Chapter 9

Telise

" M ine," Raz'jin says, in the deepest, throatiest voice I've ever heard him use, right as he unleashes a massive stream of come inside me. It's like he's trying to get it as deep as he possibly can, and I eat it up, while the overflow spills out around us.

Mine . What does that mean? Is there some Trollkin implication that I don't grasp?

Because I'm no one's. I belong to myself—I always have, and I always will.

After Raz'jin cleans me up, he hefts me into his arms and carries me into the bath. There he scrubs me clean, from my neck down to the red spot between my legs. He washes it carefully, as if knowing how raw I am, and then moves on to my calves. It's such an intimate experience, to be washed by someone from head to toe.

When he's done, I repay the favor. I clean every inch of him, and his cock rises again in the water as I reach the sac between his legs. So this is where he stores it all up for me, I think, gently cupping them in my palms. Then I move up, cleaning the rest of his groin and his chest, and I have to admire the way he's built: He's thick and dense with muscle, and crisscrossed with scars. Some of them are significant, like the one that spans from his shoulder to his opposite ribcage, and I wonder what kind of injuries he's managed to survive. He's hardy and sturdy, I know that much.

Then I work my way to his hair and ask him with a combination of words and gestures to dunk his head under the water. I comb some soap through it, and then start to work out the tangles with my hands. He lies back between my legs and sighs deeply, his eyes closing. It's remarkable how relaxed he is with me, like some great weight has been lifted off of him. There's a part of me that feels like I'm supposed to be here, doing this with him, and it makes me itch.

That doesn't make any sense. He's a troll—just a weird, passing fancy of mine.

I push the feeling aside and keep working my way through his hair. But the unkept pieces around his forehead simply can't be tamed, and as soon as we're out of the bath, they dry and start shooting out again all over. It's really quite adorable.

A troll. Adorable. I'm really a freak.

More and more people are leaving every day as we start to get wind of cold weather. Though he doesn't say anything about it, I can tell Raz'jin is starting to grow restless. I have the sense that soon he's going to decide it's time to leave. And if that happens, I don't think I'll ever see him again.

That thought gives me pause. I don't know if I want to be separated from him, but I also can't leave Eyra Cove. Not now, while my apprenticeship is still in progress and I'm only two years away from my own master craftsman license. I would be sitting pretty for the rest of my life if I could get it. I'd buy all my materials wholesale, and occasionally do a hunt of my own, then hawk my wares in the city for a sizable profit.

Nothing in that plan accounts for Raz'jin. Nowhere in that life does he fit, and that feels deeply sad.

But I prepare myself anyway for the moment he decides to leave, knowing that it's coming like one of the waves that crashes against the rocky cliffs beyond the pier. I don't know what it will feel like to have to say goodbye to him, probably forever. Maybe he can return next spring when the seas are passable again, but I have my doubts that he will.

Raz'jin

The inn is slowly emptying out as the temperature drops. Soon the freezes will come, and then I won't be able to leave Eyra Cove for many more months. My dwindling reserve of coin wouldn't survive that. I have to return to Kalishagg and sell my emerald so I can buy food, and maybe a chunk of land somewhere to start building a home.

My time here is coming to an end, but I'm suddenly excited for what comes next. I'll throw my little Telise over my shoulder—I've finally got my mouth wrapped around her name the way she wraps hers around my cock—and then we'll climb aboard the last ship out. I don't know where I'll take her, maybe another contested territory. Anywhere I can keep her in bed and filled up with my seed.

Mine . I said it to her face. She must know my intentions by now. I've claimed her over and over, and everything in my body is telling me what my mind is just starting to grasp: This little human woman is my mate, the one I've spent my life craving without realizing I was craving it, and that means spending my remaining time on this forsaken land with her. Maybe I can't fill her up with little troll whelps the way all my instincts want, but I'll certainly try my hardest.

