Pumpkin Bride: Brides of the Hunt: A Brides of the Hunt Holiday Novel

by Jeanette Lynn

  When his cock began to jerk and he grunted out breaths, his hips slowing as my sex began to squelch with his escaping release, he pressed his back into the wall he’d stumbled to at some point, leaning against it heavily. When he seemed to gather himself, he adjusted his hold on me, cock still hard as a rock, and took us to the bed.

  Khri stood, plucking me right off Bauheg’s cock, to bring us chest to chest, facing each other on his big bed. Lifting my leg over his, he kissed me once, twice, then glanced over my shoulder and up. “Come,” he grumbled out, sliding his hand up my ass to give it a playful tap.

  “What in the world just happened...?” I blurted, thoroughly shaken, still trembling in the aftermath. Oh, but I knew, and my doubly Yeti rocked world was still reeling from it.

  The bed creaked as Bauheg came up behind me. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, his hand slid over my thigh and he wiggled himself as close as possible. His cock found my entrance and he slid home without a how-do-you-do. We both groaned with the rightness of it.

  When I turned my head, he was there. “Kiss,” he mumbled, eyeing my lips and the look on my face. Pulling back a little, shifting behind me, his gaze darted to Khri and he grunted something out. Bauheg was deferring to Khri.

  My gaze shot to Khri curiously.

  “First mate,” Khri said as if in explanation, then leaned in and planted a long, panty wetting kiss on me Bauheg’s randy beast of a peen took full advantage of. “Kiss,” Khri purred as he pulled back. Reaching behind me, he gruffly smacked at Bauheg, the amber-eyed Lo denaii cautiously drawing near at Khri’s behest. “Kiss,” Khri ordered him.

  “Oh, he doesn’t have to- We don’t- You know, I’m sure he’s wondering what on earth got into him. I’m the lady that poked his eye and he felt the need to kidnap, remember?” I said for some insane reason. No, this had everything to do with insanity, not some of it or part of it. My sanity had left the building one beast kidnapped, hot tubbing sex fueled night ago, and now I was contemplating another round with the beast who’d taken off with me in the first place. Taken off with me after I nearly killed myself with my stubborn stupidity. Boog’d kept saying he was taking me to be healed. Rek was the one who’d insisted on the drugging. But, and a big but here, Bauheg had gone along with it... To make sure he could take me with him because even though he’d thought I was a witch that cursed him, he still wanted to get me help.

  “Truce,” I muttered under my breath at my internal monologue. I just- We, me, myself and I, weren’t going to get into this...

  “Kiss Mally?” Bauheg purred softly, glancing between me and my mate husband to cautiously lean in.

  “You’re saying you want to kiss me, the witch who cursed and poked your eye, botched your burglary, that you drugged and kidnapped, and then she pinched you and grabbed your ass to see if you were real?” Damn. Mal, get yours first, then be real.

  “Eye be better. Things for Rek, not Bauheg. Mally strong, smart, defend.” He started to fumble a little at the drugged me thing. “Mally no want Bauheg?” he blurted, once he’d exhausted his unintelligible mutterings and I was just sitting there blinking at him. I’d decided this was me time the moment I’d put my hand in Khri’s. What did I want? In this moment...?

  Thinking of some of the wild things I’d read in my beastmen romance books, I went for broke. Happy birthday to me. “I want you. I want both of you. Kiss me.” Taking his chance to respond from him, I closed the distance between us. A soft gasp left him as I took his lips, relishing wielding this sense of power he gave me over him. I had two males who didn’t mind a sometimes take charge lady in the bedroom, ready to take turns screwing my brains out.

  The loudest rumble I’d ever heard rattled Bauheg’s chest as I let all the naughty things I’d only dreamed about become my wild one night stand with a plus one come true.

  Urging him to roll to his back, I straddled that massive fucker like a bull at the rodeo. “You ready for this, my lil bug-a-boog?” I taunted, moving before he could answer. His chest rattled in an even louder rumble that Khri got in on it, in answer, as my dark-eyed mate came up behind me, jar of slave in hand, pressing the hardness jutting from between his legs once more into my backside. Oh, this shit was about to get bananas. Double bananas, I thought with a wicked grin at my bossy lover from over my shoulder..

