Page 5 of A Darkness So Sweet

He stared into those milky eyes, feeling the icy shards of her power crawling through him, and he envisioned the troll wife he wanted. He thought of her bravery, in the face of all odds. He thought of the kindness in her heart, and how she looked at all trolls with love and not judgment. But above all else, he thought of a bride who loved him dearly and with every ounce of her being.

The icy power radiated through his body until he was on his knees before the Bone Reader. Her eyes were level with his, and he could see the power in her gaze. It sparkled through her body, making her veins glow with a strange darkness that he could see like a web through her skin. She was powerful. He wondered how they’d gotten such a powerful seer to risk her life and come this close to a human settlement.

The Bone Reader trailed her fingers along his ears. They weren’t as long as hers, but his points were prominent.

“A good bloodline,” she said quietly. “You got these from your mother.”

“My father had less elven blood than she did.”

“And so you will follow in your father’s footsteps. A man who sees true goodness in his children, regardless of what they look like. You have a good heart, Ragnar, but I fear you are short sighted.”

He wasn’t following the last bit. Or the first, really. The princess was supposed to be well over half elven and that should mean his children would be even more than that. “Has the king lied to us?” he asked without thinking.

But she did not answer his question, because that was not the reason she was here. The bones in her hands rattled free. They clacked against each other, skittering across the ground into a pattern that meant nothing to his eyes, but everything to the Bone Reader.

She poured over them, her back arching as she hunched over the skeletal remains. She murmured under her breath, nudging a bone here and there as though it displeased her. But then she leaned back on her haunches.

He could see the disappointment in her gaze. The answer was not the one he wanted either, and he felt the need to reassure her that he already knew the damage was done. He would suffer with a bride he did not want. Their lives would be miserable and he would give up the future he had once dreamt for himself, all because the king thought he was the right troll for this job.

Instead, she gestured for a man at her side to come forward with a bowl of white paint. “A troll wife is a responsibility. She weaves herself around your soul like the roots of a tree.”

The Bone Reader pressed her palm to the bowl of paint and then over his thundering heart. It was all he could hear. The pounding in his chest nearly drowned out the sound of her words as she continued to speak.

“I open your heart to the woman who walks into your life. It is your responsibility to take care of your troll wife. You will keep her safe, keep her happy, and you will put her needs above all others. Even your own.”

He could hear the crowd murmuring in agreement. To them, the creation of a mated pair was nothing short of holy. They were bound, body, mind, and soul. There was no getting out of a mated pair without death. Not even if he begged the gods themselves to free him from the torment.

The Bone Reader dipped both of her hands into the paint this time, a grim expression on her face as she met his gaze. “You have been blinded by too many years of fighting and hatred, Ragnar. Your troll wife waits for you beyond the walls of that city. You will stride into the wedding with your heart locked away because what you see is far beyond what your heart can stand to reason with. But the gods have spoken. The gods have sent her to you. I will do my best to open your gaze.”

She reached forward and pressed the palms of her hands into the hollows of his eyes. Her fingers reached beyond his temples, into the short strands of hair he’d shaved just yesterday. Leaving the handprints behind, she met his gaze once more with a sad expression.

As the trolls behind him went wild, their chants echoed through the clearing. “Troll wife! Troll wife!”

“The hunt is on,” the Bone Reader said. “The gods have chosen wisely for you. Even if you do not believe it to be so.”

“I know you are lying,” he quietly replied, standing and towering above her. “It will be a hard path for both of us to walk.”

“I suspect you will make it harder for her to walk than it has to be. I know my words will change little to nothing in your eyes, but Ragnar, hear me. It is not the end of the world to be mated to a human.”

“I don’t see you mated to one.”

He turned toward the crowd of trolls behind him and lifted his fist into the air. They all cried out, stomping their feet on the ground and repeating the chant oftroll wife. They would hunt tonight. They would go out into the human realm and bring back his mate.

They didn’t care that he didn’t want one. Nor did they care he didn’t wanther.

This was his path to walk. No matter the consequences of what waited for him at the end.

ChapterThree

MAIA

“This is... white.”

“No, no, dear. It’s cream. This is the one that the princess chose.”

And she was getting a very bad feeling about all of this.

Maia knew for certain that the dress they had shoved her into wasn’tcream. She was staring at it in the mirror. Anyone with eyes could see that this was, in fact, a white dress. It was simple, but beautiful. A square neckline wasn’t too risque and the satin bodice tucked in around her ribs and then poured from her hips in a delicate waterfall of clinging fabric that left very little to the imagination.

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