Page 26 of Bride of Choice

“Berkr heared noises. Loud,” he muttered.

Gesturing vaguely towards my nightstand and the fat stack of books on it, I shrugged. “Monster Romance. I love to read out loud, play all the parts, you know?”

The village enforcer’s gaze darted from the reading material mentioned to me. “What kinds monsters?” he grunted out questioningly.

“All the furry ones.” My eyebrows wiggled and I grinned.

Berkr swallowed thickly and took a healthy step back from me. My god, this was so much freaking fun.

Because I’m as crazy as they say, I took a step closer, then another. “Might be fun to read together. What do you say, Pepé, wanna give it a go?”

A muffled growl pricked my ears. In an attempt to cover it up, I made a clawing gesture at Berkr and growled out loud.

If the Lo denaii’s eyes could bug out of his head, they would’ve. “NO!” he thundered at me, shuffling back so fast he flopped to his fluffy bubbled butt.

And another one bites the dust. Heh. “No? Huh. Okay. Well, smell ya later, Pepé!”

“Pee-pee- Grr. No. Berknerd- Gar- Pepé- Berkr knoweds him’s name!” he snapped.

“Of course you do, skunk butt. You go on and have a nice night now, sweetie, ‘kay!” I chirped happily. He’d have said more but I was already slamming the door on his mildly confused, annoyed face.

Walking over to my bed, I flopped down atop it. Grabbing up a book, I cracked it open and started to read. It was blessedly silent until the monster under my bed grumbled, “No want Rek. Want talk pretties with Berkr, like Rek no’ evens here!”

The wheels on my suitcase spun as he slapped at them angrily, pissed they were blocking him entry. He could do worse to them but the noise would just draw Captain No Fun back over here.

Grabbing up my can of hairspray, I adjusted my finger on the spray nozzle and aimed it under the bed.

Rek’s garbled snarls were music to my ears.

Chapter 7

“Jojo have to talk Rek sometimes,” Rek grumbled as he followed after me like the world’s largest confused, chronically pissy puppy, and I pretended to ignore him.

“Or what, you’ll report me missing and hope I claim you? Again? Or accuse me of flirting with every single being I come into contact with? Again?” I quipped nastily, breaking my silent streak with him. “Oh no, wait, you’ve already been doing that!”

“Where Jo find sleepies?” Rek mumblingly rumbled. “No go Joanie huts. No go hidey. Rek no find. Look everywhere. Where my Jojo go?” he mutteringly demanded to know, knowing there were far too many ears to be coming at me with BS like that, and in public of all places.

“Listen up, bleach-squatch, ‘cause I’m only gonna say this once!” Leaning in, I hiss-whispered, “You screwed up. You have no inclination to fix things, things I simply can’t live with! Joanie has standards. Joanie won’t be giving in on this. Joanie would like to know where her damn ring has gone! Where has all of my fucking tea been disappearing to?! How the hell are you getting into my hut, you oversized furball? Where is all of my shit disappearing to?!”

Rek was silent for a long moment. Finally, he gave a grunt, following it up with, “Jojo sleeps with cousin Rosie?” His brow pulled down, uncertainty slipping into those pretty green eyes.

“Ohmyfarkin- Youmakemeso- GRRRR!” Settling for jabbing him hard enough in the chest to make him wince, bare his teeth at me in silent indignation, and take several steps back from me, a far cry from the thrashing I wanted to land on the man-boy, I spun around, basket loaded to the brim over one arm, and angrily trudged off towards my current destination.

“No go Rosie’s then?” he called after me.

Lifting my hand, I flipped him the bird over my shoulder. The snarl he let loose had my lips quirking, but I was still at a roiling boil on the inside. Fuzz butt done messed up and he wasn’t in much of a hurry to fix it. You hurt my heart, you heartless prick! Wake up and fix it already!

God knows I would have bent over backwards to fix things with him if I’d been the screw up. For once I could confidently say, it was all fucking him, not me.

“Booger’s?” he asked, following at a safer distance than previously— out of striking distance.

“How’s about, none of your business?” I chirped with a patently false, syrupy sweetness that was far too over the top to believe.

“Reddie’s? Daidsee’s?” he kept on.

Greeting beasties as I passed, I stopped as one of Dorothy’s mates called me over to ask how I was doing and Rek kept up. “Do you hear anything? Gosh, sometimes I think I’m hearing this, like, really tiny, tinny, annoying voice, but then it’s like, poof, my garden of fecks is fresh out and I just can’t seem to…”

Moussau glanced between us and then grinned. “No hear no tindy, tiny thing,” he agreed, laughing when Rek growled but didn’t otherwise speak.

---