Page 72 of A Light So Blinding
“But you don’t.”
“No,” he replied vehemently. “I don’t.”
And that snapped something inside of her. She had been trying so hard to stay away from this, but it was getting harder and harder when this life he offered her was damn near idyllic.
Sighing, she said, “You promised me that you would try to show me what a life with you would be like. I cannot promise anything until I see my sister is safe with my own eyes, but I... I can show you what a life with me could be like.”
His hands clenched so hard around the side of the table she heard it crack. “I can accept that.”
“And if it means that you are more honored when your...” She slipped over the words, but they were important to say. “Troll wife is wearing earrings, then I will wear them. If you have some. I’m afraid I don’t have any.”
He nearly tripped over himself as he rushed into his mother’s bedroom. The last thing she wanted to do was anger the already angry woman by stealing some of her jewelry. Astrid thought Ylva wouldn’t like it if someone had rummaged through her things. But he knew the older woman much better than she did.
When he returned, it was with a pair of earrings that sparkled like stars in the night sky. They were clear crystals, but the way they were cut refracted the light and made them seem like bottomless gems that trapped even the slightest sunlight within them.
“These were the earrings my father gave my mother when they became bonded,” he said quietly as he handed them over to her. “I hope they bring us better luck.”
“I can’t take these. They’re your mother’s.”
“They are mine to give to my troll wife.” He wrapped his hand around hers, closing her fist around the sparkling jewels. “I give them to you, Astrid. Please. Wear them for me.”
Why did that make a shiver travel down her spine?
She popped the backs off the earrings and slid them into her ears. Thankfully, neither of the holes had closed up and then she was wearing his mark. His earrings. A sign that she was his.
His gaze flicked back and forth between her ears, and then he seemed to take in the entire picture of her wearing all of it. His throat worked in a swallow, and then he winced. “You look too good in those, bright one. Too good.”
“The same problem as before?”
“Trolls heal fast. Not the same as before.” But the twisted expression on his face didn’t change all that much. “I’ll prepare us to leave. Trollveggen isn’t far, but the journey will be a few nights in the wild again.”
“Nothing we haven’t done before.”
The heated expression he gave her made her entire body shiver. “A little different from before, troll wife.”
There it was again. The shiver as she backed toward the guest bedroom to gather her own things as well. But this time, the shiver was nearly impossible to ignore.
Twenty-Seven
Bjorn
Bjorn packed with blistering speed after that. Some part of him was concerned about the time they had wasted here, but another part feared what it would mean if they lingered for too long.
The grotto had always been home to him, but now it was like poking a bear. Everything that he used to love annoyed him. He didn’t like that there were people training at all hours of the day. He didn’t want to join them, even though they were kind enough to continually ask him. The sounds of people moving set his teeth on edge, and no matter how hard he tried to be comfortable here, he just couldn’t.
There was guilt in that admission. A feeling that he should have been able to handle this and for some reason, just couldn’t. Perhaps there was still a lingering part of him that feared it made him weak that he was so incapable of being around others.
Astrid was a good excuse to leave. Especially since he had told his mother that he would try his best to be a good husband. Her family was important to her, and her sister needed her.
He was being a good partner to her. She needed to leave. He would guide her safely to Trollveggen, and argue on her behalf that her sister should be released, and that was all he was expected to do.
Packed and ready to go, he shifted a few items that he had strapped onto his back. His mother had insisted she send them with better care. One of those items was a rather large tent that made it difficult for him to carry much else. Thankfully, the troll maidens here were quick to set Astrid up for the journey as well.
His troll wife had boots on her feet now. They were made for a troll child, but they would work for the journey. The spider silk dress he’d made her was wrapped carefully in her own pack, although she carried little else in it. Another dress had been given to her, a sturdy one made out of wool that would hold up to the test of the journey, keeping her warm on the cold nights as they journeyed over the high peaks of the mountains.
Astrid stood outside his mother’s home, waiting for him beside the woman who had birthed him.
Bjorn was surprised to see tears in his mother’s eyes. She had never been one for emotions. Even when he’d been a child and his father had taken him away, all he remembered was the rage in her gaze as she’d watched them leave. But now, she reached for him and held him close to her thundering heart.
