Chapter 3
Moerrven
I stared at the ceiling. Poppy was asleep on my chest, her small warm weight rising and falling with my breath. She had inspected Sky when we arrived, sniffed his outstretched hand, allowed three pets, and dismissed him in favor of the windowsill.
That meant she liked him, which was unusual for my cat.
Sky was curled in my guest bedroom with three nonfiction texts from my library, which he’d examined enthusiastically, calling them “legitimately vintage” before settling in to do his research.
I had tucked one of my novels into the stack, in case he needed a distraction.
When I peeked in on him, the nonfiction texts sat unopened, and the novel lay open over his face, as though he’d fallen asleep mid-sentence. A man after my own heart.
That left me alone to ponder my poor life choices. All night long.
Why had I told him all of this was ancient troll tradition? I had invented an entire cultural practice on the spot. And it would be very easy for him to root out my lies. Just ask any troll in the realm!
The soulmate lie had seemed like the perfect way to get my sisters off my back, but the lies had multiplied, as lies always do.
Once I’d realized I needed to convince Sky to stay in order to sell the whole soulmate thing, it had all started going downhill.
At this point, I was probably going to have to move to the other side of the county to avoid the consequences.
Why had I told them he was my soulmate? I could have just told them the trolgar touch was accidental, but no, I’d fallen prey to the hope in my sisters’ eyes.
Or perhaps, I’d fallen prey to what Sky’s accidental touch had revealed.
But that didn’t matter one bit, because Sky was from a completely different world. A world he wanted to get back to.
And I was too loyal to Bryndala to even consider stopping him.
I groaned and scrubbed my hands over my face. Poppy extended her claws enough for me to know I had disturbed her comfy relaxation spot.
“Sorry, Poppy. I’ve just made a mess of things.”
My cat did not look surprised.
A throat cleared, and I looked up to see Sky standing there, wearing one of my shirts. It was a soft gray linen thing that came to his knees and hung off one shoulder, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows into thick bundles of fabric. His bare legs stuck out the bottom, muscular and lean.
His hair was a mess, black strands sticking up in ways that defied gravity, and his eyes were puffy with sleep. “Is it morning?” he asked, yawning. “I heard you talking.”
“It’s either early in the morning, or very late at night, depending on your perspective. But since you fell asleep before you even had your supper, I suppose your body is ready to break your fast.”
He beamed at me. “Interdimensional jet lag.”
“None of those words make sense.” I stood and his eyes followed my body in a way that made me aware that I was wearing nothing but a pair of calf-length sleep drawers.
I reached for a dressing robe. The look of disappointment on his face made my lips twitch so hard I had to turn away from him to hide my smile.
I was also fighting the urge to place his hands on my horns so I could—no, that would be ridiculous.
“How did you sleep?” I asked as I led him out into my living room.
He smiled. “Quite well. It wasn’t until I woke up that I remembered that I’ve transported myself to another world in search of a missing friend who’s still missing, and I might never see my family again.”
“I might not complain if I never had to see my sisters again,” I said, thinking of their meddling.
Sky went still, his jaw tight. “Take that back. They’re obviously just worried about you. And you love them. Where would you be without them?”
I blew out a breath as I stoked the fire, weighing my words because, all of a sudden, the cheerful young man had tears in his eyes, and it was my fault.
“You are correct. I may wish to avoid my sisters for a few weeks, but I should not like to lose them forever. I can’t imagine how difficult that must be for you. ”
He sat at the table blinking back the tears, then rubbed his knuckles over his eyes when they started to fall.
“I can see that reality has set in, and that calls for some tea,” I said, rushing away before I did something stupid like sitting him in my lap and rubbing his back.
He gave me a small, watery smile. “Will this tea perhaps take me away from reality?”
“No, but it’ll fortify you with the energy you need for the journey ahead.” The kettle started to whistle, and I poured two cups and set one on the table in front of the chair nearest the fire.
He shifted in his chair, pulled the cup toward him with both hands, and inhaled the steam with an expression of such uncomplicated pleasure that something in my chest squeezed, wholly unauthorized. “This is so good. What kind of tea is this?”
