Page 327 of Bride of Choice

My mouth was open in a silent scream as tears streamed down my face.

Again, it bit me, fangs digging deep, flesh tearing, on the spot between the shoulder and side back bites, so my entire left side was an angry, pulsing wound.

Sniffing at me as it released me, he chuffed in my ear, a silent Fuck you if I’d ever heard one. A long, forked tongue snaked out to taste the air, then they lifted off of me.

Leaving me there, I listened, trapped in my own internal pain as much as the external, as they moved around their makeshift camp.

“Help me. Someone, please,” I softly begged, staying slumped where I’d been discarded.

At the soft sounds I was making, they walked over and grabbed me by the back of my hair to drag me to my feet. It hurt to move, every jerk agony.

When I cried out, they cuffed me, hard across the side of my head. My hands shook uncontrollably as I dug my nails into the bony fingers digging into my scalp, clamped down in my hair, on my head, to toss me this way and that as if it gave them some great sense of satisfaction.

When they finally threw me away from them, then did I get a good look at them.

I found myself staring at a nearly identifiable copy of the Krampus who’d been following me in the woods before, the crazy-eyed bastard I’d first run into.

Growling at me, he kept slapping his chest and tapping a spot near his shoulder. He didn’t use one of his arms very much. It hung limply at his side most of the time.

This went on for what felt like hours. Slowly, my vision started to clear, but I was so wracked with pain that even if I could clearly see my way out of here, there was no way I was going to be able to pick myself up and move fast enough to escape.

When he turned and gave me his back, I realized this was the crazy-eyed stalker, not a copy. But they’d killed the three Krampus following me. This one still had a nub of a stub of the arrow that was fired at him and had made contact sticking out of his shoulder.

The head Tor had brought me must have been to one of his Krampus kin? A brother or den mate of some sort? A twin working with him, mistaken for him?

I wanted out of this nightmare.

Feeling around on the ground, I made to sit up but found I couldn’t, slumping down almost instantly. My fingers found purchase on an old chunk of bark. Curling my fingers around it, I gave it a squeeze. It was hard as a rock.

Storming over to me, he hissed in my face. Bared teeth dripped with black, dribbling down his menacing glare.

“I’m not moving,” I whispered. “I’m not moving.” My hand lifted in a little wave.

“NO. MOVE!” he bellowed. That was all the warning I was given before he grabbed me up and back handed me so hard I felt his claws catch on my skin.

My head cracked on the fallen tree nearby.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled to myself, as if to whisper it to my mates as he came down over me, snarling, huffing and puffing, looking ready to rip my head off in retribution for whatever slights he’d decided I was guilty of. Even if I had any fight left in me, I was seconds from passing out.

He grabbed my head and slammed it into the forest floor once, twice. After that, I was blissfully ignorant.

When I came to there was an odd gurgling sound. It wasn’t coming from me.

I heard a soft voice as my face was touched. It sounded like a cartoon squirrel.

I was clearly hallucinating but too far gone to care.

When I bothered to open my eyes, the fire was too bright and everything was odd, large, blurry blobs. It was all like a Picasso that had gotten wet, misshapen mishmashes all out of order. I could barely make heads from tails.

Struggling to sit up, I groaned as I slapped to the wet earth.

“Don’t move!” the squirrel squeaked. “You’re hurt! You shouldn’t move!”

“Help. Help me, please,” I mumbled.

“Help is coming!” the squirrel assured me.

“Careful. Krampus,” I softly whispered, closing my eyes on the dizzying display of misshapen blobs.

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