  Chapter 8

  “I’m not following,” I lied, and we all knew I was full of bull. The amber-eyed beast had practically moved in here. Me, I was right at home with my navy-eyed beast. I marveled at how easily it had all come together and we’d more or less fallen into some semblance of a routine. In about two to three-ish weeks’ time, if I was understanding Khri correctly, he had a big hunt to go on, and he expected Bauheg to stay with me while he was gone.

  I’d caught myself a warrior hunter, super Lo denaii guy, from the sounds of it. Khri’s armory gave credence to the idea, stocked up better on weaponry than anything else, dried storage food notwithstanding—the male had a hidden cubby in the floorboards stuffed to the brim with emergency food supplies of the beastly made persuasion. So not only was he a provider and protector for his own, he helped provide for the whole village by trade as well.

  Khri made a noise at my protest, but left it at that. He was a big softy with his spirited mate, as Bauheg liked to refer to me, and if I didn’t know better I’d say he enjoyed watching me peck and prod the amber-eyed beast who’d quickly become a third in our bed.

  Maybe that should have been nipped in the bud after that first night, but my belated birthday threesome had been a wild ride from start to finish, and continued on into the next... I believed we were going on seven days now. Bauheg claimed the same as he had that fourth day, when he’d finally scrounged up the jelly beans to reiterate what Khri had happily told me the morning after our wild and wooly night of fun as a group—Bauheg was to be my second mate, literal second mate. The amber-eyed Lo denaii had easily agreed to Khri being the first, the dominant mate. It would explain why he deferred to the navy-eyed male so frequently, or perhaps he’d always looked to him for guidance, or in some ways looked up to him.

  Cradling the cup in my hands to my chest, the steam wafting up from my tea warming my face, I wrapped Khri’s mating pelt around me tighter.

  “Two mates,” Boog, as he’d accepted my utterance of the shortened version of Booger, patiently repeated.

  “Khri is my mate.” I blew across the top of my mug. Boog was my... crazed sex monkey lover of a birthday present—yep, that about summed it up. Nowhere had I thought allowing him into our bed would mean I was taking on two hairy beastmen ‘til death did we part. Where Khri could go and go but eventually needed a break, Bauheg was a bit of a beast unto himself—the male was almost as insatiable as I felt at times. And when we were all too tired to move, whether from extended fun times or the grueling work day my sore muscles were still getting used to here in Yetiville, he was one hell of a snuggler.

  In some ways I was still struggling with the idea of Boog and me. It had been awkward for me at first, trying to put the two halves of what I knew of Bauheg, the lover, the kidnapper, together. Eventually I’d made the choice to more or less take this time to figure that out—could I live with Bauheg in a hairily ever after? Could we all just get along? Some nights we just talked, and I had it on good authority, and verbal threat from Khri to unman him if he ever even tried it, not to ever be re-kidnapped and or forced to do anything. The warm and fuzzies filled me at Khri’s warrior beast, pissed snarl, uttered decree. He hath spoken. Ugh, to be loved so thoroughly. That’s what it was, this quick, hard, wild, insane thing between us—I was completely and totally in love with my mate husband and no one could tell me differently. I’d completely and totally gulped the Yeti town tea and was vibing with the rest of the crazy humans that resided here.

  Even with his neat freak and bossy ways, and loud snoring, I thought with a snicker of a smile. Bauheg had made me a bunch of wads of fluffy, fibrous balls made from the fur of a tebbimenk,
a little creature abundant around here, a burrowing beast that produced thick tufts of fluff the beasts prized. My makeshift ear plugs worked wonders for my poor ears on Khri’s slightly crooked nose’s late night symphonies. Tebbimenk also produced a horrible reaction in most Lo denaii, itchy rashes that made their fur fall off wherever they came in contact with the tebbimenk’s skin. Bauheg was barely getting over a suddenly gone bare patch and hives-like rash from such an incident. It reminded me of a bad cat allergy. I’d had a childhood friend with a similar issue. He’d done this knowing what could happen to him, what more than likely would as he gathered shed fur from the creatures to harvest it. Guilt, mixed with a fluttering feeling in my belly when I thought of the booger of a giant and the lengths he’d been going to not only to impress me but to impress upon everyone in the hut how much of an asset he could be to our house. But this was all a weird situation, and in the whole scope of everything, who could blame me for my reticence.