“My custom blend, mountain sage mixed with black tea from the south. The sage grows on the ridge above the cottage.”
“You pick your own tea?”
“It grows on my land. I would be a fool not to. Are you hungry? I can make us something to eat.”
Nodding, he grinned at me over the rim of the cup. His smile restructured his whole face, carving deep dimples into his cheeks.
Unwilling to be moved by something as simple as a smile, I busied myself with bread and cheese, sliced them thin, and arranged them on a board with the preserves, setting it between us on the table, a fussy domestic gesture I normally reserved for when my sisters visited and I wanted to prove I wasn’t subsisting on tea and self-pity.
I sat across from him and took a long sip of my tea.
Sky ate like a man who hadn’t been fed in days. He made sounds while he ate. Small appreciative sounds that were going to be a problem if he kept making them, because I could picture those same sounds happening in a much more erotic context.
“So,” he said, through a mouthful of bread and preserves, “I was thinking. About my friend Pip.”
“The one who came through before you.”
“Yeah. He went through hours before I did. He’s out there somewhere and he could be in trouble.
I need to find him.” He swallowed and set down the bread.
The brightness dimmed and worry came through, raw and genuine.
“He’s not like me, he’s sweet and kind and completely gullible.
I was the one who first got him that job, so if anything happened to him because of me, I’ll never forgive myself. ”
He stopped, pressed his lips together, and looked at the table.
“You didn’t cause this,” I said. “You couldn’t have known.”
“The point is, I need to find him. And I know you said something about a library—”
“The Great Archive at Highmark.”
“Right. But—” He bit his lip. “I know I promised to keep you company for a few days, but after that, how do I get there? Maybe there’s a… I don’t know, a bus system?” He was fiddling with the pendant and radiating a determined independence.
“Highmark is a long journey by wagon, even longer on foot. You don’t have money, you don’t know the roads, and you are quite small.”
“I prefer to think of myself as perfectly proportioned, thank you very much.”
Again, I fought back a smile, clearing my throat and giving him a serious look. “Highmark is high in the mountains, north of Stonedeep County. It’s not a safe journey for someone new to this world to do alone.”
He slumped, eyes going glassy again. “So I’m stuck. In a big country where I know no one and have no transportation.”
A tear leaked down his cheek, and I clutched my cup a little harder to stop myself from wiping it away.
“You’re not stuck.” I heard the words coming out of my mouth and I was powerless to stop them. “I will help you look into it. I just wanted you aware of the dangers so you don’t try and take off on your own.”
“Oh,” he whispered, brushing away the tears again. “Really? Are you sure? Would it be very expensive?”
I shrugged. “I’m quite wealthy and rarely have a thing worth spending my coin on, so don’t be bothered by that. But to be… frugal, we could even start with my library and move on to bigger libraries if we find nothing here.”
He glanced around my cabin, a question in his eyes. "Wealthy?"
I shrugged. “I’m a simple man. I do not need lavish accommodation. But my books earn a decent amount, and I have no shortage of funds should there be a true need.”
Sky sniffled. “And you’d consider this a true need?”
“A man is in danger, and a… friend is stuck far from his home. What greater need could there be than that?”
The look he gave me was half teary gratitude, half suspicion, as though he couldn’t quite believe someone would offer to help without an angle. “Why?”
“Because it would be wrong to do nothing,” I said. “You’re a guest in my home. In the — tradition.”
“The ancient troll tradition.”
“Yes.” I drank my tea and did not make eye contact. “That one.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, the suspicion taking over his expression. “Moerrven, if you want sex, you can just ask. I mean, you’re beautiful. It’s not like I’d turn you down.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. My body was responding to that in a very obvious way that I needed to hide before he noticed, and I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks, so I stood and turned away. “Come. I suppose I should show you my library.”
The library occupied two rooms. One was meant to be a sitting room, but was packed with shelves, floor to ceiling; the other was a smaller study off the hallway that was more books than room.
Every surface was covered. Shelves, stacks, piles organized by a system that made perfect sense to me and to no one else.
First editions, research texts, collections of poetry, natural history, three centuries of Stonedeep literary journals, and a considerable collection of romantic fiction that ranged from tastefully explicit to extremely explicit, some of them illustrated.
