Page 30 of A Light So Blinding
“Bjorn, I don’t think?—”
He turned to look at her with a scowl. Placing a finger on his lips, he made it very clear that she was supposed to keep her mouth shut. So she did. She trusted he would get them out of here, even though it made every part of her quake and shiver.
This wasn’t what she had thought it would be. The threadbare slippers on her feet made it hard for her to walk over the pebbles that covered the path. She tried to do so without complaint, but soon enough she could hardly keep the little grunts of frustration from escaping her lips.
It seemed every tiny pebble was getting underneath the edge of her slipper and jamming itself between her toes. She had to stop to shake them out, and then Bjorn was just moving farther and farther away from her. Astrid hadn’t done all of this to lose every part of her life she’d fought for and thennotget her sister back. So she rushed after him, inevitably getting even more rocks in her shoes.
When they reached the back of the first building, Bjorn went right into its yard. She tried to hiss a warning, but he completely ignored her.
He moved on his knuckles and haunches, looking almost ape-like as he traversed the person’s yard. Strangely enough, it did keep him very low to the ground. No one would see him even if they looked out their window. The moonlight guided him, apparently, because she could barely see now that they were in the village. Everything was shadows and darkness.
The moon didn’t cut through buildings, and no matter how hard she tried to peer around the shadows, her eyes simply could not get used to this level of darkness.
Bjorn appeared at her side, looming out of the darkness with a sheet in his hands.
“I don’t think anything is going to cover your horns believably enough that someone won’t realize you’re a troll,” she muttered, glancing around them to make sure no one had seen him.
But he was already wrapping the sheet around himself. He’d folded it so it looked like one long string, and then he pulled another sheet out of seemingly nowhere. What was he doing? He bound them around his chest, crisscrossing them around each other, and then gestured for her to come closer.
“Get on my back.”
“Excuse me?”
“Get on my back,” he repeated, but slower this time, like she didn’t understand what he was saying. “Put your legs through these.”
She realized he was holding the sheets out at an odd angle. They had crossed along his lower back, creating almost a cradle for her bottom, and her legs would go through the sheets at his side.
She’d seen mothers walking around the market with slings like this. Their children were secure on their backs, and then the mother’s arms were free to gather whatever produce theyneeded from the market. She’d always thought it was a rather ingenious way to get around with a child.
He wanted to carry her like a toddler.
Cheeks burning with embarrassment, she did exactly as he said. After all, there was no way for her to deny what he wanted. She was slowing them down, and any minute people were going to start waking up. At this rate, they’d likely only get through half of the village before people woke, and then what would they do? They needed to move faster, and not waste so much time on her pebble-laden feet.
Astrid made quick work of climbing onto his back, although everything in her wanted to grumble about it. Hiking her skirts up as high as she could, she tightened her legs around his waist and wrapped her arms around his massive ribs.
His hands reached back, sliding up the bare skin of her thighs, and they both froze. She had never had a man touch her like that. The calluses on his palms abraded her skin, leaving behind what she was certain would be a red mark. And his claws trailed up her skin so gently, leaving streaks of heat in their wake. She’d never had such a visceral reaction to another person’s touch. The danger in his grip made her entire body light up, and she... she didn’t know what to do with that.
Bjorn seemed to stop breathing entirely. But her palms were on his ribs, and she could feel how hard his heart thundered.
He ripped his hands away, holding on to the thin fabric strips at his chest that held her weight. “Hold on tight,” he murmured, before darting off at a speed that left her breathless.
If anyone in the village woke and saw them running past the homes, she wouldn’t know. The only sound she could hear was the wind moving past him as they bolted through town. And then he was leaping over a fence, using one hand to launch himself over it. Cows lowed at them as they ran by, one of them leaving an image in her mind of white, rolling eyes.
Then, more cobblestone streets that echoed with the sound of his running footsteps. Suddenly, he turned just slightly, using his arm and shoulder to bash through a door. She had only the slightest image of horse stalls with the creatures shrieking in fear before they were bursting through the next door and out into the fields beyond.
Fields, she realized, that surrounded the castle limits.
The wheat had long ago been harvested, and it was all flat planes as far as the eye could see. No animals were out here grazing, but on the horizon the sky had turned just slightly pink.
They had run out of time.
Bjorn’s chest heaved with exertion. She could feel every breath thundering out of him, and how sweat slicked his body. And yet, even though the sun was coming up and someone would soon see them, he pushed himself even harder. Faster. They were moving so quickly that everything turned into a blur.
She hadn’t realized anyone could move this fast. Definitely not after he had been tortured in a dungeon for years on end. But Bjorn was running with all the speed of a man who had tasted freedom and who refused to be denied it for even a moment longer.
Astrid pressed her palms against his chest, holding on to his heartbeat as though she could keep the organ in his chest. The trees were so close. The shadows there would hide them if they could make it.
“Troll!” someone shouted. “Troll in the fields!”
