Page 337 of Bride of Choice

I was prepared for him to rush over to me. The grabbing me up to clamp me against him like a huggy fur-ipede, I was not.

“Are you okay?” I mumbled into his furry chest. “What happened?”

“Sick?” he asked, then jerked me back to sniff at my face. “Sick?” he repeated, cupping my face in his upper hands to peer down into my flushed face. “Sick?” he asked yet again.

He was squishing my cheeks so hard my lips were forced into a fishy mouthed pinch. Despite how stupid I must look, I blurted, “Are you mad at me because of what happened at the cave entrance?” Forcing the words out past numb lips, I garbled it all out in one long string of gobbledygook. “Do you- Did you feel like you had no choice with- with what we did?” My throat worked, tears welling as my face grew hot and my stomach roiled. “Because if you did and that’s why you were so upset with me, I- I had no idea and I’m so- I’m so sorry. I wasn’t- I didn’t-” I choked on every other word but kept going. By the time I was done I couldn’t make out his face through the tears I was blinking away.

Thick thumbs brushed at the wetness trailing down my cheeks as his death grip on my face eased.

Clearing his throat several times, he croaked out, “No mad Joalee.”

“Yes, you were. Don’t lie to me,” I burst out. My hand curled around his and I tried to tug them free but it was no use.

“Jo- Joalee no want Buu.”

When I froze, frowned, and my lips parted, he crushed me to him with a pained groan. “No want hurt mates. No want Buu.” Jerking me back using all four sets of arms, he dipped his tall frame and leaned in to nuzzle the top of my head. “Hurt? Buu hurt Joalee? Buu try be careful. No want hurt Joalee.”

“I’m not hurt. You didn’t hurt me,” I whispered as he inhaled deeply at my hairline to nuzzle his way down my face.

“Joalee stays with Buu ‘til snowies block cave gone,” he rumbled as he brushed his fangs along my nape.

I shivered and my grip on his arms, blunt nails already digging in, tightened.

One of his hands slid down my shoulder. I yelped and jerked back.

Buu set me down like I was on fire. He hugged the wall as he stared at me, wide-eyed. He was such a big guy, staring down at me worriedly, freaked out he’d hurt the little human, it was kinda comical.

“My scar,” I murmured, trying to ignore the good-feels shivers sending my skin prickling in gooseflesh that single touch along my scars had incited.

Fuck, they were sensitive.

“Hurts?” he asked, canting his head, craning to look at what I was gaping at.

The feeling of all that puckered flesh was ugly, just awful. Pulling my hand back to study it, I had to wonder if my face matched. Where my skin had been tinged with black, threading throughout the veins, it was now the brightest, faintly glowing blue.

Lifting my arm, I gaped at all the blue shooting through the once inky black spidery veins in my upper arm. I was covered in it.

Buu’s gums were blue, his tongue. I’d noticed it the other night. His teeth had a natural blue hint to the white.

Turning my attention to Buu in wonder, I blurted, “You saved me. I- I mean, you saved my life.”

Buu worried his lower lip with his fangs. It made the blue tint of his fangs even more obvious. “Joalee not sad Buu claim Joalee? Sad mates not want Joalee no more? Buu help. Make Joalee better.”

Claimed. I had a moment of pause at that, but I shook it off quickly. “I don’t know if they’ll still want me,” I admitted honestly.

Those stunning purple eyes, lavender shot through with violet and royal purple, dragged down my length, lingering on my stomach. “Mates want Joalee, know Joalee has bebeh?” he rumbled out softly.

My hands slid to my stomach and my gaze dropped down to it. “My what?” I spluttered. I could scarcely believe it. Was he saying- Am I- I’m- “A baby,” I breathed.

“Joalee bebeh,” he repeated. Kneeling in front of me, he gently moved my hands out of the way to bury his face in my stomach. His happy rumble made me wish I could purr as he confirmed, “Smell it. Joalee bebeh.”

“Just the one?” I croaked out.

Lifting his head to eye me as I valiantly tried to wipe all the tears in my eyes away, his brow crinkled but he nodded. “Joalee want more? Buu try to put more,” he soothingly offered as he stood and curled me into his arms.

A startled laugh left me. “I’m happy with just the one at a time, but thank you.” More happy laughter left me.

“No more sick?” he asked.

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