Page 55 of A Light So Blinding
Another troll slapped him on the shoulder, and his mind screamed it was an attack. He knew it wasn’t, though. He knew that.
He was whipped into another hug, passed from troll to troll. Then he saw them. The group of trolls who loomed over Astrid. A few of the warriors had gone from hugging him to walking over to her. They were too close, and her eyes were a little too wide. He hadn’t seen that expression on her face before, and it made something in his blood boil. They needed to give her more space. Hell, they needed to givehimmore space.
These trolls might have known him when he’d been a child, but they didn’t know him now. They should’ve known better. Both he and Astrid deserved respect.
One of the troll warriors put his hand on Astrid’s shoulder, the massive paw a little too large, the claws a little too close to her neck.
Bjorn saw red.
Shoving the nearest troll off him, he lunged for the one touching her. A snarled warning came out of his mouth just moments before he had the other troll in his grasp. “Get your hands off her.”
He didn’t think. He didn’t even have the ability to do so. One moment he was barely holding himself on a leash, and the next, he had spun the troll around and locked tusks with him. They were close enough that he could feel the younger male’s breath fanning across his face. His tusks were larger than Bjorn’s, but that didn’t matter.
Rage burned between them, so hot he could feel it in billows of heat off his chest. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose his mind. Berserker rage should only be used in the most dire of circumstances, not among friends who were just happy to see him again. Not among people who had trusted him, who thought he was there to see them again.
But he couldn’t reason with the part of himself who had seen another male’s hand on her shoulder.
“You brought ahumanto the grotto,” the troll snarled. His bright blue skin had flushed a deeper color with anger. “We are allowed to ask her what she is doing here.”
“You are not allowed to touch what ismine.”
“She doesn’t smell of you. She doesn’t wear your jewelry. All I see is the faintest bond between the two of you, and if you came back here, I can only assume you came to break it.” He snapped the last two words like a whip.
Bjorn yanked himself away from the other troll. There was a name for the man just out of reach. He remembered him. He remembered the split tongue in his mouth, and the hissed way he used to talk. He was not a kind troll, but he had a sense of honor that was better than most.
This was unlike Bjorn. He should not have been this angry to see his people doing their job.
Staggering back, he blew out angry breaths as he tried to get control over himself. But now, people were looking at him. Staring. Watching every movement like he was someone to fear.
Bjorn knew he was. He knew they shouldn’t look at him like the same laughing man who had run through this grotto in his youth. He was not the person they wanted him to be.
And maybe that was the problem. Maybe he didn’t want to be who they expected him to be.
“Bjorn,” Astrid said, her voice a balm to the heat that made his chest ache.
He looked at her, grounding himself with her beauty, her calmness, and the sight of her. She wasn’t upset. He didn’t even think she was scared. Instead, she just watched him.
“Yes, bright one?” he asked, his voice lower than it usually was.
“Perhaps you would like to go somewhere quiet? We have had a long journey.”
He swallowed hard. In so few words, she gave him a reason to be upset, a reason to have lost his sense of reason. All while making it seem like it was all right that he had done so. Even a few of the trolls around them seemed to relax a bit, their tense postures easing as the words were given life around them all.
Of course he was tired. He had been protecting her for their entire journey, and none of them knew how long he’d done so. They knew where he had been, of course, so they knew that all emotions would be much more heightened.
This woman protected him, just as he had protected her.
“My mother’s house is near,” he said. Bjorn forced himself to straighten and then face the six trolls who had been so kind to him. One of them was still on the ground where he had pushed her, rubbing the back of her head where it had likely struck the ground. “My apologies. As the priestess said, it has been a long journey.”
Only Tyra still wore a frown on her face. “Take care of yourself, Bjorn. You are welcome here.”
He could read between the lines of what she said. He needed to watch his reactions, because his welcome could be taken away very easily.
Nodding, he reached for Astrid’s hand and tugged her away from the training grounds. Perhaps his mother’s house would provide some sense of security. And maybe Astrid was right. Maybe he just needed a little rest to be closer to the man he once had been.
Twenty-One
Astrid
