to Levi, to figuring out what the heck Vilsinn was trying to say.
“Yes,” she finally managed. “Dragon shifters’ eyes light up sometimes.”
“Dragon.” The troll rolled the word around. “You dragon shifter?”
“Yes,” she said slowly.
Couldn’t he tell earlier when they’d confronted him? Not that any of them had shifted. But no doubt this fire had been started by a dragon.
“This mate?” He pointed to Levi.
He’d already asked her that, but he seemed so intent on this line of questioning, she answered again.
“No. I am female-born.” And, while that life came with its own hurts, as did any life, she hadn’t felt them as acutely as this very minute.
“You red dragon?” Though nothing in his demeanor had shifted, urgency palpitated off him in waves.
“Yes.”
“Female red dragon,” Vilsinn whispered. Then straightened, large rocky shoulders rolling back, hands moving to rest on what she guessed were his knees.
“I have story, too,” the troll said.
Chapter Sixteen
Now why did the troll’s words come off sounding ominous? Levi hesitated, swinging his focus from the woman trying to get away from him to the creature beside them. Lyndi must’ve heard it, too, because she stilled in his arms, though she remained painfully stiff.
Again, Levi had to beat back unaccustomed panic with a will made of dragonsteel, caging the emotion inside a dark, empty corner of himself. The way Lyndi had been watching him today, drawing away from him, had already raised red flags—as the humans put it—all over the place. But the way she’d jerked in his arms, as though rejecting being in them at all…
He’d clamped down on her through sheer instinct, unable to let her go. He had every intention of making her his before he had to leave. With a promise to return, of course, and a prayer that this war didn’t last long. Leaving her behind while he went to his king would hurt, but letting her go forever would be the end of him. If she left him, he’d willingly give over to the dragon raging inside, release his humanity so that maybe, just maybe, he could escape the pain by hiding inside the stronger part of himself.
“Two hundred years, I wait in mountain.” Vilsinn started in the halting cadence of unpracticed speech.
“For what?” Lyndi asked.
Vilsinn appeared not to hear her. “The Seeress say. She tell me wait, so Vilsinn wait.”
Why did these words sound important?
“Trolls no lonely. We slumber, like bear. Humans come. I take.”
Levi opened his mouth to clarify what the troll took, but Vilsinn beat him to the question. “I take things.”
Okay.
“And wait.”
“For what?” Lyndi repeated. “What were you waiting for?”
“For female dragon. Red female.”
A snake of electric shock shot up Levi’s spine, though his dragon remained strangely relaxed, sensing no ill intent from the troll. If he wanted to hurt Lyndi, he could’ve any time today.
“Me?” Lyndi asked.
“You first female dragon Vilsinn see. You red?”
Lyndi’s chin went up, a sure sign she was battling back nerves. “Yes.”
“Then you.”
“Why did you need to wait for me?” She voiced the same question rattling around in Levi’s head.
“To give you message,” the troll said.
“A message?”
“Yes.”
“From two hundred years ago?”
“Seeress not see when you come. Just that you come.”
“Why did she not stay to deliver the message herself?”
Vilsinn appeared almost to roll in on himself, like he had when he’d gone to sleep, and his voice came from deeper inside his body. “Seeress no long live. She dead.”
“Oh,” Lyndi said in a small voice. “Right. You said that earlier. Sorry.”
“Last ask from Seeress, so Vilsinn stay.”
Lyndi looked around the chamber, almost in a daze. Levi could feel her readying herself for whatever came next. He found himself breathing with her, rib cage expanding with each inhalation.
“What’s the message?” Lyndi asked.
“Seeress say tell red female dragon she first not last.”
Levi paused, then leaned slightly back, frowningly tossing the words around in his head. First not last. Could that be any more cryptic?
“Does that mean anything to you?” He addressed the words to Lyndi’s back.
Only she didn’t move, everything about her as still as the mountain itself. Immovable.
“First not last,” she murmured, as if tasting the words.
The troll unrolled himself to nod. “I fulfill last promise. Now can leave.”
“No.” Lyndi jumped to her feet and put a hand on the troll’s arm as he lumbered to his feet. “You’ve been a true friend and follower of your Seeress, waiting all this time.”
“Promise is promise.”
“Don’t go. Stay with us.”
The troll didn’t change expression, as far as Levi could tell, nor did he move. “Stay with female