Baumb smiled against my skin, sharp teeth on display.
Ded grunted in indifference as if he didn’t care to argue the Herculean task ahead of me, and got back to his current demand.
Mirth filtered through my connection with Baumb and his churring started up as he lifted his head to nuzzle my hand. “You’re horrible,” I informed him with a laugh. “And I think I kind of love it.”
His nuzzling grew more playful and he scooped my hand up into his mouth to make hungry nom-ing noises. Cackling as he gummed my fingers and refused to release them, the Baumbel equivalent of a tease, I noted the tug at my breast and turned my head to find Ded staring at us like he thought we’d lost our minds.
Baumb released my captive hand and let out a deep belly laugh that sent cave dust raining down on us, rattling the mountain itself it felt like, and sent Yule popping up as if to ask, “Where’s the fire?!”
Joining my mate in his mirth as Ded released my breast with a pop and slowly shook his head at us in confusion, things were going much better than I ever could have imagined.
∞∞∞
I had two males now, I thought later that night as we all piled onto the bed after a long day of Baumb teaching me how to skin and prepare an animal while we both kept Ded from trying to help himself to some raw meat. Really, the Krampus was a bottomless pit. He could probably have eaten that entire beast we were working on all to himself if we’d left him to it and then some.
One of Ded’s horn pressed into my face as he hugged my breasts, pillowing his head on them as he waited for them to fill with more in offering. Baumb reached over when I grunted, grabbing the Krampus by the offending horn to shake him from me and dump him from the bed. Turning me to face him, ignoring Ded’s bitching from the floor, one of his thick thumbs smoothed down my cheek, examining the undamaged skin.
Ded popped up, hissing at Baumb with a glare, and climbed back onto the bed. Curling his tall frame around me, the Krampus buried his pointed nose in my hair and inhaled deeply. Two snorting inhales in and he slowly relaxed as he let out his next breath. Two soft breaths in and his light snore started up.
My gaze met Baumb’s and we both grinned. Leaning in, he pressed his lips to mine. A happy sigh left me.
A moment later a hand crept up my side and lifted to come between Baumb’s next kiss and my lips.
“Sehleep,” Ded grumbled. “Shhhh,” he murmured. “Shhhh. Sehleep. Ded sehhhleeep.”
Baumb chuckled as I grinned at him from around the hand over my mouth. Nuzzling the palm over my face, I pecked a kiss to the hot skin.
Ded groaned but his happy chest crackling purr started up. His hand slid from my mouth and he grabbed Baumb’s hand to bring it to his throat. Baumb blinked but watched as the Krampus then lifted my leg to bring it over Baum’s thigh, and tapped the Baumbel’s side. When Baumb just sat there watching curiously, though he knew exactly what the Krampus was getting at, Ded grunted impatiently. Bright blue eyes darting from me to Baumb, he gave a little pump of his hips, his thick erection sliding between my legs to bump my sex.
Giving up the ghost, Baumb gave in with a churring purr. Ded’s happy chest rumbles started up to match, and soon we were a tangle of limbs, happy grunts and groans rending the air.
Chapter 18
A hand closed over my mouth, startling me out of a deep sleep. My eyes popped open to find Baumbel pressing a finger to his lips, Ded’s eyes glowing as he scooped up my clothes and our pelts and motioned for Yule to come to him.
What the heck was going on, I wondered, but not for long.
The fruit along the floor caught my attention as Baumb scooped me up and rushed to catch up with Ded, who was slowly creeping towards the hatch we’d discovered in our mad rush to find one of Shnikel’s hidey holes big enough to fit all of us.
Since the day this had all started, we’d found one hidey hole closest to the Baumbel caverns big enough to fit a Baumbel, his pet companion, a Krampus, and their Snowmaiden mate.
Today was The Big Day. The culling would occur any moment now.
We made it all the way to the hole’s trap door, well enough hidden away from the main cavern, a large half wall of frosty ice sticking up from the cave floor shielding us as we crept our way to it.
Ded led the way, with me following closely behind and Baumb, looming over me, bringing up the rear with Yule.
