Page 52 of A Darkness So Sweet

She couldn’t imagine whatworsecould be. But, at the very least, Gunnar took the large stone on the couch with him as he left and locked the door behind him.

“No reason to sit in worry,” she muttered, before getting to work cleaning.

First, she took the time to pick up all the stones she could and put them in a pile in the corner. Maia had no idea where she was supposed to bring them, because it wasn’t like there was an easy place for them to be stored. Still, they could go in a corner until she was told what to do with them. Her husband had to have some kind of cleaning cabinet, so she spent far too long searching for that. Finally, though, she found a broom and a dustbin in the back corner of the kitchen.

Armed now against the dust, she made her way throughout the entire parlor. It took her four rounds of sweeping before she was done with it. She imagined that had taken her the better part of two hours, and he still wasn’t home.

The damage in the kitchen was significantly less than the rest of the house, so she went into the bedroom. Ragnar had yet to sleep with her, and it was just this morning that she realized why. A blanket had been left on the couch. He must have been sleeping out in the parlor most nights, but now there wasn’t anywhere else for him to sleep.

Unfortunately, cleaning gave her too much time to think about her new life. She mused that her husband was not who she thought he was, and that this entire situation was truly surreal. But also, would he plan to sleep in bed with her now that there was no other option? Why didn’t that sound so bad?

Perhaps she had gotten too caught up in everything. Only a few weeks ago, she’d been terrified of trolls and now she’d been tossed head first into the reality of their lives. Over and over again, she was slapped with the reality that these people weren’t as terrifying as she thought, and in fact, they were good people. Every bit of who they were made her want to like them.

No, it made her enjoy them. She’d been greatly enjoying her conversation with Rota while the entirety of the world had blown up in their faces.

And she found she was angry about that. These people didn’t deserve to lose their homes or be injured on safe streets. How could something like this happen to good people? Weren’t there supposed to be gods looking out for people who helped each other? Bad things shouldn’t happen to good people.

But they did. Bad things happened every day to good people, and she knew that, but it still stung for her to see it happen in real time.

She’d gotten the bedroom clean in her frenzied anger and then there was nothing left to do. Maia got ready for bed, feeling a bit numb that she was going to try to sleep when the streets were still covered in blood. But there wasn’t anything she could do. Her magic was weak, just like the trolls had said. She laid down in bed, staring up at the cracked and chipped ceiling, and something in her soul just wouldn’t settle.

How could it?

Ragnar had thought she wouldn’t help. That statement still rankled. He’d thought she would just let the trolls suffer, and what? Laugh in glee that they’d gotten what they deserved?

He still thought she was a villain.

Time passed slowly. Or perhaps quickly—she wasn’t all that sure. All she knew was that one moment she was staring up at the ceiling, and the next, she heard movement in the room adjacent to hers. Tilting her head to the side, she watched the silhouette of her massive husband walk into the bathroom.

For a moment, she just let herself look at him. She listened to the low murmur of his voice as he asked the wisps to be dim, so they didn’t wake her. His shoulders were curved in what looked like defeat. She’d always seen him with such power in his body. Even though he wasn’t a warrior like some of the other trolls, Maia thought of him as strong and powerful as the others.

Now, as he limped into the bathroom and fell quietly to his knees in front of the tub, she saw him in a different light. This was a broken man. A wounded man. One who had seen too much pain from his people and who had taken it on himself. He was aching and sad, and there was so little she could do.

But she was here. So she sat up, got out of bed, and made her way to the bathroom.

His shoulders moved up and down with heavy breaths. His white shirt was smeared with dirt and blood. His clawed hands rested against his thighs, and she could see that three of his claws had cracked right down the middle.

Tears burning in her eyes, she gently placed her hand on his shoulder. “How can I help?”

“There’s nothing left to do. I have nothing left to the give them and there are so many more who still need help.” Even his voice was raspy, as though he’d lost his voice hours ago. “I wish to rest, wife. That’s all.”

Maia knew what it was like to have no more emotions to give. But she also knew this troll. She knew he didn’t want to get into bed with dirt on him, even less than he wanted to get into bed with her. And that was all right. She could sleep in one of the chairs. She’d slept in worse before.

Quietly, she reached for the hem of his shirt. He said nothing as she helped pull it over his head. The moment his shoulders had to rise, he let out a long groan that made her wince. He had pushed himself too hard, even beyond using so much of his magic.

They got the shirt off, though, and she let it drop onto the floor. He used the edge of the tub to stand and then waved a hand at her. “I can do the rest.”

“You don’t look like you can.”

“It’s just a quick wash. I’m not so helpless that I cannot do that myself.”

“Then you can wash all the bits that are hard to reach,” she scolded.

Part of her screamed to just let him do it. Her ears were already burning bright red at the thought of undressing a man. She’d never done this before. The few and meager interactions she’d had with men had been behind her father’s house. A quick, stolen moment where all their clothing had remained on. The first man to see her entirely naked had been him.

Placing her hands on the waistband of his pants, she gently tugged them down. He didn’t argue further. Instead, he just let her shift them down over the round globes of his ass, down those powerful thighs that had caught her attention from the first day she’d seen him, and down to the clawed toes that gripped onto the floor even as he lifted first one leg, then the other.

Maia reached for the faucet and turned it on, just as he had for her. But instead of looking, as she desperately wanted to, she busied herself gathering up the necessary supplies of soap and towels. For a man as large as him, he certainly had tiny towels. She couldn’t imagine they were even capable of wrapping around his waist.

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