The Lonely Troll

by Harpie Alexander

  It was all random stuff. Bowls, cups, bones, fibers and a few animal skulls that had been cracked in half, she couldn’t even guess what those were for. No two items belonged together.

  She was proud of her accomplishments and even Skarde seemed pleased with the work she had done, even if he wouldn’t admit it outright. She wasn’t blind, at least not when there was plenty of daylight passing through the swaying treetops. He may not have wanted her to know, but she caught the slight curve of his lips when he saw her work and then dug something out of the ground.

  Apparently, it was some kind of smoking pit. Without access to a forge, Skarde had to make do. Carefully, he removed a couple of leaf-wrapped fillets and checked them over. Delilah couldn’t dismiss his creativity and the aroma of the fish was mouth-watering and made her stomach rumble.

  “That looks delicious. Can I try some?” she asked, licking her lips in hungered anticipation.

  He turned his head so fast, bearing his tusks at her menacingly. “No,” he growled.

  Frightened, she took a few steps back. Stepping on the hem of her dress, the force yanked her down at an odd angle. She yelped as she tumbled down on her backside.

  Suddenly, a large hand wrapped around her waist and an arm behind the nape of her neck, preventing her fall and erasing the fear that existed but a moment ago.

  Delilah inhaled sharply at the contact. Just like the previous time they touched, a bolt of lightning flashed where their bodies connected. From the small of her back to the back of her neck, and finally to the tip of her nose, where it lightly brushed up against his green one.

  The menacing glare in his eyes was gone, replaced with intense regret and sadness? Something akin to worry?

  Why does he care? And why does his touch not terrify me?

  Embarrassed by their close proximity, she could feel her cheeks redden, and if she had a mirror she bet that she’d look redder than an apple. And then the worst possible thing happened. She’d remembered her horrible state.

  Delilah couldn’t even imagine how awful she looked or smelled. The thought alone reminded her just how itchy she was, which was disappointing because she somehow went several hours without raking her fingers across her skin. She knew she needed a bath. There simply was no other way around it.

  She opened her mouth to apologize, but the moment was over. Just as quickly as he caught her, he righted her and stormed off, muttering something inaudible beneath his breath. Hurt, Delilah assumed it had something to do with how unclean she was, but instead of letting her emotion get the best of her, she decided to do something about it.

  It was time to take a much-needed bath.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Skarde

  By the gods and Erike’s axe, it happened again.

  Losing control of his emotions was one thing, but allowing himself to continually be devoured by this female was another. She had only been awake a day. One single day. And here she was, pulling him like she was the only thing that mattered. The only thing that existed.

  It was becoming unbearable. One minute he was tending his smoking pit, checking his varduush and then next she asked the one thing that unleashed the worst of his survival instincts.

  Can I try some?

  The simple four words rang in his mind repeatedly. He shouldn’t have reacted the way he did, but he couldn’t help himself. He was critically low on his fish supply as it was, and he desperately needed it to remain healthy. Soon he wouldn’t be able to hunt that species at all, and he’d have to make it through the winter without any. It was more problematic than the declining deer, fox, rabbit and boar. It was more problematic than allowing the human to live, even more so than the strange sensations he felt inside him whenever he got too close.

  Oh, how he got close…

  Because he’d scared her half to death, she tripped on her garment as she backed up. Skarde wasn’t sure if all humans were all this clumsy or just his. It didn’t matter because it wouldn’t have changed a thing. There wasn’t a second between her falling backward toward a painful injury and when he dropped his varduush—which should’ve been his priority—to the ground so he could catch the female in his arms before she damaged herself further.

  And then it happened. The exotic feeling in his stomach, the electrifying heat, both of which seared his skin all the while the desire to keep holding onto her despite who she was or what she was.

  It was only when, for the second time that day, he saw her blush that he pulled away. Perhaps King Erike was wrong. What if The Great War of Old, fallen kingdoms wasn’t because humans were angered over losing their princesses in bridal contracts, but rather his kind were unaware of the lure humans had over his trolls, and they simply just took what they desired?

  Shaking his head, he dislodged that thought. Skarde didn’t care what happened in the past. It was long over and held little to no bearing in the world he lived in now. He needed to focus on what was happening to him now, so he could better understand it.

  Winter was fast approaching, and there was still so much to do. The list continued to grow, however, it was so much more than that. There was a human in the mixture now, and if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t quite sure how she fitted into all of it.

  Sure, he told Delilah that he’d give her things to do in exchange for allowing her to live, but could she hunt? Could she check and lay traps? It appeared she had tended to the deer meat all right, but surviving out here was more than just cooking food. Skarde wasn’t always going to be around to watch her, and he needed to know that he could trust her when he wasn’t around and that she could handle herself should a problem arise.

  He headed back to his den, he picked nuts and berries on the way, hoping the sweet treats would tide them over. As delicious as they were, birds often pecked at them until there was hardly any left, but he’d be a fool to waste what nature provided in his time of need. He would make do just like he did when he was a youngling surviving on his own. If he could do it then, he could do it now.

