Page 39 of A Darkness So Sweet

Ragnar sighed, and his hands curled around her. He turned her in his arms until his hands were underneath her armpits. He let her dangle from his grip. “Listen to me, Maia. And I want to make sure you are actually listening, so you are going to repeat everything I say. Do you hear me?”

Miserable at her own fate, she sighed and nodded.

“The king does not take troll wives from their husbands.”

She muttered the words, but she didn’t believe them. Kings always took—that was what they did. It was their right as a king to sample brides before they were taken by their husbands. It was the way of things. If Ragnar wanted to lie to keep her pliant, then she’d let him do that. But she wouldn’t believe him.

“No self respecting troll would ever let another man touch his wife.”

She repeated that. But then he shook her, bringing her closer to his face so he could stare into her eyes.

“Listen closely, fire hair. If another man touches you, I will first cut off his fingers. I will make him watch as I eat them, one by one. I will savor the taste of his blood and his pain before I cut off his hand for ever having it graze your skin. If he survives that, I will hunt him down. I will run him through the forest until his breath saws from his lungs and until he knows what it feels like to be prey. Then I will skin him alive until he dies. I will wait for him to wake up if he passes out. I will continue until the end,” he said. “Do you hear me? Trolls are not humans. We do not use our wives as play things, nor would we ever allow a woman to be traded around like that. You are not in your human kingdom with your foolish men.”

That got through her anxiety. Maia’s hands shook where she held his forearms, and she finally gave him a quick nod. “Okay.”

“You hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“What will I not let happen?”

“No one will touch me,” she whispered.

“No one but me.”

She hadn’t expected that to be quite so reassuring. She shouldn’t want him to touch her, either. He was a troll. A terrifying creature of the mountain who would likely drag her deeper into this realm.

But somehow, she trusted him. With the blue leaves behind his head and harsh juts of his tusks against the shadows, he looked every bit the beast she had always thought him to be. But this time, she saw him as her beast.

He would keep her safe.

ChapterSixteen

MAIA

They continued through the forest, with Maia in his arms and a little quieter than before. He’d been carrying her all day without any signs of tiring. She would have been impressed if she wasn’t so worried that he was straining himself unnecessarily. She wasn’t helpless. She could walk on her own.

She’d suggested the very thing to him, but he’d scoffed.

“What I carry to make camp is heavier than you,” he’d replied. “And I carry that for days on end.”

And that was that. In the silence that followed, her mind started to make up stories about what would happen when they reached the castle. The troll king wouldn’t be happy to see her—that much she was certain of. He’d likely take a bit of her flesh for what King James had done. And she wouldn’t even blame him for wanting that revenge.

Now she understood the gravity of this bride switch. So she would take her punishment with her head held high. After all, her father had taught her that it was easy to be punished. She just had to go somewhere in her head where nothing bad ever happened, and eventually, the punishment would end.

Soon enough, the castle loomed in the distance. The base was created by roots of trees, while tall spires of stone emerged from their tangled knot. All the stones were white and gleaming in the blue light. Those spires had banners hanging from some of the windows, blowing in the breeze. As they strode toward it, she could see the roots rising out of the ground and creating what looked like stairs that led right up to the massive double doors.

It was a beautiful sight to behold. A castle not standing above all the beauty of the land around it, but part of the land. She thought of her own people’s castle, the one she’d grown up in the shadow of. It always looked like it had been built on top of that field, conquering the surrounding lands. With everything flattened into farmlands and not a hint of wilderness left, it was a testament that humans could and would destroy everything in their path if it stood in their way.

As they walked through the roots, she marveled at how large they were. This tree had long ago died. She couldn’t feel a single hint of its soul lingering in those thick, brown spirals that sank into the ground and held the castle in place. But she could feel the magic that still lived where it had once stood.

The true heart of the mountain was the ancient magic that fed into the people who lived here, and now she could feel it spreading. Everywhere. Every inch of this kingdom held a bit of that magic that the tree had sacrificed when its time had come.

Monolithic doors stood open to all who wished to enter, and that was a difference between her castle and theirs as well. King James loved to keep the doors closed, and people had to beg to get inside. Even if they were in dire need, the king wouldn’t justletthem in. He preferred for them to prove themselves to him, no matter how hard that might become.

But these dark green doors were wide open. And as they walked through them, she realized they were made entirely out of some green precious stone.

“Jade,” Ragnar said as he caught her staring.

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