“Toff, I won’t leave you. You know that,” I assure him as I return his hug and pat his back a few times.
“You tell me that, but you’re always gone so long. It feels like forever.” His huge eyes don’t stray from mine as he sets me down and then reaches up to touch my face. “I don’t like being home alone.”
“You’re not alone, Toff,” I remind him. “Why don’t you chat with Thor?” I gesture toward our cat, who stares at me as if I’ve condemned him to death. His gold eyes are bright against his black fur, which is disturbed only by a bolt of white, like lightning, on his forehead. He always looks like he’d throttle both of us if he could.
“He doesn’t like me,” Toffer complains as he glances toward the cat. “And it’s very hard to stop myself from killing him when he looks at me like that.” He turns to me again. “I know you love him. I don’t know why, but I know you do. I stop myself. For you.”
“Have you tried talking to him?”
Toffer, like most trolls, can speak to animals. He’s my permanent sidekick because we somehow got sucked into Vanatia together. Turns out, he was imprisoned in Midgard by the same man who was holding—and torturing—me. I know why Jonathan captured me, the bastard. Toffer had no idea why he’d been targeted. Maybe just because Jonathan was a psychopath.
I push that asshole out of my thoughts. I might despise him even more than the Dróttning, and I refuse to give him any space in my mind. He’s worlds away and I’ll worry about him if we ever make it back home.
Toffer and I got yanked from Jonathan’s dungeon at the same time, landing in Vanatia together. We still don’t know how or why. We dropped into a cell beneath the northern dragon Nest. Convenient, since that’s where we’d have been sent anyway. Once we got here, we were tortured some more. Ten years later, I can think about those days—and sometimes talk about them—without collapsing into a fetal position. But it took a while.
Toffer and I weren’t alone and the Dróttning’s people knew it, although they couldn’t figure out what I was hiding. Luckily, she disappeared before Toffer snapped out of the daze he’d been in when we arrived. I still have no gods-damned idea why she came with us or how she escaped the Nest, but it doesn’t matter. The weeks of the Dróttning’s torture weren’t enough to drag that secret from me, but Toffer might not have held out. If they knew about her, we’d have no hope. I don’t know exactly how we’ll need her, but I know we will when the time comes.
I couldn’t leave Toffer when I escaped, so I broke him out too. Now he’s sworn to me until he pays back the life debt. Since he hardly ever leaves the house, afraid he’ll accidentally murder someone, he’ll be mine for as long as he lives.
Which won’t be long enough. He’s aging here much more quickly than me. In our worlds, time passes slowly for elves and trolls. I looked like a teenager when I landed here, although I’ve been alive nearly three hundred years. Now, only ten years later, most people think I’m in my mid-twenties. Toffer is racing through his life even faster. If we don’t get back to our worlds soon, Vanatia will suck him dry. And then me.
Toffer’s not thinking about that right now, though. His head spins so he can throw death rays at the cat, who yowls in response. “He told me to fuck off. Again. Even though I’ve told him I hate that word.” He turns to me and smiles. “He’s hungry, but he refuses to be nice to me. He knows he doesn’t get food unless he’s nice to me.”
Exhaling, I step away from Toffer to pick up Thor. He starts to purr and snuggles into my arms. Dinner is coming soon, he knows. “Maybe if you fed him without threats he’d be nice to you. You could try.”
“Nope. He has to try first. Stupid cat.” Toffer turns toward the kitchen. “You, though, I’ll feed. Even if you don’t give me many options. Tonight, the cooler held pork. Nothing else. I added a few beans and that’s what you get. Pork and pintos for my pretty princess.”
He grins at his alliteration. For some reason, he loves wordplay. When he’s nervous or anxious about something, he falls into that pattern, a coping mechanism from our time beneath the Nest, I think. It makes it easier to keep a murderous troll around the house.
“A queen’s quota from my quazy quiller,” I respond with a smile. “First I need to change,” I add as I head into the bedroom. I wear black when I work—usually a leather skirt or pants along with a fitted corset—because it helps me blend into my surroundings. But I don’t like it. Big, bold colors always make me feel better. I grab the shirt on top of the stack in my drawer, a bright pink number with loose sleeves and buttons down the front, then add baggy blue pants and furry slippers. A sigh escapes as I become me again.
As usual, Toffer’s meal is divine. He’s lived long enough to learn to cook, and seems to enjoy it. Which I love. In my hundreds of years, I’ve figured out how to make food I can eat, but I’ve never liked cooking. Another reason I’m happy Toffer’s around.
After dinner we settle down on the balcony with tonight’s drink, a blend of fruit juices and the mead that’s popular in Vanatia. Talking to Toffer helps me think through my day and my searches for a path home.
“Why worry, woman?” he asks, his lips lifting as he savors his word choice.
“I have a new job,” I tell him. “I’ve joined Ulfhild’s girls. As a shield maiden, not a bedmate,” I clarify when I see him frown.
“Well, that’s good,” he says with a carefree expression he probably hopes will lighten a subject that would weigh us both down if we let it. “Because your bed’s barren. Bounceless and bereft. You’d be out of practice. You’re pretty enough, but I don’t think they’d pay much for someone who hasn’t”—he pauses as his wrinkled cheeks bloom like a summer rose and then glances at the ground before finishing—“pleasured a man for years.”
“Do you think I’ve forgotten?” I ask with a laugh. As his eyebrows shoot up, I add, “It hasn’t been that long.”It really has, but Toffer doesn’t need to know that. “Besides, when it comes down to it, one dick is much like another. They all like to be sucked and pulled and maybe bitten a bit.”
“Bitten?” Toffer demands, his eyes wide. “Why would you bite it? Remind me to never let you anywhere near my trollpikken,” he adds.
“Your pikken is safe,” I assure him. “You’re my friend. We’ll keep our parts to ourselves.”
“Yes, we will,” he declares, his hand moving to protect his crotch from me. He narrows his eyes and then takes a gulp from his drink.
Smiling, I settle into my chair and look up into the night sky. Ulfhild’s brothel is connected. I’m happy Bevin sent me to her. Maybe I’ll finally start getting the information I need to get Toffer and me back home.
Chapter three
Sifa
And Yet Here I Am
“We’regoingwhere?”Iglare at Ulfhild, astounded at what she’s asking of her girls. And me.
