Page 24 of A Darkness So Sweet

“Please,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. “Don’t do this.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest. She could feel the rhythm of it knocking off what it normally would be, and suddenly, there was no rhythm at all. She was going to die of her heart exploding in her chest long before she felt the pain of whatever they intended to do. They were going to make her suffer, she could feel it. She would never live through this, she wouldn’t?—

Inkeri grabbed her right ear. “Take a deep breath, fire hair. It’s not as bad as you’re thinking.”

And then the needle slid through the lobe of her ear. She felt the sharp tip first, pressing hard against her skin. Then the pop as it slid through and the heat of a sting that seared through the flesh.

She released a long breath, hissing out the sound as though that might help with the sting. But then she opened her eyes and looked up at Inkeri, who was staring down at her work. “I think that’s centered. Don’t you?”

Hulda leaned closer to look it over before nodding. “And barely any blood. Good job.”

“Now the next,” Inkeri said. But she didn’t go to the other ear. Instead, she placed the needle against the harder part at the top of Maia’s ear.

“Wait,” she said, trying to reach for Inkeri’s hand, but found herself held in place by Rota. “I don’t need one there. My lobe is enough.”

“A troll wife always gets her first four piercings after the mating. Stay still.”

They made quick work of the other three. Her ears burned afterward, but it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. Maia had never gotten anything pierced in her life. Some women had their ears done, but her father hadn’t been able to afford earrings. Why would she have holes in her ears that would just heal over?

Hulda produced pretty gold rings and gently put them into each of the punctures that Inkeri had made. There was a reverence in her touch, one that made Maia sit very still so that she didn’t mess this moment up.

“A troll wife’s first jewelry is usually provided by her husband,” Hulda said. “But yours did not bring the piercings. I believe he thought we would be meeting in our home. But that is all right. I knew to bring some of my own.”

“These are yours?” Maia asked, then lifted her hand to touch them.

“They were the rings my husband gave me when we first met. He told me only the prettiest troll in the land would be worthy of them.” Hulda looked at each ear before cupping Maia’s face. “You may not be a troll, but they still look lovely on you.”

For some strange reason, tears pricked Maia’s eyes. She didn’t want to cry in front of these women, but she couldn’t remember the last time someone had told her that she was lovely. Her father hadn’t cared to. None of the men who came to the house ever cared about her. They cared about the business and the money they might be able to make. Perhaps her mother had once told her she was pretty, but Maia didn’t remember her at all.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Now, I’m sure you feel silly for being so afraid.”

Her cheeks burned just as hot as her ears did. “A bit.”

Inkeri chuckled, and Rota let out a bell like giggle that filled the clearing. The youngest of them all said, “Can you imagine how afraid Ragnar was when he got his husband piercings? What you just did is nothing compared to what he endured.”

“Husband piercings?” she asked.

The three troll wives went quiet. They all looked at each other, then at her.

Hulda was the first to ask, “Yes? I assume you felt them if you did not see them.”

“I haven’t...” Maia wasn’t sure how to say that she hadn’t even seen her husband for a few days other than hanging onto him. “Was it his ears? Those didn’t seem worse than this.”

A loud snort erupted from Inkeri’s mouth. “Fuck, no. That’s hilarious. Silly little thing, we meant the ones on his cock.”

Again, silence. All Maia could hear were the birds that twittered in the trees around them and the faint hush of the wind moving through the leaves. All three of the troll women looked at her expectantly, as though she were supposed to laugh or reveal that this had all been a giant joke on her end. But she didn’t know what they were talking about.

“Did you say piercings on his cock?” she asked, although the last word she could barely get out.

Inkeri’s face paled. “Oh, you haven’t?—”

“Oh dear,” Hulda said before pressing her hand to her mouth.

Rota was the only one with the absolutely ridiculous nature to burst out laughing and shout, “She hasn’t seen his cock yet!”

The forest burst into movement as the loud noise scattered birds into the trees around them. And all the while, Maia couldn’t help but wonder what a pierced cock would even look like.

---