Stealing peeks through the cracks in the glacier looking ice wall, I wasn’t expecting to actually see anything. Stopping to urge Ded on when he slowed to a stop, eyeing a piece of juicy looking fruit, I heard the steps as they began to flood the caves from the main mountain entrance, the harder, heavier steps of a larger set of boots following.
Krampus started to fall. Elves flooded the room moments later, walking up with large curved, short handled scythes to walk to the fallen Krampus and begin decapitating some of the beasts but not all. Wondering why some were killed and not the others, bile rising in my throat at the massacre, I wanted to look away but couldn’t.
A nudge at my back had me jolting into motion as the Elves began collecting the heads into a large wicker basket and dragging the headless bodies so they were all in a nice, neat pile.
I froze once more as Ded went to open the trapdoor and it creaked, just a little. My heart began to pound a mile a minute as an Elf close to us paused and cocked its head. My hand slid over my mouth and I held my breath.
And that was when I saw him.
White hair, red suit, belled cap, big black boots, large framed, thick in the middle but not rotund of belly. Jolly ol’, this Claws they kept referring to, rolled his head on a thick neck. A name written in blue ink in a swirling script caught my eye but I couldn't make it out. This was Santa Claus? A long braid trailed down his back as he took off his cap and handed it to an Elf that had their back to me. As Saint Nick stripped down to his undershirt and suspendered pants, he began to grunt as if he was pained. It took me a moment to spy the horns budding, until Santa was sporting a rack. As soon as the horns had fully erupted, the rest of him melted into a morph. Soon the King of all Krampus stood in his place, his tall mass heavy with meat and muscle. One by one he picked up the lifeless bodies of the chosen Krampus and began to squeeze them, muttering words I didn’t understand. As he dropped one and moved on to the next, they began to quickly decay, then crumble to dust, leaving silvery dust in its place. The Elves rushed to collect the dust, stuffing it into small pouches.
When he’d finished with the last body, Claws grabbed the basket of heads up, slinging it over his shoulder, and turned to quit the room. A stampede of Elf feet followed.
Minutes ticked by after they’d left. They were the longest minutes of my life. Baumb had looked alarmed to see the fruit littering his den.
I’d just let out a deep breath when I heard that telltale crunch. My eyes bulged as Ded, sitting just inside the hidey hole, took a huge bite of a random piece of fruit he’d found.
“Ded, no!” I whispered on a hiss. Crawling towards him, I slapped the apple out of his hand.
When I heard an odd noise from the main cave, like steps hurrying this way, I panicked and shoved Ded into the trapdoor hole and hopped in after him. Baumb quickly followed, dragging Yule in after, and the door slammed shut with a jarring thud. The latch Baumb had added, made from bits of rubble we’d collected in our hide-a-hole-seeking adventures, was slid into place, but we’d been made.
The door creaked over our heads and Yule let out a horrific squawk. The door instantly began to rattle and then stop but I knew that couldn’t be it.
“We have to find the green X,” I said to no one in particular. My gut told me that was our best bet with someone on to us.
Baumb shouldered his way to the front of the line as Ded started to falter. “No, no,” I muttered, slapping at Ded’s pale cheeks. “You can eat crappy fruit and take a nap later. Not now, Krampy-buns. Now, you must wake!”
Ded mumbled my name and his head lolled. Damn it, he was not light.
Bau
mb had unleashed his claws and begun digging down the small tunnels that led who the hell knew where, opening them up for his big frame.
I was just starting to really lose my shit, panic setting in as adrenaline wore off, when the sound of earth shifting reached my ears. A creak sounded near Baumb, and a head popped out of one of the offshoot tunnels to the side of my busy Baumbel mate.
“There you are!” Shnikel breathed, frowning at my naked body, Ded slumped over me as I held him up, and the cramped beaked beast bristling at my back.
Baumb let out a noise and turned to assess the threat, but froze as he watched me gaping at Shnikel.
Shnik’s head swiveled and his eyes widened. “Collected quite the menagerie,” he said lightly, motioning for me to hand Ded over to him.
“I found Ded,” I mumbled finally.
“And lost your clothes,” he said with a grin, blue eyes bright.
“I have them,” I said defensively.
“Good. Then put them on. Be needing them,” he said, then disappeared to drag Ded through the passage he’d just popped through.
