Chapter 3

Tally

N ow I’m starting to feel angry, and a little anxious, that the ogre won’t let me leave. I should have feared this—no, I did fear this, when I first followed him all the way out here. And I ignored my intuition.

“I’m leaving,” I say firmly, and try to duck around his arm. His hand grabs me at the shoulder and stops me. Right away I scream, and the sharp sounds appears to have stunned him. I lunge for the doorknob and push it open, then stumble down the steps.

“No!” he calls out after me, following me down a few steps behind. “Stay! Please.”

“This could have been a nice thing,” I say, backing away. “But you just want to trap me here. To what, own me? Make me your sex toy?”

Norgren scowls deeply. I don’t think he understands my words, but he does my tone.

“Tally,” he says, clearly enunciating my name. “Stay. With Norgren. ”

Some deep, strange thing inside me, for a second, wants to listen. What if I did? Out here in this beautiful glade, a few trees surrounding us, clear water nearby. The thick pile of soft pelts, the carved headboard.

I shake my head as he comes down the steps. I back away further, and then finally coming to my senses, I turn and run.

“Tally!” he calls after me. He starts running, too, so I pick up my pace. I don’t want to know what he would do if he caught me. Would he trap me there with him forever? Keep me tied to that big, gorgeous bed?

I barrel on faster, but slowly, his footsteps fade. When I reach the muddy creek, I turn around to see how close he is, and find no one there.

So he didn’t chase me. I search the trees, but there’s nothing, no sign that he came after me.

Why does my chest feel tight? It must be the running. After dragging myself through the mud—I remember that Norgren carried me over it earlier—I keep going at a steady jog, and don’t stop for the lavender on my way back into town.

Once again I look back over my shoulder, and there’s no sign of Norgren at all.

I’m sweating and out of breath by the time I get back to the shop. Unsurprisingly, it’s closed now, though Kell lives in the apartment up above it. I walk up to her door and raise a fist to knock, thinking I’ll apologize for what happened and explain about the ogre who dragged me off to his den, and regale her with the story of how I just barely got away.

Norgren. The heartbreak in his eyes when I left had been clear. He really thought that I would stay there with him, that I would welcome the home he offered me and simply decide to abandon my life.

Delusional. Delusional, but also... strangely sweet. I can’t seem to deny that. I’d admired his handiwork, felt the love and craftsmanship poured into it. The house had been homey and clean and welcoming, and I could see myself living there.

I shake my head and retreat from the door. No, I won’t tell Kell what happened. I’ll figure out a lie to tell her tomorrow instead.

When I go home to my little dilapidated house on the edge of town, I think how I won’t be hungry for dinner tonight after that lovely meal I had. And that night, I can’t seem to steer my thoughts away from Norgren. I’ll probably never see him again. He won’t come and watch me from a distance anymore as I hunt for just the right flower. I’ll be grateful for that, right? Perhaps he’ll return to wherever he came from, wherever there are other ogres like him.

I wonder if there are any other ogres like him.

Norgren

She left.

Despite everything I’ve done to make the perfect home for her, to welcome her in, to show her I can provide for her needs, she left.

And she was frightened, too. Frightened of me . I suppose this shouldn’t shock me, given that I’m trollkin and she is human. She’s been taught all her life to see me as her enemy.

But she had given me a chance anyway, and I squandered it. Now I have lost her forever.

My mate. I know after spending an afternoon with her that I was right and she is meant for me, as I am for her. Why couldn’t she feel it, too? Why would she turn me away, when I could offer her everything she wants right here ?

Why couldn’t she understand?

I’ve done all of this, spent months laboring over it, imagining our future together, and she threw it in the trash. She couldn’t have hurt me more if she spat in my face.

I’d thought that perhaps she could see past our differences the way that Grunagg’s mate did. I’d been so sure that everything was right, and she would feel the truth of what’s between us.

My anger is building, billowing upward like a cloud of smoke from a runaway fire, spitting and seething. I did all of this for her . I spent weeks upon months building her the perfect home, making sure she would have all her needs attended to...

A roar bursts out of me and I swipe everything off the table, scattering it across the floor. But it’s not enough. The sting of rejection becomes the fury of rage, and I kick the table over, relishing in the crash of it hitting the floor. But that’s not enough, either, and so I seize it by the legs and tear one off, then hurl it across the room, where it smashes and breaks on a wall.

I will never find a mate now. Tally was my chance, my shot at salvation, the only thing that kept me from my fate of growing old and alone like so many of the other ogres.

She was the reason for everything.

The pain escapes me as a bellow, and I’m tempted to seize one of the burning logs in the fire with my bare hand and burn the whole house down.

Going back to my mountain home would be the most sensible thing, to return with my tail between my legs and resume life as it was. Maybe I would get lucky, and the dagger of envy I feel when I see Grunagg with his mate and whelp would dull over time.

I kick the remains of the table, smashing the top in half. I can’t. Perhaps this glade is close to the human city, close enough that some enterprising hunter could find me, but I also find that I don’t want to leave Tally fully and completely behind. Even as she turned me down, even as she ran away in fear because I had tried to stop her, I felt drawn to her, the same way I had when I first saw her picking choice algae off the surface of the water.

No, I must have been wrong then. Maybe I’ve been wrong about all of it. Maybe I simply saw her and let my cock get the best of me, and she was never meant for me.

I will stay here, I decide then. I’ll stay in spite of her, make my place here, perhaps die here. What does it matter now anyhow?

I gather up the remains of the table, irritated at myself for losing my temper. I’ve always had hot blood, or so my mother said. Perhaps there is a fire inside of me that will keep on burning, no matter what.

Thinking of Tally’s terrified round face, my humiliation crashes over me. Perhaps if I had found another way.

I toss the broken pieces of the table into the fire. Tomorrow, I’ll make a new one.

I’ve made such a mess of the table that I have to start from scratch. It’s long and arduous work to fell a tree, hack it to pieces, and carve the logs down into the right shape and size for legs. And then there’s joining the boards that make the top, and I’ve created another week of work for myself, in addition to repairing the damage I did to the walls.

Every day that passes I wonder why I’m staying here, but instinct refuses to let me leave. I can’t bring myself to abandon Tally back there, even though just thinking about her makes me angry all over again, enough that I have to go outside and beat my axe into a tree trunk until I’m sweating and shaking.

There’s some reason I’m still here, some reason that my body refuses to leave. I just wonder how long I’ll have to wait until that reason reveals itself to me .

All I want is to understand what I’m here for—what the purpose of this lonely life is.

In the meantime, I continue to improve things, remembering how Grunagg had told me the only way to seal the deal with his mate was to give her some livestock of her own. That was how he eventually proved to her that he could provide for her.

Perhaps this is what my Tally needs, as well. I wonder how I might get my hands on some cows or some sheep. In the meantime, I build a small enclosure, wondering if perhaps I could steal a small calf that no one would miss and start there. Then I could bring Tally back again, and show her the improvements I’ve made.

Not that she would come. Over and over I fight with myself, wishing I could go to her again and hating her for turning me away. If I saw her, I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t know if I can trust myself not to lose my temper and turn her even further against me.

So I wait.