Page 107 of Bride of Choice

Staring up into Odix’s perpetually frowning face, my lips parted as I started to speak but the words dried in my throat. Hunks of fur on his face, neck, and chest, were covered in blood and in some spots I believed I spied muscle or bone. He was pretty fucking tore up.

I wasn’t the only thing tinged with the scent of iron.

“You’re hurt,” I said instead of begging him to sedate me.

“Odix warrior.” His chest puffed up a bit more. “Heal fast. Gut strings tie. Help.”

Shuddering at the idea of being stitched up and feeling every moment of it, I leaned in a little bit more towards my boo-boos buddy for comfort, careful of his mangled hide.

Fear threatened to grip me but I forced it down.

Odix’s hand came up and he gently pried me from where I’d absently been gripping his chest. “Sorry,” I whispered, swallowing thickly as I shoved all the pain and panic over a few stitches down.

A soft, comforting rumble rattled his chest, not unlike something to comfort a little one.

Clenching my hands in my lap, I sent up a tiny prayer I passed out before the first jab of a bone needle or whatever crude thing they were going to use jabbed my already tender flesh.

Thick fingers fell over mine, his busted knuckles crusted with blood.

Panic won out and I looked up at him askance. “Do the neck pinch thing to me.”

Odix blinked down at me.

“The thing you did to Rek.” My grimace told its own story. I’m a weiner, I don’t care! “I’m a wuss. I don’t think I can take it.”

“Too rough. Odix not hurt Jo. Jo strong,” he softly argued.

“I’m not! I’m full of shit! I’m a big ol’ baby! I might puke and pee myself! I’m not cut out for this shit! I can’t do it- I can’t- I can’t-” I was babbling, rambling. At some point the waterworks had started, but it had ceased to be about the stitches by that point.

A heavy thunk to our lefts and that odd, cinnamon-y smell from Krampus Stalker One hit my nose.

Something rolled towards Odix’s feet.

Two clanking thunks followed.

One hint of a tall, gnarled, spiraling horn atop a hairy ball shape and I knew what the first thunk was. A head.

Bum-bum followed the macabre mess, grunting in satisfaction.

Coming up on Odix, he didn’t ask for him to hand me over, he bent his tall frame, eyes narrowed menacingly, and plucked me right from Odix’s suddenly stiff arms.

“You threw a head at Odix’s feet,” I spluttered, flustered, relieved, and more than a bit out of my element.

“Krampus no more,” he said simply, like that explained everything.

Settling himself near the fire with me in his lap, he turned me, eyeing my leg, and snapped something at Berkr that had the glorified hall monitor of Yetidom barking orders, males clearing out. Approaching us with much more caution than I’d ever seen the male warrant anyone, Berkr handed over a small flask.

Gopher knelt beside Rek, not so much as if he was keeping an eye on him but more guarding him and watching, waiting to make sure he was still out cold.

My gaze darted from the flask Bum-bum shoved into my hand, to Berkr, who seemed content to make himself scarce.

“What’s all that abou-” I’d started to wonder aloud, when Bum-bum finished his grumble-speaking with Gopher, who looked surprised by whatever they were chatting it up about but not upset, Snow Patrol gruntingly ordering me to, “Drink.”

“Why?” I questioned, frowning from him to Gopher.

Under my watchful stare, my bashful, stick of a male had trouble meeting me eye to eye.

“Leave Gopher alone,” I grumbled under my breath, bristling at the idea of Bum-bum saying anything about Gopher’s problem, which he already felt horrible about, thank you very much.

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