Sky walked into the study and stopped. His mouth opened. His eyes went wide. He took in the shelves, the stacks, the tottering piles on the desk and the chair and the small table I’d given up trying to use for anything other than book storage.
“Moerrven. Holy shit.”
“Mm?”
“You have so many books.”
“Yes.”
“Oh my god, I want to read them all! A huge library right in your house? This has been my dream since I saw Beauty and the Beast when I was a kid.” He spun in a slow circle in the middle of the room, arms out.
“The only thing missing is a ladder. One of the ones that slides on rails, so I could ride it across the shelves while singing.” He clapped his hands together under his chin.
It was incredible how easily he transitioned from fear and sorrow back into joyful chaos, which seemed to be his default state.
“Reading wouldn’t happen to be part of this trollish tradition, would it?” Sky asked, eyes wide as saucers.
I was beginning to suspect he was on to me. “Reading is encouraged. Very much part of the tradition. You’re welcome to read anything. Everything. With the aetherwoven magic, allow your mind a minute to process the translations.”
“Oh, I know. I read half of one of your novels before I fell asleep. The one about the prince who can’t stop fucking the fae warrior who is holding him captive.”
“That is not what that book is about.”
He blinked. “Are you sure? Because it seemed like there was a lot of fucking.”
“I wrote it! I used the bare minimum of explicit scenes to show their romantic connection.”
He pinned me with his gaze, his blinks slow and deliberate, then let his eyes run up and down my body until I shivered.
“What?”
“I mean, I’m just taking note of your idea of bare minimum sex. Makes me want to explore what your ideal is, and perhaps what you’d consider excessive. Honestly, it’s too bad more of your books aren’t about men who are into men.”
“I try to cover all genders,” I said firmly, even as I was thinking of putting Sky in the position of the fae warrior he’d just mentioned.
With that, he turned, already pulling books off the shelf, stacking them in his arms with the indiscriminate enthusiasm of a child in a sweet shop. “What’s this one? Is this one of yours? Oh my god it’s illustrated, and very spicy! Ooh, this looks delicious.”
He was holding a copy of White Stag, my erotic illustrated novel about two men finding fulfillment. Sexual fulfillment. Gods, he was going to get all of the wrong ideas.
“That’s mine. It’s — it’s an early work.”
“You wrote this.” He set the rest of his stack on the desk, flipped the book open, and gasped. “Holy shit, these illustrations. Moerrven, this is straight-up porn. Mm, look how he’s taking that big dick.”
“There are scenes of an intimate nature that serve the narrative—”
“There’s smut. Delicious, wonderful smut. About two men who fuck like bunnies.” He clutched the book to his chest and looked at me with an expression of pure, radiant joy. “Moerrven, are you into men?”
“I feel attraction to people of various genders. And I may have had a slight crush on a male teacher when I was in school.”
“Ooh, spicy. Did you suck him off?”
“No! Of course not, besides, right after that I met—”
I snapped my mouth shut. I’d almost said ‘my late wife’ there, and that wasn’t a thing you said to a person with a curiosity like Sky’s. Because then there’d be so much explaining to do, and the moment would be ruined.
“Met who?”
I waved a hand. “It’s in the past. Maybe you could read a book in the bath? Let me show you how it works.”
His reaction to the hot water tap in the tub was even more giddy. “You have running water? This is incredible.”
“It comes from a hot spring, underground. The mountains are full of them, and many troll cottages take advantage.”
“How did you know I needed this?” He held his fingers under the tap, moaning happily. And I definitely needed to get out of the room before I ended up washing every part of him thoroughly, the way the hero in my book did with his lover.
“I’ll um. I’d better go prepare lunch.”
“You’re sure it’s okay to take the book in the bath? It looks precious,” he said.
“I have a couple dozen copies somewhere. It’s fine. They were printed on a press, and I think I even still have the plates for the illustrations around here.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said, turning it over in his hands like it was something precious. “Thank you.”
He gave a little jump, caught my horn, and tugged me down to plant a kiss on my cheek. I needed to tell him to stop touching me there. He didn’t know any better, after all.
Maybe tomorrow.