Page 48 of Sky and the Grumpy Troll

Chapter 15

Moerrven

Sky did not speak on the walk from the Archive to the inn. He let us into the room, and closed and locked the door with a click that felt final. And rather judgmental.

The room was beautiful. Stone walls, heated floor, a bed wide enough for a troll with plenty of room for a human companion. The bath was sunk into the floor, deep and empty, waiting to be filled. Under any other circumstances, I would have been in that bath already, and I would have been hoping Sky would join me.

Sky sat on the edge of the bed and looked at me with an expression I had not seen from him before: cold, still, stripped of the bright, chaotic energy that powered his every interaction. It made my stomach drop.

“Why did we take six days to get here,” he said, “when Frostholm is only one day away?”

“The Greymere route can be unreliable. Weather, rockfalls—”

“Bullshit.”

I flinched. The word landed like a slap, and not the sort Sky delivered with a crop. I had miscalculated badly.

“You went around on purpose. You knew there was a shorter route and you didn’t take it, and you didn’t tell me. Why?”

“Sky—”

“Pip is out there somewhere, alone in a strange land! My family is on the other side of a magical mirror, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again, and we just found out that the information I need was in the village we already passed through, and you added five extra days to the trip. Why?” His voice cracked on the last word.

I had done this. My cowardice had cost him days. Days that mattered more to him than I had allowed myself to consider, because considering it would have meant explaining why I could not take the short road. Sky had been laughing and fucking and playing with me while his world was on the other side of a mirror he could not reach.

But explaining would mean saying her name and thinking about what had happened to her. I could not.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I don’t want sorry. I want the reason. I want you to stop lying to me and just communicate whatever the fuck is going on with you.”

I stood by the window with my hands clasped behind my back and said nothing, because the reason was lodged in my throat like a stone.

“Take off your clothes,” Sky said.

My head turned. “What?”

“Strip. Everything off. You have behaved very badly, holding something important back just as we’ve been talking about communication. I think you’re craving punishment, aren’t you?”

The word punishment moved through me like an electrical current. In the forest, it had been play, exploration. The crop and the paddle had been used for pleasure, for sensation, for the discovery of what my body wanted. Sky’s voice had a different edge, not cruel, but certain. He was not going to let me hide behind silence.

Tears pricked at the back of my eyes as I made my decision. One word from me, and I knew he’d stop; he’d back off and he’d let me be, simmering in his anger, but never pushing my limits past my line once I drew it.

But if I didn’t draw that line, what would he do? He would do everything that made him Sky. I took off my shirt and trousers and stood naked in the lamplight. Sky pointed at the bed.

I met his eyes and gave him a quiet nod, and some of the stiffness left his shoulders. Walking over to the big, luxurious bed, I pulled the fine blankets back, evicting Poppy to the windowsill, and lay down on my stomach.

He laid the paddle and the crop beside me on the sheets. His hands moved over my shoulders, my arms, kneading the muscles there. My body responded to his touch the way it always did, leaning into it, wanting more. When he skimmed his hands over the trolgar, he let me in, opened a door to emotions he usually buried under sex and passion. He was still angry, but it was controlled. And under the anger, I could sense something else: concern, care, worry.

It was a quiet hint at what it might be like to belong to him for real.

“I know it’s hard to talk about things that hurt,” he said, softer now, his hands warm on my skin. “But you need to stop holding everything in. My grandfather used to say something like, ‘secrets become walls and truths become doors.’ No, that’s not quite right. Well, you get what I mean.”

“How did you get so wise?”

He chuckled softly. “I have people in my life who are smarter than me, and I listen to them. Ever tried that?”

“People smarter than me? Are you sure?”