Redressing, grabbing the pelts up, I waited for Baumb to follow Ded’s hooves through. The tunnel this led to was huge. It looked like an old mine shaft. Stepping out into it with Baumb’s assistance, I looked to my Elkfen lover.
“They’re mine,” I felt the need to tell Shnick, so he knew what he was getting himself into.
“As am I, Lumi-love,” he swore, and hefted Ded over his shoulder to motion for us to follow him. “Not to be short, but we haven’t much time.” With Ded’s weight weighing him down, he began to jog. “There are probably about a hundred tunnels just like this, but only one leads to a portal.”
“A portal?” I muttered, wincing as rocks and other debris dug into my bare feet.
Baumb scooped me up, clicking for Yule to follow closely, and caught up to Shnikel to easily keep pace with him.
“Good man,” Shnikel said with a long look at the Baumbel carrying me princess style.
Baumb grunted and his lips twitched.
“There’s a small window to it, but it leads to another winter world.” Determination filled Shnikel’s expression. “We could go there, start over, all of us. Free from all of this.”
Baumbel spoke and Shnikel looked to my alien snow beast mate askance.
“I don’t know what he’s saying,” Shnik admitted.
“He said as long as we all go, and that includes Yule,” I said with a grin, hooking a thumb over my shoulder at Yule ti. Patting my mate’s chest, I told Shnik proudly, “This is Baumb, and,” my hand waved in Ded’s direction, “you obviously know Ded.” Rolling my eyes, I added, “He ate the fruit.”
Shnik eyes twinkled. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“And I you,” I said easily.
Baumb grumbled and I shrugged. “He’s basically saying, Less chitchat, more running.”
“Agreed.” Shnikel nodded and they broke out into a run I wouldn’t have stood a chance keeping up with.
Turning this way and that down winding tunnels, we soon found ourselves facing a dead end. A gnarl of candy cane colored vines swamped the floor, covering the walls, spilling out from a large, glowing blue shimmering mirror-like looking section of wall.
“Come.” Excitement filled Shnik’s voice but Yule reared up with a shriek and took off in the opposite direction.
“Yule! No! Come back, girl!” I called, but she was rushing down an unlit tunnel.
Baumb set me down, motioning for me to stay, and rushed after her. He didn't want me to leave without him. He knew I wouldn't and so went after Yule.
“I’m going to set him here and test this out,” Shnikel said, but waited as I laid out the pelts for him to place Ded on. Once Ded was settled, he grabbed up a rotted bit of tree root and walked over to the crystals-blue portal.
Fussing over Ded farther up the way, I glanced up expecting to greet Baumb, murmuring absently, “Well, that was fast.”
The glint of something sharp caught my eye and I froze.
“You know, it really was.” Bels stood there, looking very much alive and whole, if a bit dirty from tunnel traipsing. One of the beheading scythe knives, slick with blood, was in one hand, the other hand balled into a white knuckled fist. “You didn’t think you were the only one who knew about the portal, did you?”
“You- You’re- You were dead,” I spluttered, stumbling to my feet to stand over Ded protectively.
“Elves are immortal, dearest, or did you not know that?” A snicker of a laugh left the male. One look at Ded and a smirk tipped his lips.
“Added him to the culling list myself,” he said with a sniff. He sounded like he was bragging. “Right before I led him to your little cozy cage cell. I knew you’d be dumb enough to take him in, and he’d lead me right to you.” Lifting the scythe, he struck the blade along the wall as he approached. It scraped along the roughhewn earth as he drew near. “This is all your fault. If you’d just died like you were supposed to, Shnik would have come back and all would have been well…”
“I didn’t-” I blurted, but he struck the scythe along the wall and I jumped as the sound rang out.
“Do you know how painful it is to be disemboweled?” His head cocked and an ugly snarl pulled at his pointy chinned face. “No? Well, you’re about to.”
Stumbling back instinctively, I tripped over Ded, who lay passed out on the ground behind me. My hands shot up as Bels raised the scythe up over his head.
Shnikel snarled and came charging up to us. He shot over me, tackling Bels.
Bels let out a shriek as they fell, then a series of ear piercing screams.
It was the blade that shot through Shnikel’s back and the pained grunt that left him that had me screaming.
