Chapter 7.5
“Right, well-”
“Krampusnauchtt,”
he growled out, but then froze, the sound cutting off, as a noise issued from somewhere outside. His dark eyes narrowed and the pale, thick hair along his shoulders and neck rose.
“Uhm…”
Not sure what to do about that, I let go of his arm and would have stood back but he flipped my grip, grabbing my arm to drag me bodily from my place and right out into the freezing butt cold.
“Are you mad?!”
I squawked, struggling to free myself from his iron grip and keep up with him without intentionally injuring some other part of my person. “What the fuuuu-”
I didn’t finish that sentence, too busy staring stupidly at three grey furred looking demon beasts roaming along the water’s edge across the river restlessly, softly snarling all the while. They didn’t cross it but growled at the river. The fact that they seemed to fear the swiftly rushing water was comforting.
“What- Uhm, what do they want?”
I whispered as he ushered me off to the side of my hut, angling me so I was behind him, to just whip his willy out of its furry cock-coon, as I jokingly called their furry foreskins, and start to urinate in a clean line around my door and the sidewall of my hut, then, dragging me along behind him, down around my garden.
His snapped words in his native tongue told me he wanted me to follow him— at least, that’s how I’d taken it, hightailing it after him as he left his magic mark all over my place.
By the time he was done painting my house in, well, wee, he’d covered the entire perimeter.
Needing some levity, I joked in a singsong akin to a Christmas tune, “Just how much does one snow beast bladder hold?”
“We go,”
he rumbled out, ignoring my indignant huff as my pretend promising musical comedy career went up in abominable flames.
“Everyone’s a critic,”
I muttered as I did what the big guy said, lest I wished to be dragged elsewhere. “Oi, biggun, where are we going? I- Where are you taking me? I can’t exactly run, if you haven’t noticed.”
When he didn’t answer, I flung an arm, dry caked mud flicking about me in my wake. “Dried out mud monster here. In need of bathing!”
Growl-grr-ing out his name, he informed me shortly in broken English, “Wash.”
“I’m sorry but dude who said he wouldn’t even pretend to be my Yetified boy toy to help a gal out says what?!”
I spluttered, flustered. My cheeks pinkened and my heels dug in. Not after that weird, I might like to see ya naked rumble he’d let out back at my place. I don’t think so, Mr. Super Cold suddenly gone lukewarm. What the feckin’ hells was up with that, huh?
Snow started to pile up around my boots as I was dragged along quite literally. I tripped a few times but the beast’s momentum remained. “Hey!”
I barked, slapping at his hand. “I ain’t gettin’ nekkid with you! No one will be washin’ no booty- I mean BODY! Nobody will be washing anybody! Comprende? You feel me?”
On second thought, so there was no confusion, I corrected, “Scratch that! There will be no feeling of anything!”
Bum-bum paused, brow furrowing in confusion, and blink-blinked, staring straight ahead, like his brain had just hit pause. When he finally looked at me I noted his pupils were looking blown the fuck out, not a trace of a peek of color to them. Chest huffing and puffing, nostrils flexing, grip tightening and loosening, I could see him struggling to collect himself. Did they fight some beastly half of themselves? The Neanderthal within come-a-callin’? Slowly, peeks of color filled his irises, deep, dark maroon, that full blown, pupils blown black starting to fade. When he next spoke he was garbling his words out in rushed Lo denaii.
Alright, so maybe he wasn’t totally recollected yet. Not entirely.
He sounded full of what the fuck , which was all fine and dandy with me because that made two of us!
His momentary confusion came in handy, allowing me to slip free from his firm grip on my arm as it grew slack. Jerking out of his hold, rushing off to put some space between us, my hands shot up when he would have come storming after me.
Ignoring the way my fingers shook for reasons we weren’t going to reason out, that baked in mud clinging to me cracking to crumble and fall away sending dirt dust sprinkling around me a lovely backdrop for this bullshit, I barked, “Hey! Hey, now! What’s the big idea?! You’re going to start telling me what’s what or the Joanster ain’t goin’ anywhere, see?! I dunno about you but I don’t take kindly to someone thinking they can just wake up on the wrong side of the stuffed straw mattress, and suddenly try to tell me what the fuck to do! I am the master of ME. Nobody else, see!”
Wondering absently if that sounded too cartoon, mock gangster or as stern and take no bullshit as I was going for, Bum-bum did not seem to give a fig if I meant business or not. That’s right, see! Hear that, see? See! See?! Sí, I see.
I’m off my damn nut. It’s finally actually happened. I’ve switched to full blown conversations with myself in my head.