Telise's grasp of Trollkin improves every day, and it makes it much easier to live side-by-side when I can communicate with her. She's just as fiery when she can talk, making little demands and bossing me around—she loves when I jam one of my fingers into her ass and fuck her until she's sweating from every pore on her body. She's funny, too, and likes to make tasteless jokes in Trollkin when she learns new words. Her progress gives me even more hope for the future. Perhaps if I wrap her up in a hood and cloak, I could take her to Kalishagg with me, and pretend she's just a very unfortunate and secretive goblin. She's just learned the word "fuck" (I can't believe I didn't teach it to her sooner) when the first storm starts to blow in.

Shit. I've delayed too long and wasted too much time in this inn throwing back beer. Now it's really time to go.

That night, Telise sits astride me, riding my cock like it's an eager young horse. She likes it this way, where she can decide how much to take inside her and how fast. She uses her power for good and for evil, lifting herself up and down until I'm ready to explode, and then she stops, forcing me back into my own body.

I sit up, my hands finding their way to her breasts, then up to her face. I bring my mouth to hers and squeeze her body tight against mine, halting her movement. She gives me a look of confusion now that I've interrupted our flow.

"It's time," I say, pushing some of her long, red hair away from her face. It's disheveled and wild, just how I like it.

"Time for what?" she asks.

"To leave."

Her shoulders drop, and a look crosses her face that I don't like. She doesn't want to see me go, that much is obvious. I rub her back.

"You're coming, too," I say. I lift her up with my hands and start to move inside her again. "I'm keeping you. Forever."

Her expression changes again, and I'm surprised when I find it's not a happy one. She stops me with a hand on my arm, and slowly, disengages herself from me. But my cock is huge and swollen and covered in her, and it's desperate for release. I try to pull her back, but she isn't having any of it.

"No," she says, getting off the bed.

"No?" I reach out and grab her more firmly. I'm not going to let her wander off now. But she lets out a little hiss and buries her nails in my hands. I recoil.

"What's wrong with you?" I ask, incensed. She's clawed me before, but only ever when I'm inside her and her arms are wrapped around my neck. I have a number of long scratches across my back.

"No touch," she says. She still hasn't gotten a handle on the grammar yet. But she sits back down on the edge of the bed, just far enough away from me that I can't sweep her back up again into my lap.

She's never told me not to touch her. In fact, whenever I've touched her before, she melts into my hands like butter on a warm day. My Telise is pliable, soft, and as eager to be wrapped around me as I am around her. What have I done to earn this kind of insult?

My cock is starting to quiet down now that the atmosphere has shifted to something darker. Rather than touching her, I run my hand through her long hair, stopping at the knots like I always do to wrangle them out.

"Mine," I say again. I want her to say it, too.

But she just shakes her head and repeats, "No."

My mouth feels dry. When she looks up at me, her eyebrows are drawn together the way she does whenever she encounters a word or a drawing she doesn't understand. "Not yours."

The low growl leaves my mouth before I know what I'm doing. Telise's frown deepens.

"What do you mean?" I ask. "Of course you are." Doesn't she understand? The way our bodies work together, how our spirits have chosen to tangle up as they have, it's obvious. She is supposed to be with me, to go where I go. We are linked now, inextricably.

But Telise simply shakes her head again and rises off the bed. "No. I'm not." She turns away so I can't see her face any longer and starts to put her pants on.

This isn't right. This isn't right at all.

First, the panic sets in. Then comes the anger. I get up and seize her by the shoulders, and she gasps at the power behind my grip. "Mine," I reinforce the word again, and lean down toward her so she can see that I'm quite serious. This is no game. This is my life. "My mate. Forever."

"Mate?" She repeats the word. It's one I've never taught her. I pull her waist against me and lean down, pressing my face to her hair. The way my tusks frame her head, it's like we were made for this.

"Mate. You and me. Forever. Mine." I don't know how else to convey it.

She pushes on my abdomen, hard, and I take a surprised step back. Her face is red, and her eyes are as sharp as razor blades. I don't understand why she's reacting this way. Doesn't she know?

Something shifts inside me as she refuses me again. It's a bone-deep kind of fury, that rises to the top like a dragon about to unleash hell.