Maybe more.
The little trolls adored him.
Mostly because he’d spent forty solid minutes dramatically reenacting wolf battles using pieces of bread, a spoon, and what Kara was fairly certain had been someone’s discarded napkin.
She was beginning to suspect the trolls genuinely couldn’t tell when he was being serious.
Which, honestly, explained a lot about how other realms probably viewed humans, too.
At the far end of the chamber, Gavril and Rachel sat speaking quietly with the Troll King and several elders.Rachel’s expression remained tight around the edges, her shoulders drawn slightly forward in a way Kara had learned meant her healer instincts were screaming at her about something.Gavril looked calmer outwardly, one hand resting easily on the back of Rachel’s chair, but every now and then his gaze drifted across the chamber toward Kara’s stomach before sweeping the room again.
Protective.
All of them were protective now.
The realization settled strangely in Kara’s chest.Not heavy.Just warm.Which was dangerous.Because hope was dangerous.Hope made you forget how quickly things could be taken away.
Nick’s hand slid gently over the curve of her stomach beneath the table.
The baby shifted immediately beneath his palm, a slow roll that Kara felt all the way up under her ribs.It was weird because this new phenomenon had started in just the past few days.Her stomach had doubled in size in the two weeks that they’d been in the troll realm.The only reason she wasn’t completely freaking the hell out was because she’d already been through some things.Having a baby much faster than she was supposed to, even for werewolf standards, was not going to be what broke her.Their daughter rolled again, and Kara looked up at Nick.
His entire face softened.
Kara swore that male could go from terrifying Alpha-level predator to emotionally compromised father in under three seconds flat.It was honestly impressive.
“She likes you best,” Kara muttered.
Nick didn’t even attempt humility.“Obviously.”
“You’re smug about being preferred by a person who currently weighs less than a loaf of bread.”
“She’s already demonstrating excellent judgment, yeah?”
Kara rolled her eyes, but the warmth in her chest deepened anyway, settling somewhere behind her sternum where she didn’t quite know what to do with it.
Then the mountain pulsed again.
The laughter throughout the chamber died instantly, like someone had cut a thread holding the sound together.
The pulse rolled through the stone beneath their feet stronger than before, deep enough that Kara felt the vibration climb the legs of her chair and settle unpleasantly in her gut.The water in the goblets along the table trembled.A piece of bread tipped slowly off the edge of Aphid’s plate and landed on the stone floor with a soft, oddly loud, thud.
Every troll in the room froze.
The mineral lanterns overhead flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then steadied.
Nick was already on his feet before Kara fully registered the movement, one hand braced protectively against her shoulder while his wolf surged hard enough through the bond that her own pulse stumbled in response.
At the far table, the Troll King rose slowly, the scrape of his chair against stone unnaturally loud in the new silence.His dark amber gaze moved first toward Verna.The elder female gave a single grim nod.
Well.That seemed ominous.
Kara sighed heavily.“Sometimes I miss when my biggest concern was whether I was going to sleep at the foster house or on the bench in the park.”
