the options.
Their problem was simple. They needed to find her sister to appease her guilt and heartbreak, but they also needed to take care of themselves.
He wondered if Astrid had ever done that. She seemed so firm that she needed to take care of everyone other than herself. Even in their escape, she’d wanted to bring Rabbit when that was the absolute worst thing they could have done.
She still hadn’t asked for food. And when his own stomach rumbled, he realized she’d be starving before they left. Too many days without food would leave her weak, and he needed her strong for this journey.
There was no safer place for her than this hut.
He hoped she had enough foresight to stay inside as he slipped out into the night.
Soon enough, the sun would rise, and he would miss his opportunity to find the warrens that used to be plentiful in this area.
When he was a child, he’d hunted rabbits for Embla.
She’d been old then too, he mused as he crouched down on the ground and sought the signs he was expecting to see. Footprints, droppings that would lead him to where the rabbits would leave their homes soon enough to start the day.
He crouched near what he suspected was a warren.
Bjorn was a silent, dark figure who never moved until he saw the barest hint of a whiskered nose that was just starting to come out of its home.
This area of the woods had always been plentiful with their kind, although he felt bad taking them right out of their home.
He made quick work of it. And though he was saddened by the loss of life, a thrill ran through him. He hadn’t hunted like this in a long time. Not for death and destruction, but to stay alive.
Part of his mind whispered that he was dreaming. Soon enough, he would wake up in his cell and realize his mind had conjured up a grand story to escape the horror of what was being done to him there. He had only needed a break from what he knew would continue until the day he died.
But then Bjorn felt the breeze on him again.
It played through his hair, greasy and lank now that he’d had yet to bathe for days on end.
There was no reason for cleanliness in the cells.
The worse he looked, the better the humans liked it.
The guards didn’t torment him as much if he looked like he had been abused. All the trolls knew that.
But now, as he took in a deep breath of the forest surrounding him, he couldn’t smell the moss or the loam.
All he could smell was the stink of his body and the sweat that still clung to him.
Even the metallic aroma of blood still lingered on his body.
Perhaps that was why he hadn’t been able to smell her reactions or her emotions. Sometimes he could.
He had been able to with Ragnar’s woman. Maia, he remembered. Her name was Maia, and she had been a flame in his darkness that had lit up his cell. She had been hope, and now he was seeing all of that come to fruition.
Both his dear friend and his wife would be disappointed to see that he had become such a monster.
Bjorn took great care in cleaning the rabbit and then headed off to the stream he could hear nearby.
At the very least, he could wash himself before he returned.
There was plenty of time before Astrid would wake.
The stream quickly came into view. It was a bubbling, happy brook with water that didn’t rush too fast and stones that had been softened by years of the water’s travels.
Hanging the rabbit up on a tree for safety, he stripped off the loincloth that had kept him barely hidden from the eyes of so many humans who’d been all too happy to peek at what he hid beneath.
He’d lost so much of what he once was. As he waded into the icy water to the deepest part, he stood there with it up to his hips and took quick, short breaths before dunking himself completely under.
Running his hands along the hollow parts of his ribs, down his empty stomach to the jagged edges of his hip bones, he wondered what it would have been like if he’d avoided being captured.
Would he still have muscles here? Would he weigh at least a stone more?
Running his hands through his greasy hair, he took time to get some of the tangles out, at least. What a mess.
His mother would be so disappointed with him, let alone all the other women who had raised him.
They had impressed upon him how important it was to be clean, and here he was, ignoring everything they had ever told him.
Flashes of memories returned to him bit by bit, as he washed away the years of torture and torment.
Memories of home with his mother and her sisters, and how they had brought so much love into his life.
Years of him in their grotto, with the emerald green hills that had rolled as far as the eye could see, and animals all roaming freely.
Another memory sparked there too. A reason the animals had been able to roam like that without any fences or barriers.
But that one was still gone, just as much as the others were.
He still had a long way to go before he was himself again, but he was pleased that at least now he could try.
He was closer to who he had once been all those years ago.
Finally clean, he started planning as he got out of the water and rinsed off the loincloth the best he could.
There wasn’t much he could do with it. It was threadbare at best, but there should be some clothing still in Embla’s cottage.
He wasn’t sure if it would fit him—likely not—but at the very least he could make do.
Heading back home with a sopping wet loincloth and a dead rabbit, he paused to grab some wild carrots on the way.
There were a few places he used to gather them, and they were now overrun with options.
Wild carrots were abundant here, perhaps a good reason why the rabbits were plentiful as well. And then he headed back to the house.
She was still sleeping. But then again, the rays of the sun were only just peeking over the horizon. So he made quick work of sneaking back into the house to paw through the small chest at the foot of the bed.
That took some skill. Astrid stirred when he first opened it, and he froze at the shrieking sound of the hinges.
But she settled again, so he rummaged through the small wooden box until he found some old pants that used to be his.
They were tied on the sides, so he would be able to make them cling to his thighs well enough.
Grabbing those, he closed the box as slowly as he could to avoid the shrieking hinges again, and then headed outside.