  Upon reaching his den, he became puzzled. Neither the female or the varduush he so foolishly left out could be found. He could only assume she stashed it away somewhere, but it didn’t change the fact that his human was gone.

  “Delilah.”

  Only the wind whistling in the trees and birds squawking excitedly to each other could be heard. Where is that damned female at?

  Skarde couldn’t find her anywhere. He lifted every rock, peered into every crevice, searched every tree and behind every brush. Every inch of his den had been thoroughly inspected. She was gone.

  Nothing was missing either. Well, except for his fish.

  Had she run off? Skarde snarled at the thought. She better not have. His brows furrowed deeper when an even darker thought entered his mind. What if the humans caught her?

  Skarde shook his head. He knew that wasn’t the case. He’d know, but it didn’t stop him from searching around a second time just to be sure. There were no signs of an attack, no additional footsteps in the grass, nothing.

  Skarde fuming, paced back and forth, muttering curses beneath his short breath and plotting ways to make sure his human behaved. Once he found her, of course.

  “Delilah,” he bellowed much louder than the last time as he headed back into the forest, away from his den.

  “Over here. Just cleaning up,” she shouted back, but her voice carried over the trees and sounded quite some distance away.

  Furiously, he trudged in her direction. “Cleaning up what?” he demanded.

  There were a few moments of silence.

  “Female?”

  “Nothing. I’ll be back shortly, almost finished here.”

  “What in the name of the gods needs to be cleaned up over there?”

  Muttering to himself, he questioned his sanity. What did he expect when he kept the strange female around? Now that he was much closer he could hear her easily. Her laughter bubbled between bouts of singing and water splashing.

  S
karde growled as he pushed his way through a thick bush. Why couldn’t she clean by the river near his den? Certainly there was plenty of water there. “Whatever it was you deemed important enough to disobey me, I hope you found it worth it bec–”

  His eyes grew wide while his heart beat longingly.

  “Avert your eyes,” Delilah shrieked, pulling her arms up to cover her exposed breasts.

  He turned his back to her, but it changed nothing and everything simultaneously. Even if he pulled his very own eyes from their sockets, nothing would ever burn the images from his mind, not that he wanted to. Skarde planned to hold onto the memory until his last breath.

  Water continued to splash behind him.

  “I told you I was cleaning and would be back shortly.”

  “You weren’t supposed to leave.”

  “You couldn’t have possibly expected me to bathe in that puddle by your cave. I’m sorry if I worried you, but I was just so darn filthy I couldn’t stand it any longer,” she reasoned.

  “If you needed to wash you should have told me. I would’ve taken you to a much better spot.”

  Delilah moaned softly, and the sound of her fingers scrubbing her scalp tickled Skarde’s ears causing them to twitch. It took nearly everything he had to not turn his head over his shoulders and steal a glance at her bountiful breasts with their dusty pink tips. So soft and round, beckoning him to touch the–

  “A better spot than this?” she questioned before sighing. “You just keep running off before I even have a chance to ask much of anything.”

  “My point remains the same,” he insisted as he listened to her wading through the splashing water.

  “As does mine. How you expect me to do anything for myself if I’m stuck in one spot. I appreciate that you are...allowing me to live, but I can’t be expected to stand still. This is the first time I’ve been free in a long time. I refuse to be someone else’s prisoner. You can turn around now.”

  “I see. We can discuss this later,” he replied, while hesitantly turning to face her, not wanting her to see the eagerness that he surely felt in his eyes. Eager...is that what this is? Eager to save her life, eager for my eyes to feast on her body, eager to hold her in my arms. What is happening to me?

  When he finally faced her, his previous attempts to conceal his hunger nearly cracked at the seams. She wore nothing but a simple fur wrapped snugly around her shapely body. Water sluiced its way from her hair down her face and chin, dropped onto breasts where it rode its curves inward beneath the fabric and disappeared out of sight.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your furs. I needed something to wear while my dress dried.” Bending slightly, she picked up the garment she’d previously worn, but struggled with its weight. “It’s so heavy.”

  Skarde waved his hand dismissively. If anyone else had taken his furs and used them to dry off he was certain he’d be irritated, but for some reason he found he didn’t care that she had. Sighing, he strode forward and took the clothing from her hands. “It weighs nothing to me.”

  “That’s not fair. You’re very muscular,” she complimented softly with that alluring blush coloring her cheeks.

  “And you are very soft, with a lovely voice and beautiful breas–”

  “Do you mind carrying that for me? That would be very helpful. I know you want me to care for my needs myself and stuff, but all I ask is for this one favor is all,” she blurted, and quickly brushed past him leaving him in her wake.

  Why did he say those things? It left him feeling like a foolish youngling unable to keep his words to himself, exposing his private thoughts to her like she was the keeper of his secrets.

  Following her, he did as she politely requested and carried her clean clothes, careful to not let them drag on the forest floor behind him.

  “We will talk when we get back.”

  “Why can’t we talk on the way?” She pierced him with a questioning gaze over her shoulder, where her wet hair cascaded, plastering to her skin.

  “Because I can’t think with your luscious behind staring me in the face,” he admitted plainly. He decided that he shouldn’t have been embarrassed for revealing what he believed to be the truth. If she could be so blatant with her compliments, there was no reason why he couldn’t either.