  The pelt he’d come back with last night, a wild orange and green striped fuzz monster with tiny white varying sized spots all over it, sat neatly folded over the back of the spare chair at the end of the table. I knew what it was. He knew what it was. He’d made no move to present it to me. Yet. But we all freaking knew. I was practically squirming in my seat, wanting to reach out and run my fingers over it. I was strangely nervous as he kept me on hold like that, and maybe that was to blame for my mood this morning.

  Khri, announcing he was staying out of it in broken English when I woke up with my sassy pants on, was making their version of breakfast, little hints of peeks of humor flitting across the glimpses of his face I caught with his back to me as he worked.

  “Mally no want her Boog?” The oversized, amber eyeballed cotton ball squirmed in place. His eye was looking even better than when he’d barged into the house and made himself right at home and then apparently my second husband.

  “What if Khri doesn’t want a second husband?” I countered, avoiding that million dollar question. I did want him, I’d acknowledged to myself when he’d lingered too long one day getting some chores or things he needed to do elsewhere done and that fear had hit me, sharp and suddenly, worried he’d changed his mind or something and decided to cut and run, but considering our earlier history... I wanted to make him work for it, suffer, maybe, just a little. I was a reasonable person, sort of.

  “Khri ‘kay,” Khri chimed in, chuckling when I made a noise in my throat that suggested he should just hush it right up. Turning, dark eyes flashing, he growled out some of that beast speak side convo at Bauheg.

  Boog frowned, scratching at his chin as he glanced to me uneasily, and quietly grumbled something back. Bauheg couldn’t see it, but Khri shrugged.

  “Human here, has no clue what you’re saying,” I sing-songed, then took a sip of my tea.

  “Why think we do it?” Khri called back, bold as brass.

  “Furred turd,” I huffed and chuffed under my breath.

  Khri’s laughter was loud, boisterous. These males and their appreciation of a woman who didn’t fear them and had no compunction about letting them know they were being a butt was like a sanctuary for the otherwise unappreciated. I’d never felt more vindicated for being myself in my life. Khri loved me for me, just the mulish way I was. For all of his bossiness, and he could be so darn bossy, he loved negotiating. Was that what he was doing with Bauheg?

  My head tilted as the pair kept up a conversation with me and amongst themselves. If Bauheg’s brow furrowed any more his thick eyebrows were going to meld into a mega brow and find an angry cyclops to overtake his face.

  “Bauheg be going,” Boog said suddenly. The towering beast looked sickly pale at the sudden announcement, standing quickly with a troubled look on his face to walk over to the spare chair and, much to my stunned surprise, collect his fur and start practically scrambling for the door.

  “Uh... okay,” I mumbled, setting my cup down to walk him out. There was no point. With one quick look at me and a questioning one at Khri, he opened the newly repaired door and rushed out. “Now what was that all about?” I murmured and went to sit back down. My gaze shifted from the door to my mate’s back, then back towards the door, where it stayed.

  Not sure how long I sat there staring after the portal that had just taken Boog to this rushed elsewhere, I was jolted out of my thoughts when Khri set a heavy platter filled with cooked greenish yellow eggs and fat slabs of funny butter, as I’d named the Lo denaii version of butter, smeared bread.

  “Eat, Mally-mine,” Khri purred out as he sat, handing me a plate full of choice bits, taking Boog’s abandoned seat, to start digging in.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask where Boog had gone but I didn’t want to tip my hand. Tricks or feets, I thought to myself, whatever was afoot, pun intended, I wasn’t going to fall for, you know, whatever it was they were doing.

  Chapter 9

  Booger had up and left me. That’s how I interpreted it. The first night without him hogging the spot behind me, cuddling me up to him to wrap himself around me, and Khri until my navy-eyed male shoved Boog’s arm off, complaining the amber-eyed male was making him too hot, to roll away enough to catch the cooler air of the room, I’d fallen into a fitful sleep. The second night, I was feeling oddly emotional and weird dreams had plagued me. The days were weird too. Khri had things to do, and mostly left me with Rosa and or Joanie to keep company. The women were showing me the ropes, and stood with me for my first random encounter with the Dorothy, Khri’s mother herself.