The growl he let loose, the way his eyes flashed, was he for real right now, getting all offended I got away? Was he freaking serious?!
“I’m- I’m-”
Good lord, the way he was looking at me as he came up on me, all I might maybe wanna eat you or hell, girl, maybe I wanna eat you out , had the hormones racing as much as my heart.
You’re so broken, Joanie, you fucking freak.
“No. Bad Joanie.”
Cursing under my breath, I slowly backed up as he hunched, the fur on his shoulders looking like it was standing finger-in-a-light-socket, rubbed all over a balloon straight the fuck up, something in his eyes flashed and then they darkened. Was that what was wrong with Gopher? He got all Yeti Neanderthal? All I knew was that Bum-bum was suddenly acting funny as shit with me and I’d be damned if I was going to stick around and find out what the hell that meant for me.
Realizing quickly that if he got ahold of me again that was it, I was too stupid to live in the make my hoo-ha jump and the cunt screeched, how high! goner kinda deal department— I’d be down to clown with this fool, same like my ass was with Gopher, my shameless hussy ass admitted, thinking of Snow Patrol in my own demented, selfish, greedy way, much as I selfishly had with Gopher, secretly as mine in a weird he’s mine but not, and nobody touch him kinda deal— this so was not gonna end well.
It never did for me. Not with Mystery Mate, not with Fuck N Run, not with Rek, and not with Gopher. Fuck me. No, don’t fuck me!
“Keep away from me!”
I shouted over my shoulder as I gave up trying to cajole him into staying the fuck over there while I slowly backed away all the way over here, and spun around to run like hell.
Was something in the water? Were my hormones that outta whack I was just horndogging it for anything? Were theirs? Did this Krampus’ hunting season affect everyone around these here parts? Maybe even including me and my parts?
In favor of concentrating on dodging an angry behemoth, I chose to ignore those intrusive thoughts.
Round and round we went, circling his hut, thick arms swiping towards me as I dipped, dived, dodged as best as I could, pinched in shrieks leaving me as I ignored the pain in my hip and rear and forced myself to move faster, despite it. I’d be lucky if I didn’t crack a back tooth at this point, biting back shocked shouts.
One thick hand came swooping down, another following, a snarl to rival all snarls renting the air as I dove out of the way. My downfall was a fat mitt clipping my hip. A sharp cry left me as I flew forward, shooting off into a fat pile of snow, face first.
I blacked out for a second, it hurt that damned bad, coming to on my back with piercing eyes glaring down at me, blurry as they were through the tears filling my eyes.
Thinking for a moment this wasn’t Snow Patrol cupping my face, I panicked and started to struggle. “Stop!”
The hand cupping my face lifted.
Those weren’t his eyes, I realized. They were- He didn’t look-
But then thick fingers began to prod my hip, a loud gasp left me, the world spun, and then the next thing I knew a thick body was crowding over me- No, they were hugging me to them.
“What- What happened?”
My hand lifted and I gave the fat head of the beast cuddling me close, rumbling something out unintelligibly to me a there-there pat.
It hurt. It all hurt so damn bad. I felt broken. The cold seeping in, threatening to freeze me to death, wasn’t helping things any.
The nuzzling action was nice, giving me that warm and tingly feeling, but then his snuffling sniffs grew louder and louder, and then he quickly stiffened. “Bum, what the fuck are you doing?”
I’d started to ask, to find my shirt yanked, tearing in the process, and a big old fat Lo denaii head burying in my nape.
I must have really knocked my head to be imagining this, I thought, but that cold hitting me didn’t lie.
The noises he let loose at whatever he smelled that he absolutely didn’t like rattled my brain, it vibrated so hard, he was that damn close, my head felt numb with it.
“Not a hairspray fan, eh?”
I’d started to joke, to shut it at the look on his blurred-to-me face as he pulled back to scowl down at me.
Worriedly wondering what he might have smelled, my hand came up to cup over the spot self-consciously and I hunched my shoulders. Shit, he’d smelled- “It’s none of your business,”
I snapped at him, to a shocked noise and a nose to nose snarl in my face. “It’s not,”
I replied boldly to whatever he was snarling at me, glaring right back.
“Mine.”
He startled the stuffing out me, growling it in my face.
“I most certainly am not!”
I burst out right back. Believe me, I belonged, briefly, to far too many assholes already, but he had yet to ever be one of them.
“Hey!”
a deep voice barked, coming up on us. I heard him before I could spot him, it had started snowing so heavily and I was that blurry eyed. How fucking hard had I hit my damn head? The headache was settling in, making me wonder if I should be worried I still wasn’t seeing straight.
