Page 358 of Bride of Choice

“You can’t hold me prisoner for forever, you know,” I bitched under my breath. A loud huff and puff followed.

When Buu had nothing to say to that, I glanced up to find him staring at me. He had the oddest look on his face. It was just shy of horror mixed with dawning realization.

Wondering at that, my brow puckered. “Not literally. I’m not your prisoner, Buu-bear. I was just joking.” My hand lifted and I smoothed it over his arm, then down his chest.

His chest finally moved, his stiff form relaxing.

“I don’t feel like you’re keeping me here,” I elaborated. “I meant, jokingly, about carrying me off to our cave and not letting me help you, when you obviously need it. You know, nanner-thal shit.” Reaching out for him, I smiled when he left the fire and the food to take my hand in his. Going for broke, I brought his hand to my cheek to rub it along the unmarred side of my face. “We’re a team, a unit, a package deal, just like me and my guys. I love you, just like I love them.”

Buu blinked down at me at that.

“I love you means,” I started to explain but I was momentarily hug attacked by a massive ball of fur.

“Buu knows loves means. Dace tell Buu bout loves,” he whispered, his voice choking as he struggled to speak. “Buu loves Joalee.” Burying his face in my throat, his purr was so loud his teeth began to chatter.

Wrapping my arms around him and giving him a squeeze in return, I pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “I love you more,” I mumbled into his fur.

Jerking back to grip my shoulders, holding me at arm’s length, he shook his head violently. “Buu loves more,” he growled out with a teeth-baring smile.

My eyebrows shot up but I grinned. “I wouldn’t be so certain of that but I won’t argue with you on it.” My grin grew impossibly wider when his growling rumble fought with his click-purr.

Staring into my eyes, he paused and frowned. “No want be gone from Joalee. Buu want Joalee all the times.”

“I want to be with you all the time too, Peekaboo.”

Buu snuggled back into me at that silly endearment. He was so sweetly receptive to them I found myself making up silly nonsense ones just to get in some extra snuggles and happy smiles out of him. Buu was the love bug of beasts and I adored him for it.

Thinking about Dace giving him the deets on this loves business, I ventured to ask, “Where exactly is Dace, like, right now?”

Buu mumbled at exactly the same time, “No want Joalie people say Buu no be with Joalee. Mates say Joalee no be with Buu. Buu be sad.”

“You won’t. It won’t happen,” I swore. “I wouldn’t let that happen anyway.”

“Make Buu to leave… Joalee… Joalee leave with Buu?”

Wriggling my way free of him, I gripped the fur on his chin and carefully urged him closer. My lips pecked the tip of his nose. “In a heartbeat, but it’s never going to go down like that, I’m telling you, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Buu… Buu need- Buu want show,” he murmured softly. “Want Joalee see. Know. Know why mates no want Buu.” Scuttling back, he took a deep breath, reached up while I watched, and then snarled as he snapped off the fat horns on his head.

Buu looked so utterly devastated as he dropped his horns, his gaze never leaving mine, and his fun coloring fell away. The color literally drained from his fur, his nose, his lips. All but one set of arms receded into his body, along with his lower pectorals. In the place my furry cat-beast-boy stood was a veritable clone of a Lo denaii.

A soft gasp left me as I watched.

Shiny purple eyes welled and he swallowed thickly.

“Just like Tor but without the multiple personalities snug up in there,” I breathed with a smile.

Buu’s nearing-a-breakdown look disappeared, confusion replacing it. “Just like Buu?”

“Oh, yeah.” My head bobbed in a nod. “But he’s, like, supersized, a biggun, and he has a Lo denaii half, a beast mode half, and, like, an in between.”

Buu breathed something I didn’t understand but I’d heard Tor use similar words.

“Is that what you’d call him?” My finger tapped my lip. “I wonder if there’s a translation?”

“Many in here.” Buu motioned to his head, heart, and then encompassed himself but motioned around him.

I blinked up at him at that. “Buu… do you see colors around beings? Like, a halo, shadow, colors, you know?”

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