Page 95 of Bride of Choice

“Those were my last two. Unless you want the one in my mouth or to wrestle him for the one in his, I’m afraid that’s all she wrote, boogster,” I sassed.

Boog mock shuddered and shook his head, making me laugh.

“Spicy flop drop mine,” Rek grunted out, right before he started crunching it with his teeth.

“I believe I said to suck on it,” I sang as I made my way over to the pretty material that I am just now realizing is actually a sort of scarf. It was loud, yellows, neon greens, pinks, purples, bright blues mixed in. It naturally shimmered in the sun. I loved it. Mine. I wished. They probably wouldn’t trade anything with me because they aren’t interested in the promise of sweets or sewing, or simply because I’m unmated and they’re afraid I want their balls. I don’t want you, you fools— I want the scarf pretty!!

“What creature you see?” Booger asked quietly as he held up yet another bauble, stopping me on my journey to examine the pretty.

“What kind of beasties are out there?” I asked innocently.

As Booger launched into a long winded and nightmare-inducing encyclopedia-like educational info dump on all things out there that may or may not be out to kill me, I had a very healthy appreciation for staying within the village boundaries without a tank handy, and a greater fear of Krampus than previously.

Rek, wandering up to us, thought it helpful to put in his two cents every chance he got, with the intent to scare me, I felt, so I thought it only fair to make up a rash of shit about imaginary beings come to life and play it off as legit.

By the time I was done, I felt rather proud of just how freaked out Rek was pretending not to be of Baba Yaga. Boog was looking a bit leery too but that was par for the course. In war, there was bound to be casualties.

Rek had that calculated look on his face, like he meant to scare me back into his arms. He hit the nail on the head when he kept saying Krampus this and Krampus that, until I was all but hiding the way my hands had started to tremor. The urge to tell him to shut up was riding me hard, but Boog did it for me when he took note of how bothered I was and snapped something at Rek in Lo denaii that had my ex lover giving the boogster a dirty look but easing back on the full throttle fear fest.

And finally, thank fate, we had arrived at the scarf stall!

They weren’t all so much stalls as blankets laid out, some temporary tables set up with goodies laid out. There were three large stalls but they usually had tools or weapons dangling from them, situated around the large smithing area. Smaller, temporarily set up stalls surrounded those.

Market day was mostly for mingling, a small reprieve from endless chores, some downtime to bs, etc.

I suppose that was why I loved market day so much. That, and this was as close to shopping as it got.

Recognizing one of the males at the scarf stall as one of the Krampus searchers from last night as I ran my fingers along the silky material, the male from last night said something to the male beside him, they both glanced my way, then laughed.

Dropping the scarf like it had burned me, cheeks flushing before I could get away from them, realizing my trademark sass had floundered in the face of pure fuckery, their laughter stopped the moment a deep snarl issued from behind me and a slim figure hanging off far back enough from us I hadn’t spotted him, came storming forward.

Gopher looked like a furry avenging angel as he pushed past Booger and Rek, who were bickering over the quality of a knife a stall over, wrapped his arm around me, jerking me to him, and snarled something at the males in his language that had them both apologizing to me shortly in English.

Taking my left hand in his, he lifted it up, dragging my jacket sleeve up to expose the bracelet that wasn’t coming off short of cutting it and ruining it.

My hand remained limp in his. I was too stunned stupid to do much beyond a weird spluttering noise.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I mumbled softly to him the moment I found my voice.

“Not nice,” he hissed at the males in English, who dipped their heads and tilted their necks in a very public display of submission. At my grumpy beanpole who was a hell of a lot thinner than their lot? My gaze narrowed on them. What did they know about my sweet gogo-booted babboo that I didn’t?

“Who not nice?” Rek nosed in.

“Says mean things my Jo,” Gopher snapped.

“Not Goober’s Jo,” Rek grumbled, sounding like he was going to kick up a fuss, but Goph shot him a look that could peel paint and my cowardly ex thought better of it.

The male from last night held out the scarf I’d been looking at to me but held Gopher’s gaze the entire time.

“Uhm, no thanks.” Lifting my hands to wave him off, I shook my head. “I’m good.” Slipping out of Gopher’s hold, I held my hands up higher so they were sure to see them and waved . “Keep your shit. I don’t want it now.”

The male from last night looked hurt that I’d turned it down, which was confusing as shit to me.

Turning around without another word, I would have left but a short wave of dizziness hit me.

“Wow,” I muttered to myself, headed back to my temporary digs until Kooky returned, “I waited way too long to eat.” Truth be told, I was still reeling from that little display from Gopher. What the hell did he think he was doing?! Had he not just dumped my ass?!

Did he think he was, what? Helping me out? I didn’t need his help!

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