  Dorothy was nothing like I’d thought she’d be, and physically didn’t look much older than me, to my shocked surprise. The time difference thing from Earth to... wherever we were, I still needed time to get used to it. The one thing Dorothy was full of, was wild childhood tales of my supposed grump of a mate and his taciturn ways. My Khri, a total and complete overly serious grumpy? I’d laughed out loud to hear it. Had I changed him so much in such a short time? Joanie claimed I’d pulled the grump stick right out of his butt, to everyone’s peals of laughter. I supposed there were worse things I could have been known for. Grumpy butt stick remover master. It was a working title.

  The night of the third day without Bauheg, I’d waited until Khri had fallen into a snore filled sleep to quietly cry myself to sleep. And so it followed the next night, and the next, until one night a soft sob had left me and Khri had woken up to my body shaking cries and not so quietly muffled sniffles.

  Khri was almost due to leave for one of his hunts now, and had it set up so his mother and mates would be checking in on me frequently. I could go to their hut if I needed anything but I was more or less perfectly fine functioning on my own at this point. I’d had excellent teachers and I was naturally independent. I wanted to beg him to stay but I knew just how selfish that would be and kept my whining to myself. They needed him more than my silly ass did.

  “Mally-mine?” Khri crooned groggily, dragging me close to his chest to start crooning to me softly. A clawed hand began to pet my hair, his purr rattling his chest as he began sifting through the strands. This just made it worse, until I was ugly crying into his chest. “What wrong, my Mally-mine?” he whispered.

  Clutching him tight, I could barely speak. Eventually, I got one word out. “Boog,” I blubbered miserably.

  “Shhh. S’kay, my Mally-mine. Shhh. S’kay,” he rumbled out in that deep voice of his. I fell asleep to him cuddling me, easing his unsettled mate.

  I’d lost him. He’d left me. He’d offered himself up and I’d declined, and he’d taken his furry arse and fluffy pelt elsewhere. I wanted to scream as much as I wanted to cry, just thinking about Bauheg no longer being such a prevalent presence in my life, going after some other woman and being to them what he’d become to me.

  Chapter 10

  It was early, or really late, however you wanted to slice it, when a hand at my shoulder jostled me, shaking me gently to wakefulness. Grunting, opening my eyes to find Khri staring down at me, smiling softly
in the face of my scowl, he lifted something up over me, until it was tucked up to my chin. Fur tickled the underside of my chin. It was long and super soft. It must have been one of the spares on the end of the bed he kept there just in case his bald human mate grew chilly. “Mally-mine ‘wake?”

  “I’m up,” I muttered, clearing my throat. “I probably have dog breath and crusted over eyes, and I’d rather be sleeping, to be honest, but I’m up.”

  Khri grinned at my early morning grump stick up my butt attitude. “No more sads?” he asked, sobering to watch me intently. Reaching out, he brushed a lock of hair from my face, the action sweet and tender. The urge to start up the water works returned almost instantly. “Miss you Booger,” he said, very matter of fact, leaning in to brush his nose along the side of mine. A shiver overtook me as he inhaled deeply and a wild purr rumbled his chest.

  “Yes,” I admitted, if only here and now, in the early morning quiet, just between the two us.

  “Be ‘kay, my Mally-mine,” he murmured, pecking kisses up the side of my face until he was burying his nose in my hair.

  “Promise?” I asked, my voice small and unsure. I felt like Kehko that first time I’d met her. How could I be so torn up over my amber-eyed kidnapper? I should be mad or angry, but I was just too damned sad. Because you love him too, stupid.

  With that thought dogging me, I snuggled tightly to Khri, squeezing my eyes shut tight, sniffling in spite of my determination not to, and tried to will away the pinching pain pricking my chest.

  Chapter 11

  I’d overslept. I was aware of that much as I shuffled in the thick pile of furs I used for blankets. The one wadded up and pressing to my back, my mock Boog bundle, was nice and snuggly warm. I didn’t want to move. I’d probably already missed the brunch date Joanie’d tried to set up with me and Rosa, but she knew getting us all together at once could be like herding cats.