One more long, blinking look from him, and I burst out laughing.
Chapter 2
Segrid
Her laughter was like a song for my soul. Everything inside of me lifted with the soft, sweet sound. A Human man may castigate himself for such things, as my roamings amongst the Human males have led me to believe, but more the fool they. I felt it, thought it, owned it.
My sunshine still held back, kept herself ever at bay, as seemed to have grown to be her way, I’d wager, but that unfiltered peek of her was glorious.
Withholding or not, my Queen was magnificent all the same. She was glorious in her enjoyment of the moment, even if it was at my own expense. Her heart shone through, clear and crisp as a fire in the forge, brighter than sparking embers. I’d gladly fall on my own sword, bathe in my own confused humility, if it brought my Queen out of her shell. She hid things, it was plain enough to see. Her aura was clouded with dark patches, blotting out that sunshine she exuded so naturally. I’d get it out of my female soon enough, in the proper time, but for now…
A small smile tipped my lips and a happy rumble left my chest. My Queen settled down at the sound of it, like she didn’t understand it. She would soon enough. I was a patient male. My lady could have all the time she needed, but in the end, I would be hers.
“You hunger?” I asked her, a husky note entering my voice. I couldn’t help it. She looked so lovely, glowing with pleasure. Her eyes shone even when something deep within her threatened to dull them. Nothing could fully smother their shine. I wanted to squash whatever took that happiness from her, grind it beneath my foot to a bloody pulp.
“I could eat,” she said easily. She was starting to relax again. My gaze unnerved her. I wanted so badly to just sit here and look upon her, soak up all that she was. I was cautioned not to do so by the Satyr or say these things aloud. And not to admit my ‘extreme affections’ for her, as he called them, right away. Humans were skittish. The little half-goat-half-man was not wrong to caution me.
Me own Mum was mostly Human. I knew enough of them from the start from her, even if she was deemed a little odd by some. But Maman was of an entirely different breed of the ones roving about now, and Da would be the first to boast as much of his bonded, the bragging rotter.
Da wasn’t even of this dimension but another world, one separate from Mordenne and the Human realms, entirely. The rip in the plane’s fabric he’d come through from his loathed Hegtrag, as he called it, he claimed had closed as soon as it spit him out. Cursed Ornthren magick worked funny in Mordenne and the Human’s realm, but the earth, there was no denying an Ornthren’s connection to the hearth of it all. The Curse lived on within him but grew scrambled from then out. Trolls were far from stupid. My sire had been hoping for as much when he’d tried to leave all he’d ever known. Da liked to boast he was not of his breeding, an oddity, and Mum helped slap it outta him when it peaked. And nor would I be of his line’s ilk if he or Mum had a say in it.
A wealth of worth treasure, was a world beyond measure.
I hadn’t corrected the baby horned goat boy in his assumptions, thankful for William’s help—it had been some revolutions since Mum and Da had been within such easy reach— but did the hooved male not see? How had he not with such an ethereal creature before us? My brain was scrambled at the thought of my Queen before me. So long I’d wanted, waited. She was to be my everything. I’d have no other.
My Queen had her secrets to her, though not as I’d have imagined. Aye. No lovers to kill- Uh… make disappear. Nothing to bind her to her Human realm with Fair Penny here with her one-eyed mate.
My Lady Vivienne was not as she lived. The confidence she projected was beautiful in its display, but clouded. Her strength was vibrant, but tempered, the way she shook in my arms. Her seeming independence and introverted, outwards appearance did not speak as her eyes did. Loneliness, want, need.
I wished to ease all these things in her, be whatever it is she needs of me. She already felt like so much to me.
MINE. Possessive thoughts roared through me, but I was not the great oaf Trolls were thought to be.
So many things sat on the tip of my tongue. I wished to pepper her with questions. I wished to know the female I’d spend eternity ruling beside, from her favorite flower, color, the little cats or dogs, how many children she would wish to have, or none, to what gods she worshiped, if any? What did she think when she wasn’t supposed to be? What put her mind at ease?
“Do you dream, my Lady Vivienne?” I asked cautiously.
Everything inside my shining ray seemed to dim. As if to hunch in on herself mentally as well as physically, she shifted once more in her seat until she wasn’t facing me.
“Sometimes,” she admitted. She sounded so haunted by the fact.
Trying to guess at her question about Paras and dreams, I ventured, “I would enjoy a dreamwalk with you when we are connected.” It was considered scandalous to discuss such things so openly, we weren’t mated after all and only a sharing of blood could conjure the link to even try, a sign of a strong attempt to bond for a Troll, but ‘we were not playing by the same rules’, to quote the uppity goat boy. My Mum would cuff me upside the head to hear me.
“Paras do that.” She spat the words like the idea disgusted her, like she considered anything Other an abnormality. One hint of her scent and I’d known. It was masked well but I wasn’t held purely to the boundaries of Mordenne magick’s limits. However she’d been cloaked, the caster been clever, aye, but they hadn’t accounted for a being like me. I’d known, for all her Human appearance, she was Other. My sunshine seemed to have many tales to tell of. What would hurt her so for her to wish to deny her heritage? To hate it, even? Was it to do with her dreaming questions? Whomever had tried to bind her to her Human skin? What madness be this?
A little piece of me wilted at the idea of her denying a dreamwalk with her King, but I wasn’t so foolish as to assume all of this was just about me. My skin was much thicker than that.
Pretending nothing was amiss, I began to hum again.
We were almost to my home over Helm’s Quarter when she next spoke.
“What would we do, if we dreamwalked? Could we- Can we do that now?”
Daring to steal a glance her way to find her eyeing me curiously, the condemnation marring her soft features notably missing, the vise threatening to seize my heart altogether eased. I believed I had my answers as to some of those aura darkening things hovering, tainting my sunshine, as she spoke of dreamwalking as if it was a detestable act.
“We would go to wondrous places, of mine and yours, wherever we wished,” I told her, “together. It is intended to be a beautiful, mutually agreeable experience between mates or intendeds, a baring of souls. Beautiful dreams, we would make together.”
“Mates? Intendeds?” she echoed.