Grabbing me up, stifling the snarl starting to ripple its way up his thick chest, Bum-bum shoved a hand over my mouth, an action I was getting fucking tired of, and tore off with me, disappearing from the male that had come upon us’ view.
Not about to take the bait and bite down, not fucking again, not with all of this Mine nonsense spewing from him— nonsense I was convinced must be seasonal horndoggedness and nothing more— I licked his palm, relishing the shocked squeak the massive male let out in reaction.
Being too forward, bordering on the outrageous, had always worked before.
What I was not expecting, was the sudden soft, needy rumble that followed, the quick press of his mass up against me as he crowded me up against the wall of his hut and his head dipped, rooting around my shoulder for something.
Whatever he found, he didn’t like it. Tough potatoes! You don’t own me!
Going to the other shoulder, he licked a spot that shouldn’t make me feel like I was going to shoot off if he did it just one more time. He did, of course, causing me to cry out into his palm and try to reach for him. I squirmed, moaned, and whimpered, pressing back against him like the needy little Yeti ho bag I’ve decided to accept that I am.
My left hand grabbed at his thigh, urging him to press back against me, while my right hand shot up, coming into contact with something fat and thick on his head that hadn’t been present and accounted for moments before. What the heck was happening?
As if my sharp cry as I came from him licking my damn shoulder, and or the touching of his person was enough to snap him out of it, he released me immediately, practically tossing me away from him in his haste. Stumbling, I tumbled right into a fat wad of snow as he threw himself off of me and took off with a horrible noise. Cursing a blue streak, I shot up, sputtering, brushing snow from my face, just in time to see a peek of a horn as he shot off across the river and straight into the woods. I sat there and gaped, dumbfounded, as his huge body easily blended in with the snow.
“What. The. Fuck!”
I shouted, though I wasn’t the least bit surprised by this bullshit, not anymore. It would take a helluva a lot more than that to shake me after the last few weeks here.
When a male that looked like one of Dorothy’s older sons or husbands, it was fucking hard to tell with everything Picasso-ed out, came crouch-walking over to me where I sat, flapping my hands wildly in the snow, I asked him as my eyes teared up, “What the hell are you looking at?!”
He sat there for a minute as I tried and failed to collect myself. “Aunt Judy is coming,”
I told him, like he’d fucking have a single clue what that meant. “I can cry if I want to!”
I wasn’t so much crying as making weird noises as I struggled in vain to wipe snow from my person.
“‘Kay?”
he asked softly.
Lifting a grimy hand, I got out between sniffles, “I look okay to you?”
He said nothing. Smart male.
Forcing it all down, as I well knew how to do by now, I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. I could do this. I am a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need fucking anybody.
Despite Bum-bum’s warnings about Krampus, I tried to stand, ready to limp back to my place and wash up, everything else be damned. I got as far as standing up, putting weight on my aching hip, and then cried out and collapsed.
“Fuck it. I’ll crawl,”
I snarled out, wincing as I tried to do just that.
As if unsure what to do with me, or content to watch me act a fool, my new babysitter waited until I’d dragged my ass a few short feet away before standing and coming to me.
“Come.”
Dipping into a crouch, he held his hand out. It was getting even harder to see in all the thick stuff coming down around us, but I could make out his pale palm as it was shoved in my face.
Slapping it away, I kept going.
This went on for a while. He’d just walk up, crouch, hold his hand out, then back up when I slapped it away to let me do as I wanted for a bit before trying again.
Admitting defeat, because I really didn’t want to die out here, I finally, haltingly, placed my hand in his on his next try. Tightening my fingers, I jerked him towards me. “I know you can smell things. None of you are dumb. Not a word of any of the shit you’ve witnessed out here, smelled, heard, none of it, or I’m turning your ass into my very first pelt. You got me, snow baby?”
“Gots,”
the male answered. It was hard as shit to see in the middle of this snow storm, but I’d swear the idiot’s lips quirked and there was mirth filling that short response.
“I can’t walk. I’m not being a needy bitch or in want of your penis or anything. I’m just fucked up at the moment,”
I explained, then added, “My eyeballs are on the fritz. I hit my head.”
“Jes. Hurt,”
he said simply, his head bobbing along sending snow collecting on his fur my way.
Wrapping my arms around his wide shoulders, allowing him to pick me up, he started off for the other side of the village. “Whoa. Hey. My hut is that way,”
I said quickly. A heavy frown tugged at my brow. “I think…”
“Not safe,”
he garbled out.