Here, he could cook the rabbit for her. Along with the carrots. He highly doubted the king’s soldiers were still looking for them, and even if they were, he would hear them long before they made it to the cottage. So he got a fire going outside, threw the rabbit onto a spit above it, and waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
The sun was higher on the horizon than he’d anticipated before he gave up. Was the woman dead? Surely she should be up by now, and yet, she wasn’t. He poked his head into the darkened house, seeing that she was still underneath the covers.
Neither of them had slept well in the cell. He knew that. But Bjorn had never met someone who could sleep so long into the morning.
“Astrid?” he called out, trying to keep his voice at least a little quiet so he didn’t startle her.
She snorted in her sleep, rolled over, and then turned to look at him. “What?” Her voice came, quiet and still half asleep.
“We need to get going.”
“Oh.” Again, that higher pitched, soft voice that he’d never heard.
Sleep still clung to her as she sat up. Her hair was a little tangled, a billowing cloud around her head that looked more like a bird’s nest than actual hair. Her eyes were slightly swollen, and her lips were cracked. She looked anything but a priestess in this moment.
He’d never seen her look prettier. How strange it was to find someone in their most base form so sweet.
She rolled out of bed, barely functioning even though it was well into the morning. She blinked a few times before joining him outside. “Is that... food I smell?”
The poor dear was barely managing on her own. Maybe it was the binding that made something in his chest squeeze, or maybe it was just that she was pathetic looking as she staggered over to the fire and sat down next to it.
Her dress was all rumpled and wrinkled from a night’s sleep in it. One shoulder had fallen down, leaving her skin bare to the early morning sunlight as she breathed in the scent of cooking rabbit. “What is it?”
All the soft thoughts in his head ground to a screeching halt. “What is what?”
“That.” She pointed at the animal rotating on the spit. “I can’t tell without its...”
Skin, he filled in for her. She couldn’t tell what a skinned rabbit looked like. This might be a harder journey than he’d originally thought.
“Rabbit,” he replied, hurrying to the fire before she did something stupid. Like grab it with her bare hands.
He made quick work of taking it off the spit, and setting it on the plates he’d found inside as well. That with the steamed carrot would fill her belly far better than anything he’d found so far. Although now that he was looking at the food, he realized he wasn’t likely to eat anything himself.
He should have hunted more rabbits, he supposed. But he’d gone longer without food than this. She needed to eat more than he did.
Astrid tore into the food like a woman possessed. He handed her the thighs first, and she ate those without any hesitation. The carrots she ate three of before she pressed a hand to her belly and shook her head. “No more. I’ve eaten so little for so long, I think my belly shrank.”
A good troll would have argued. He would have told her that he was going to hunt even more for her, because the thighs of a rabbit and three carrots weren’t enough. But he wasn’t a good man right now.
Bjorn tore into the food with a vengeance.
He didn’t care what part of the rabbit he ate, because he ate all of it, even licking the bones clean.
The remaining three carrots he wasn’t even sure he chewed before swallowing them.
And when it was all gone, he definitely thought he should have hunted more. There was not enough.
But it would get him through the day. He knew this journey would be long, arduous, and risky. Looking at her, he doubted she’d be able to make the trip all that easily.
“Do you still wear those slippers on your feet?” he asked.
She poked them out from underneath the long length of her dress. What was on her feet were the remains of slippers that wouldn’t last half a day, let alone the week-long journey this was going to take.
Frowning, he ordered, “Come with me.”
Together, they headed back into the hut. Embla’s clothing wouldn’t fit her. She had been nearly as tall as Bjorn, but maybe there was something of use in here.
Rummaging through the clothing, he was disappointed to find nothing that would suit. Everything was far too big. It would fall off Astrid’s frame, and he didn’t need her to be picking at her clothing constantly on the journey. That would only make things even more difficult, but...
He leaned down to pick up one of Embla’s old shirts.
It was just a white, long-sleeved shirt.
Nothing special. But the buttons would make it easier for Astrid to cover herself, and the length was almost like a dress.
Turning, he handed it to her with a belt.
“Wrap the belt twice around your waist. This should cover you on our journey. Your feet I will bind in leathers.”
His feet would be fine. Bjorn had been barefoot for years now and the bottoms of his feet were like leather.
There was enough leather here to create rigging just like he had before, as well.
This time, he could make it out of more comfortable straps, perhaps using blankets as cushioning so she wouldn’t be so uncomfortable every time he had to sling her upon his back.
This would work. It wouldn’t be pretty, but it would work.
Something hummed in the back of his mind. An old memory, he thought. Trolls were meant to decorate their troll wives. Not to take away the beauty that covered them.
Turning back to the crate, he reached in through the mess and found on old bracelet that he remembered had once decorated Embla’s wrist. It was too big for Astrid’s, but...
“For your arm,” he said, holding out the golden hoop. It wasn’t much, but there were pretty stones set on it. About ten of them, clear stones that would glitter in the light.
“I can’t take this.”
“Wear it so I don’t feel as bad about putting you in a shirt rather than a gown.” He ducked his head before she could look at him and piled his arms with the leather that had gone to waste in the trunk. “I will work on creating something comfortable for you. We leave this afternoon.”
“How far are we going?” she called out as he headed out of the cottage.
“A week of travel. Some three hundred miles.”
“That’s... that’s impossible to travel in a week on foot.”
He paused in the doorway, glanced over his shoulder, and tried not to sound smug as he said, “Not for a troll.”