Page 22 of Ransomed to the World
They were…not what she was expecting. Sure, the sheer number of them was intimidating, but they didn’t look like Mason at all.
There was nothing remotely human-looking about them.
Their heads were solid blocks, their foreheads punched outward, their eyes sunk into their skull. Their teeth—if you could even call their tusks teeth—were massive, like wild hogs. Their noses were almost comically wide, their lips so thick, they resembled giant worms, while their eyebrows could practically crawl off their faces.
A few of them had horns, but they were twisted and gnarled compared to Mason’s crown of horns. Instead of normal clothing, they wore furs and loincloths, showing off the dark tattoos etched on their bodies that signaled their standing in their tribe. The only similarities between them and Mason were their colorful hair and bright, nearly glowing eyes.
Where Mason was cute and cuddly, these men were not.
They were like giant tree trunks with arms and legs.
They could smash her with their fists, which could easily be mistaken for thirty-pound sledgehammers.
The amazing part was she couldn’t even hear them move through the trees. Although if she concentrated, she could feel the earth tremble under her feet.
They were that massive.
When they neared the troll village, the path became clearer, signs of habitation more marked. Voices were nothing more than whispers on the air, and the guys began to close ranks around her.
Mason took the lead, as if he could stop anything that would come at them.
She feared it was much too late for that.
As the trees thinned out, the voices became words, and the first hint of the village came into view.
It…wasn’t what she was expecting.
She wasn’t surewhatshe’d been imagining.
Maybe mud huts or some shit.
Not a fucking cave in the mountain that looked like a skull ready to grab and swallow anyone who got too close. A couple of campfires were burning, large stone rings surrounding the flames, the rich smell of food floating on the air.
Instead of using logs for seating, the close to thirty trolls had positioned boulders around the clearing, crushed down to a size to fit their larger frame. They didn’t have the normal human skin tones, but different shades of gray and green to match their surroundings.
She spotted maybe one or two trolls on the fringes of the group who were half-breeds like Mason, but only noticed them because they were smaller than the rest. They remained fully in their troll form, unlike Mason, who could pass for human if no one looked too closely.
It brought home to her how much they were not human.
Then she wanted to roll her eyes at herself.
Fuck…no one in the village was even remotely human.
Not even her.
One woman stood out from the rest, her garb more elaborate, her hair brighter, her horns nearly like a crown, and Annora realized they must be a matriarchal society.
And that woman was the queen bitch.
There wasn’t much difference between the women and the men, both heavily muscular and built like tanks. The women had a slightly sleeker form, their breasts scarcely noticeable, their waists barely slimmer than their male counterparts’. Only a few were more voluptuous. Their faces were only a smidge more feminine, their tusks smaller, but something about the females warned her that they were more vicious.
When Mason went to kneel, the woman smirked.
Annora grabbed him by the arm, but he didn’t stop. Seeing him bent low to the tyrant twisted something hateful and low in her stomach.
Mason was hers.
He bowed to no one.
