Page 328 of Bride of Choice

“It’s okay.” Cold fingers brushed across my forehead, moving my hair to the side, and a cloth pressed to the side of my aching face. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Squirrel Girl’s soothing actions were strangely comforting for a head injury induced hallucination. At least I wouldn’t die all alone. I’d have someone in my last moments, even if it was an imaginary stranger.

I passed out yet again.

My eyes popped open at the sound of a snuffling grunt.

I was paralyzed with pain at this point. I didn’t even try to fight the thick fingers that turned me onto my back.

Everything felt fuzzy, from my thick tongue, my brain. I struggled to recall how I’d gotten here. Purple polka dots on purplish grey blobs caught my eye. “Who are you? Where am I?”

“Safe,” a soft, melodic, deep voice rumbled out.

Forced to close my eyes in the face of the bright light stabbing my eyeballs, I frowned as I realized I was tucked into a thick cocoon- a sleeping bag? My fingers ran along the side until I found the zipper. My hands then slapped to my head. Cloth was wrapped around it. Every little movement cost me.

“S’okay,” he rumbled out sweetly.

God. Now, where had I heard that before? Why was that so familiar to me?

My mind kept coming up blank.

“Help me, please,” I murmured, forcing myself to sit up. The world spun, taking me along for the ride with it.

Strong hands grabbed my shoulders. Another set captured my hands, another set my hips. How many of them were there? Why did I feel like I was forgetting important things? Why were they so important? I couldn't shake the urgency.

Then I opened my eyes and the light streaming in had me groaning and clamping my eyes shut.

“I take,” was all I was told, then strong arms, all three sets, were lifting me up like I was the barn they were raising, and I was tucked up against a wall of warmth.

“Where are we going?” It was hard to speak, focusing on breathing through the pain.

“Home,” he said simply.

That word. Again, I had that weird sense of deja vu.

When I couldn’t recall what I felt like I should be recalling, nausea threatened. I hurt too much to think.

As he walked and I continued to feel all those arms on me, I blurted, “Those are all yours, aren’t they? There isn’t a group of you carting my fat arse around, is there?”

His grunt in answer had me forcing my eyes open to peer up at him.

Even this close, he was a fuzzy blur. I stiffened when I made out odd, spiraling horns.

“Buu-Kehr no hurt,” he grumbled, sounding put out that he had to explain this to me.

Awesome. I got the grumpy rescuer. I mean, I wasn’t complaining, it’s just that two grumpies and no sunshine to balance us out in sight was a bad combo. Where was our much needed happy go lucky middleman?

“If you wanted to kill me, you already would have,” I grumbled back, slumping against him.

Ugh. He was so warm it felt criminal.

Peeking my eye open a crack, despite the wincing this produced, I muttered, “Was Squirrel Girl real?”

A garbled noise left Peekaboo or whatever he’d said his name was. I was too messed up to give two shits to try and recall.

“What scurwellgurl?” he grunted out.

“That’s what I thought,” I muttered, clamping my eyelid shut once more. “What’s your name?” I asked as he tromped along. The steady thump-thump of his heart, the crunch and squish of stuff underfoot as he took me far, far away from the campsite of horrors and my almost end, I focused on all of that, desperate to distract myself from the pain.

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