This world had broken her and that made me so mad. I could feel my unstable emotions rising to the surface, but I swallowed them down. I didn’t want to scare this girl, but I wanted to bash someone’s head in for what they’d done to her, to make her so afraid.
“Do you like werewolves? I mean, are you friendly with them?” I asked.
She nodded. “Of course.” Right, because they were both slaves here.
“If you help us, we will bring you back to Idaho with us where you can live with another troll friend of ours. Her name is Marmal and she’s in a wolf pack.”
Her chin tipped upward and her eyes went wide as she gawked at me. “Wolf packs are forbidden.” Then she smiled lightly, brushing the dust from her apron. “My grandmother’s name was Marmal. We called her Marmie.”
“Where we come from, wolves and trolls are powerful people. If you help us, we will take you with us,” I promised.
Luka’s gaze flicked to mine as if asking“What are you doing, woman?” But I ignored it. We could cover her tusks with a scarf, and we were going on a private plane anyway. I wasnotleaving this girl here.
“I will help you.” She grinned, showing a few missing teeth. This girl had a hard life. I just couldn’t leave her here to continue that.
What was one more woman to break out?
Chapter Seven
We spentthe next hour talking with the troll. We’d learned her name was Milika, and we told her things on a need-to-know basis only. She didn’t know Luka was royalty or that I was newly changed, or that the girls were vampire hunters. But when we described fey encampments that forced pregnant women to sell their babies, her entire body went rigid. She stared at the floor and said nothing, picking at her nails. We told her there was the same type of encampment in Idaho, but that we’d attacked it and freed the women.
She gasped. “Youattackedthe fey? But what about the alliance?”
“We have no alliance with the fey where we’re from,” I told her for the fifth time.
Poor thing was taking in a lot of information all at once.
“Do you know about these breeder camps? Do you have one here?” I urged her.
She chewed her bottom lip. “This is a trick. I tell you and then you imprison me.” She crossed her arms and looked to the sky in defiance.
I groaned, looking at Luka. “Can I borrow your phone? Video chat Demi for me.”
He raised one eyebrow but complied. Pulling out his phone, he video chatted Demi and handed the phone to me.
When Demi picked up, I could see the Paladin village behind her. “Hey, Aspen. How’s it going?” she asked.
Milika leaned forward, spellbound by the phone, as if she’d never seen one.
“We’ve hit a snag. I was wondering if we could talk to Marmal?”
Demi looked over my shoulder, probably at Milika, and nodded, starting to jog. “She’s at the barn.”
Within seconds, thanks to her werewolf speed, Demi was at the barn. “Marmal!” she yelled for the troll.
Milika sniffed the phone, as if trying to tell what race Demi was through the device.
“Wolf. Alpha,” I told her.
She stayed silent until Marmal’s face suddenly came into view. “Hey.” Marmal smiled, her tusks dipping into her cheeks.
How did I explain all of this to Marmal while Milika was right here? “Hey, we’re in a magic city in Los Angeles and the trolls here are … not treated very well.”
Marmal frowned and nodded to Milika before opening her mouth and speaking in a totally foreign language.
Milika bounced on the edge of the bed in surprise, rattling off a response in the same language and laughing.
Okay…
