Page 4 of Heart of the Mountain King

"Yes, yes. Not Rask's problem," Sten snapped, clearly exasperated. "Just tell me — what will it take for you to make it 'your problem'? I swear to you, Rask: I'm not leaving without a solution. I'll camp right here all summer if I have to."

Rask huffed a laugh. "Seasons come, seasons go…but so does Mist. Time matters more to humans than bergsrår."

"Alright, well… You've got me there," Sten said, deflated. "I just meant, I'll do whatever I have to. Anything at all."

△▽△▽△▽△

Chapter 2

A Price

△▽△▽△▽△

"Anything?" Rask rose to his full height, towering easily over the impertinent human as he curved his lips into a cruel smile. "Be careful, little man. Vague offers very dangerous dealing with fae. Easy to twist words."

Not that bergsrår were true fae. More like…cousins. Sten was in no danger for the foolishness of offering his name so freely, for one. But it had been a risk, and the human should know better. For if Rask had been allied with the Winter Court…

The man blanched gratifyingly and took a small step back, before setting his shoulders, his jaw firm as he turned to Rask once more.

"Anything," the little fool repeated, his voice so strong and steady Rask might almost believe it.

Amusement at Sten's stubbornness washed through the bergsrå as he studied his persistent visitor.

With a grunt, Rask sat down on a nearby bit of deadfall. Idly, he wondered if the human was considered attractive or ugly for his kind. Rask hadn't seen many humans up close, but he vaguely remembered them being generally smaller than the one now trailing after Rask's goats, watching the bergsrå from the corner of his dark eyes.

He wasn't nearly as big as Rask, of course. Comparatively sickly, really, at least by a bergsrå's standards. With his relatively short, skinny limbs and that pitifully flat belly? Made Rask almost want to take Sten back to his cave and make soup for the scrawny human. Feed him good brown bread and honey and goat's cheese; see that Sten put some proper meat on his bones to ensure he'd survive the bitter seasons.

His dark, close-cropped beard was odd, Rask decided. It went all the way up his cheeks and even into his hair, so that there was no means to tell where one started and the other began. Was it as soft as it looked, or closer to a hedgehog's bristles? How would it feel against the inside of Rask's thighs?

Rask shook his head, trying to banish the thought. It lingered anyway, as stubborn as the human who’d spawned it.

Bergsrår didn't generally grow hair on their cheeks as Sten had, not unless they were of such an ancient vintage that it’d wandered down from their heads to their chin like rocks in a landslide. Rask was nowhere near that old. His own beard made for a respectable braid, just thick enough to cuff below his chin with the carved stone wedding bead Hjarta had given him.

Rask sighed. The wound of Hjarta's passing was long scarred over now, but that didn't mean the dreams they'd shared had altogether faded away. He'd barely grown into his tusks when Hjarta had agreed to be his mate. They'd dug their cave together with their own bare hands, sure they'd enjoy centuries of happiness here on their mountain. Thirty years hadn't been near enough time for them to even begin considering the children this brash human had asked about; their song cut off before it'd ever gotten to the chorus.

"And what if Rask say Sten must pay for that help in Rask's bed, hmm?" Rask pointed out. "That Rask would claim Sten as Rask's new mate?"

The human stiffened in surprise, attention jerking sharply to the bergsrå.

Rask chuckled to see understanding finally bloom across the little human's face; those dark eyes wide, the human’s lips parting with a sweep of a tiny pink tongue.

“Many fae couple with humans.” Rask smirked, spreading his legs meaningfully and gesturing to his loincloth, just to be sure the stubborn human didn't miss a crumb of his meaning. “What if Rask wished to find out why? Demanded to have that puny mouth on Rask’s cock? Or to take Sten right now, on hands and knees, fast and hard in the dirt?”

"You — " Sten bit his lip, the human's attention focused on the ground rather than face such a fate as Rask had painted.

Rask scowled, at himself as much as at the stubborn man. He… may have taken his teasing too far. The bergsrå shifted carefully, resisting the urge to reach down and adjust himself for fear of scaring the human more than he'd probably already done.

"Is that what you want?" Sten asked softly. "To… To use me, in exchange for your help? If that is your price, then…"

To use him? How absurd. This tiny, scrawny little human?

"No,” Rask lied, shaking his shaggy head so hastily the tiny beads woven through the bergsrå’s hair and horns clinked with the movement. "That not my 'price.'"

The man's eyebrows furrowed, his face a mask of shocked outrage now.

Hilarious.

"B-but you just said…"