  “What?” she squealed as she placed a hand on her bottom and realized it was peeking through the furs meant to cover her up. She quickly adjusted herself as best she could.

  Skarde took note to offer her a more lengthy fur next time she bathed. The ones that he gave her to use while she was ill, were old spares lying around.

  “This is utterly mortifying,” he heard her whisper beneath her breath.

  Unfortunately for Delilah, not only could he hear her, but even after she adjusted herself, he could still see her as plain as day. However, now knowing how embarrassing she found her nudity to be, he picked up the pace and strode past her. The area was relatively safe, and he knew there was no reason to assume she was in danger of walking behind him.

  “How long will it take for your clothes to dry?”

  “Hopefully it will be done by tomorrow. ”

  “Good. I will take you out tomorrow and show you the area. I didn’t want you leaving the area because I have many traps set and you could’ve gotten hurt.”

  “Oh…I had no idea. You should have told me.”

  Skarde grunted in reply.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Delilah

  It took longer to arrive back than it took for Delilah to travel to the river initially, and it probably has something to do with how difficult it was to keep her body covered from Skarde’s distracting eyes. Not that she could blame him given she was practically naked, but at the very least she was grateful that he was never perverted or lagged the control to keep his hands off her. He differed completely from human males, and strangely enough, that was enough to make her feel all the more comfortable in his presence, which was bizarre since he killed two humans in front of her and threatened to take her own life.

  And yet, even with their rocky start, she couldn’t help but respect him a tad bit.

  By the time they arrived back at the cave, it was already getting dark. Her entire body shivered from the steadily cooling temperature. Thankfully, Skarde was kind enough to start another fire, but this time, on the inside of the cave which protected them from the battering winds.

  “No...like this,” Delilah stated as a matter of fact as she placed rocks around the fire to prevent it from spreading, just like she had done with the other fire outside. “It keeps the fire inside the circle. No risk of spreading.”

  “Seems like I have use of you after all,” Skarde teased as he continued to pile the rocks around the fire just like she showed him. “However, wouldn’t it have made more sense to do this beforehand?”

  She didn’t mind his teasing and much preferred to interact with this part of him than the dangerous killer she knew he could be.

  At least he’s not trying to kill you now. And he’s not trying to…

  She shook her head, not wanting to think of that night. If anything, today had been a good distraction. Scary and crazy, but enough to keep her mind from losing it completely.

  “Don’t go changing up my carefully thought out technique,” she playfully jabbed right back at him. “This is an age-old tradition as of earlier today and I would like to keep it that way.”

  Delilah was only joking, if she wasn’t freezing to death she would’ve waited to build a secure perimeter for the fire pit, but alas Skarde had gotten to work before she could protest.

  “Age-old traditions...I see. Does that include bathing in the late afternoon with no clothes to wear afterward?” He flashed her a smile.

  It was hard to believe with a look like that that he was an aggressive creature capable of killing. She stiffened at the memory but shoved it down in the back of her mind. Things hadn’t been easy since she woke up, but for tonight, she would pretend that Skarde was her fr
iend and not some troll keeping her captive. She wanted to laugh and smile and unburden herself. The reality of her situation was waiting for her tomorrow, with a fresh start.

  “What? Of course not,” she replied, placing a hand on her chest pretending to be shocked. In a way he was right, it would have made sense to talk to him about bathing before wandering off, but he hadn’t made things easy for her either by running off every chance he had.

  “It gets much colder through the night this far up the mountain. I could have told you that had I known you were going to bathe in the river so late in the day.” Skarde sat down with a long stick he selected earlier and ran his fingers up and down it, inspecting every inch.

  “Great, of course, it does,” she snickered. Eyes wide, she clasped her mouth.

  What’s coming over me? I’m never so...free with my words and actions.

  It’s because the threat of punishment no longer looms over you like it once did

  “Why do you always do that?” he asked, tilting his head to the side observing her behavior. Then he pulled his bone dagger from its sheath and started what appeared to be the long process of whittling down the rougher parts.

  Sighing, she wrapped her arms around herself and scooted closer to the fire. Skarde now sat on the other side, watching with his yellow eyes that always seemed to glow in the shadows. It seemed he was always watching her. And while she still wasn’t a hundred percent sure about him, partially because he was male and every male she’d ever gotten close to has betrayed her, she couldn’t help but trust him just a little. He wasn’t perfect by any sense of the means, but in some strange way, despite his previous cruel intentions and the occasional aggressive moments, he seemed to be looking out for her.

  She didn’t understand it, but she trusted that feeling in her gut that told her Skarde meant well. That, and he wasn’t going anywhere. At least not anytime soon.

  “It’s not a happy story. It’s full of pain and heartache,” she disclosed, watching to see if he’d display as much interest in her story as he had when he’d seen her naked body earlier in the day. It was more than mortifying, but deep down inside her, there was a secret part of her that came alive beneath his gaze. A secret part she thought would never exist again when her childhood friend tried to rape her. Shuddering, she tucked those thoughts away, at least for the time being.