Adjusting his hold on me, his thick mitt dug into my hip in the process, I cried out in response, and then it was lights out for Joanie.
When I came to I was jostling, smacking into a thick pec as he sprinted with me in his arms.
“Ow,”
I mumbled as I smack-smack-smacked into him.
His steps slowed and he let out a sigh of relief as I mumbled like a big ol’ grump. When his head dipped and he started to give me a sniff-snuffle, my hand shot up, smacking into his schnoz. “Whoa! I don’t care what sniffing me will do, big fella! You are married, sir! Mated! Keep that thing away from me! I’m a floozy in my own right but that- that’s where I draw the damned line!”
“Who think holds?” he asked.
“I don’t know…”
Damn, was he one of her sons? “A married guy that won’t be snuffling my anything?”
I blurted lamely. My game was totally off.
“Who my mate?”
he kept on.
“Wow, y’all can talk without referring to yourselves in the third person! It’s a miracle!”
I sassed, getting a genuine belly chuckle from the beast for it. After a moment, I ventured, “Do I know your mate?”
“Jes,”
he purred softly.
My eyes widened at his tone.
“Save that shit for your woman, perv,”
I snapped, offended for this mate I supposedly knew but I had no clue as to who it was. Poor woman. Her male was a flirt. Ugh. Why should it surprise me there were Yeti cheaters out there too?
His snort had me stiffening in his arms. “I think I can walk now,”
I muttered primly.
“No,”
he grunted out simply.
“I want to try,”
I huffed and puffed.
“No.”
His next no was even more curt and short than the last. Bossy thing, this one.
“Looky, buddy, I’ll crawl if I have to, but I refuse to just sit here like an idiot while you, ya know, rumble at me and stuff,”
I burst out irrationally.
“Where we go?”
he rumbled out softly, sounding more down to business and formal. That’s right, bitch, Lo denaii only mate one. Remember that, asshole.
“You mean you don’t know?”
I quipped sweetly.
With another snort, he was more careful of me this time as he picked up his pace. “Seriously… where are we going?”
I asked finally.
When he garbled something out in his native tongue, I knew it was intentional.
“Don’t- Don’t take me somewhere everyone will be all up in my business. It’s no one’s but my own.”
My arms crossed over my chest and I fiddled with the zipper of my jacket nervously.
“Dust,”
he said simply as he walked us to the side of a very large hut, structure or something of some kind to carefully set me down. Rifling through his belt, he produced a small pouch of that coveted smelly stuff and handed it over.
“They’ll know… if I take a bath there, wherever we’re going,”
I pointed out.
With a grunt, he scooped me back up and started off in a different direction.
“Where are we going now?”
I muttered incredulously.
“Bathe,”
he said simply.
With him? “By myself, otherwise fucking forget it,”
I barked at him.
His laughter did nothing to assuage the jitters riding me.
“Bathe. No fuck,”
he agreed on a laugh.
“Smartass,”
I muttered. Maybe this was his way and he meant absolutely nothing by it? Maybe I was reading into things too much? Not everyone wants your honey hole, woman, I chastised myself. My cheeks heated at my ridiculous inner dialogue. “Your mate must be a very tolerant woman,”
I said finally. I knew I wouldn’t be okay with a flirty husband, friendly and harmless with it or not. “You’re about as annoying as I am,”
I huffed and puffed at him, even as my lips twitched. Why did I always admire the assholes? I’m seriously cursed with shit taste.
“Jes,”
he said succinctly, and left it at that.
Yes, indeed.
“I’m bathing alone, just so it’s been said. You’re giving me mixed vibes and I don’t tangle with mated dudes,”
I muttered primly.
“‘Lone. Jes.”
“Just me. No one else,”
I stressed. “Not even you.”
“‘Lone,”
he repeated.
Waffling on trusting him, I remained stiff in his arms, biting at my lip as I was forced to see what kooky plan he had in mind for me to bathe alone.
He was helping me, he claimed. If I took him at face value, then he really intended to help a gal out.
Whatever his deal was, hopefully it was on the up and up. It was far better than risking blowing the lid on my extracurricular activities, having it all dumped out there, fodder for flappin’ gums amongst the villagers. Lord, if this all got out… I didn’t even want to think about it.
Forced matings on either side were so not gonna happen.
Was I sad I was the resident fuck and dump? For reals, so hard, yes, without question, but it was a thousand times better than being stuck in an unhappy mating/marriage.
With those depressing thoughts dogging me, I sat in my feelings, stewing over the shit show that is my life, while I was toted off to bathe, if he was to be taken at face value.