Page 1 of Bride of Choice

Chapter 1

My gaze kept darting towards him. I couldn’t help it. Spying that big idiot gently cradling Miss Big Britches, Mini-Mina Lottie as she wove trinkets into his hair while he spoke heatedly with Kirch —hose me down now— it was doing things to me. Ovaries exploding, too cute for words, insides melting, someone pray for me now because I must be losing it, maybe I’d like to chat with my big furry headache about them bebehs he kept insisting he was going to make me wish to beg him for and then give me a million of ‘em, kinda crazy thoughts going through my head.

But, uhm, yeah. No. No-no-no. We weren’t there yet. Not even close. It would be crazy to even contemplate- My god, she’s practically pulling his hair out and he’s barely let out a wince!

“She’s going to make him bald,” Daisy chortled out beside me, her gaze following mine.

“Maybe a few bald patches would be an improvement,” I chirped sarcastically, grinning when Daisy laughed louder and Rosa spluttered from her spot across from me.

Nursing one of her little chuchbuhs, as my Keke girl lovingly called her younger brothers, my cousin shook her head at me. “I’ll never understand you two,” Rosa admitted as Daisy got up to tend to several of her fussy brood playing in the open patch of vegetation a short ways away from our chill spot. Rosa was too preoccupied with everything going on around us to see my smile dip.

Daisy probably assumed Rosa was referring to us with her comment, not me and Rektal over there, but I knew. Oh, how well I freaking knew, and it made my insides twist.

“Me, either, so why try, right? Cottontail has always been a bit weird, maybe it’s a short blonde girl gone wild kinda deal, but we make it work,” I quipped with a shrug, like I wasn’t painfully aware that on some level Rosa knew there was something but she was possibly not exactly quite sure what all in great explicit detail, was going on with me and the bleach-squatch hottie getting his hair yanked out one tiny fisted handful at a time, then made myself busy with the basket I was trying and failing horribly to weave. The nails weren’t helping. My claws were totally screwing up my basket crafting mojo.

Even with Goph’s help behind the scenes in secret, a bit of tit for tat as he taught me all things Lo denaii living at our designated meeting spot and I taught him how to read English using my spicy books, I was beginning to think I was a lost cause on the basket making front. The male was a taskmaster but I kinda loved his determination to make sure I not only knew how to do these things but did them well.

“Gee, thanks a lot, Mojo,” Cottontail huffed out with a laugh and a roll of her eyes. Eh, she liked me. Did she not just mock me with the deranged yet adorable name her kiddos, unable to say my name properly, had gifted me? I was growing on her, like a damn fungus.

Scowling, I held up the lopsided monster I’d been trying to create, to sigh in disgust. This floppy mess was just sad.

“Mine,” Zhuely boy announced as he eyed that fugly excuse for a basket, giving me grabby hands for it.

With a shrug, I finished the lip of it and held it out to him. Maybe he could pretend it was an oversized helmet or something? Or hide from his mama under it, come nap time?

Taking it from me, he set it down beside us, shoved his favorite stuffy into it, and then proceeded to crawl into my lap. Before I knew what was what, I’d been hugged, kissed sloppily several times on both cheeks, and was absolutely melting as my sweet little cousin-baby-nephew-godson, as I affectionately called him, smothered me with love to then demand his due in kind.

Curling him close, glad I’d opted to wear my smudge proof lipstick today, once finished pecking kisses to his little cheeks until he was giggling hysterically, I eased up as a loud yawn left him. Adjusting him in my arms, I switched to humming the lullaby I’d heard Rosa try to emulate that her males hummed to their babes, rocking sweet lil Zhuely boy right to sleep.

“Auntie’s boy.” Rosa grinned, glancing our way as she fixed the dress on Keke’s favorite doll for her.

“My god, I’m so stealing him from you,” I whispered to Rosa as little hands buried in my hair and he settled on my chest. Not two minutes later, a soft snore left my little clinger-on as he passed the hello out. I’m melting. So melting.

“Like hell.” Rosa grinned, watching us. “Get your own,” she laughingly joked, jerking a finger at us, “that love bug is mine.”

“He said I’m his, did he not?” I playfully bantered with a sniff.

“You may borrow him when he’s grumpy as often as you like,” Rosa promised, waving away my silliness, to the grimacing face I made in a reply. My cousin nearly woke up the sleeping cutie all sprawled out over me, she laughed so hard at my reaction. Zhuel was a total sour patch kid. Sweet when the mood struck him, and a total crankmonster when the sour side of him held him in its thrall.

Rosa’s babes were sweet as sugar or borderline possessed, depending on what side of the bed they woke up on, there was truly no in-between with her boys. I loved to tease her about this out of their hearing.

“Ssshh! Woman?! Are you mad?!” I hissed dramatically, carefully covering the little dude in my arm’s ears. Was she trying to sic a demon on me?!

Rosa waved me off as she finished nursing Tohkrii and got him settled. Play time had totally bled into naptime.

“You need to have at least six more,” I told my bestie and cousin with a straight face, right as Daisy tromped back with her two rowdiest in tow.

“Him start it,” Howd, short for Howard, grumbled in only the way a churlish four year old could.

“Hims started it,” Garth garbled back on a snarl.

“And if either of you cutie pies wake up this babe, Aunnie Mojo will be ending it,” I cheerfully warned the grumbling duo.

Daisy clapped her hand over her mouth to smother a laugh at the twin looks of disbelief aimed my way. Cottontail was a big believer in the whole it takes a village thing. If I ever deigned to “mom” her kids, she had zero problems with it.

Two soft mops of blond fur glanced from me to their mother, and even to their fathers, before circling back to me. “Mojo Jojo…” Garth huffed and puffed like a good little grumpy Yeti man, taking offense. His little arms folded over his furry chest and he gave me a look that said I wasn’t his favorite person right then for scolding him when he’d already been scolded by his mama, but Howdy, as I lovingly called his brother, giggled at the rebuke, shaking his floppy mop of a mane as his head dipped and he cupped his hands over his mouth.

“She tease, dodo,” Howdy taunted his sibling.

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