Bels shoved Shnikel off of him at the horrendous roar that filled the tunnels, my Baumbel on his way.
Face ashen, eyes wide and panicked, Bels shot up, rolled Shnikel, and leveraged his foot on my Elkfen’s chest to pull his knife free. Another scream left me and I scrambled to my feet. Knife in hand, Bels fled.
I was at Shnikel’s side in an instant, pressing my hand to his wound.
A choked cough left Shnikel, his breathing wrong, wet. He was trying to speak but couldn’t.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”
Bels had barely made it to the end of the first tunnel offshoot when Yule got him. With a terror-inducing shriek, she clamped her beak down on Bels’ arm, ripping it clean off and the knife in his hand along with it. Bels screamed, and then screamed louder and louder as the big bad Baumbel whose mate he’d terrorized stormed into view. Bels’ left arm was next, then his leg, then the other one, and finally, Baumb lifted his carcass up to bite his head clean off and spit it out at Yule.
With a happy squawk, Yule began to peck Bels’ eyes out.
Dropping Bels’ bloody torso, closing his segmented jaw, my Baumbel got one look at me and ran to us.
“Help him, please,” I begged, but it was out of Baumb’s capabilities. Shnikel was dying and I knew it. “Please,” I fairly screamed, tears streaming down my face to drop down onto my hands and soak Shnikel. Once the floodgates opened, that was it.
“Lumi,” Shnikel gurgled out, urging me towards him.
“You can’t die,” I sobbed, hugging his torso. Bloody hands smoothed over my face. He was bleeding out everywhere. “I just got you back. You can’t. I- I love you.”
“Love you, too,” he mumbled feebly, his hands starting to fall slack.
Baumbel let out a mournful sound as his hand slid over my back and he laid his head on me.
“He can’t die,” I cried louder. “He can’t. I’ll do anything, but please!”
Baumb had to pry me from Shnikel as my Elkfen’s chest stopped moving. Curling me into him, Baumb slowly began to rock me as I lost it.
“I’ll do anything, anything,” I kept mumbling, heartbroken.
Baumb began to hum, a soothing tone wit
h his churring joining in.
I’d give anything to have him back, even in his Krampus form, I didn’t care. I just wanted him back.
Blind to anything but the grief overwhelming me, I felt the hint of something tugging at my subconscious, like a little voice whispering to me, asking just how far I would go to keep him. An image of us all gone furry popped into my head, a trade, my human shell and Shnikel’s Elkfen one if we all went Krampus. I’d give the last bit of this Snowmaiden bullshit if it meant he’d come back.
Baumb made a weird noise and his rocking and chest churring came to a stop. “Lumi,” he mumbled, sucking in a deep breath.
Swiping my eyes on my sleeve, I caught the hint of blue and froze. Blinking, I stared down at Shnikel’s chest and the blue glow of my tears gathering to seep into his wound. Where there’d once been a gaping knife wound, a glowing blue scar had taken up its place.
Bright blue eyes shot open and a cough left him. Shnikel shot up with a gasp, clutching at his chest. “Lumi,” he burst out, gaping at me.
“You’re alive!” An ear piercing shriek left me and I leapt at him. Shnikel chuckled as he caught me, hugging me to him, but stifling a groan.
My lips found his and then I was peppering kisses all over his face.
Shnikel grinned as I told him exactly how much I loved him and what I was going to do with him if he ever scared me like that again.
Once he’d gotten me to calm my ass down, he sat up, frowning as his gaze shot to the portal. “It’s closed,” he lamented, “we missed the window.”
Happy with her prize, Bels’ head clutched in her maw, Yule strode over to Baumb as if to assure him she was ready to go. Dropping her new toy, she gave Baumb a nuzzle that had his glow spots lighting up, then me, with mine doing the same, and even Shnik, who was stunned by his new glow worm status. Picking her prize back up, she made a noise that said Step aside, children. Stepping over all of us, Yule walked over to the portal, set her severed head toy down, and blew a thick blue flame over the portal.
We all gaped collectively as the portal shot to life once more. We were all moving before anything else could happen. Baumbel tossed Ded over his shoulder, hooking an arm under Shnikel to help him walk, and I grabbed up the pelts to follow.
The Snowmaiden, A Bride for Krampus Page 17