I was so freaked out I was screaming at my body to work.
Cocking his head, he eyed me. “Lumi Arddduzzzmunnn, your identifying card says. Lumi Ardzman, Snowmaiden. You’re special, Lumi.” Ded’s face lit like he’d just said something rather clever. “You’re going to help Shnikel. I know it. You’re the one.” His thumb brushed my cheek bone, lingering there. I wished I could bite his damn hand, snap my teeth at him to get him to back the hell off.
I was stuck, in this horrible nightmare, not a damned thing I could do.
“We’ll need to secure her!” Bels called. “I only have enough dust left for a second dousing, then we’re stuck with her until we get to the cave.”
Cave? Dust? Holy…
Ded’s expression lit as he stood and his gaze unerringly found Dad’s sex bench.
A garbled protest left me, but then he was lifting me, hauling himself back to his feet with me in his arms. I was being drugged and made off with by a demented man dressed as an Elf and his seemingly sex-crazed lunatic furry friend?!!
His heartbeat was a wild thud against my side, pressed up to him like this, and he was freakishly warm.
My eyes finally lost the fight, the rest of me following, as I felt my face pressed into an ice cold piece of padded foam I’d planned on burning on the first thaw.
Chapter 8
Waking, I balked, unable to bring my hand to my face. Jerking, I came to sluggishly, like I was waking from a weird dream, to realize I was back in my nightmare come to life. Staring at the snow covered ground, my heart started pounding wildly, hands jerking in the restraints holding them in place. My legs were loose in the stirrups, but the strap around my middle eliminated any wiggle room. A soft cry left me as I fought their hold anyway. Movement off to the side of me had me freaking out, losing my shit.
Panicked noises left me as I fought hard enough I heard something pop in my shoulder, a burning pain rolling up my neck following. “No. No-no-no,” I whispered, fighting more frantically as a set of hooved feet entered my field of vision. “Please,” I pleaded. “Please, I-”
The knees of that form bent and the blanket over me was thrown off my head. Cold air kissed my skin as I was forced to peer down at a rather pronounced part of someone’s furry suited groin. My cries grew louder as a hand fell on my back, giving it a gentle pat that only made my panic double.
Tears blurred my vision, but I could make out the furry face that came into view.
“I’m sorry, but Bels said we had to restrain you. Are they hurting you? Are they too tight?” Lower, he leaned in to whisper, “Do you need to evacuate? Do you wish to use the defecating stool? Shall I remove your lower garments for you?”
“No!” I screamed on a wail, fighting so hard I was sure I’d pulled some shit I’d be feeling later. Everything in me tensed. Defecating? What the fuck?
Jerking back, tumbling to his ass, Ded stared up at me as I screamed down at him.
As my throat quickly grew raw sucking in cold gasps of air to then attempt to break the sound barrier with them, my screams tapered off into loud sobs. I was still sleep addled, confused, and beyond panicked. The stump practically waving at me between his legs quickly deflated.
“Don’t cry, Snowmaiden,” he crooned, reaching out to swipe the tears and snot leaking down my face away. With a yelp, he yanked his hand back at my renewed screams.
“What the figgy pudding are you doing to that creature?!” Bels demanded. “I’m sure they could hear her carrying on like that all the way over at that ugly little store we found her at!”
The jingle of little bells as he walked had me trying to scream but forgetting how to breathe. All I could manage in this moment was frantic pants as my heart threatened to explode.
“You’ve terrified the thing, is what you’ve done.” Bels let out a huff as his tiny little pointed feet came into view. They’d jingled all the damned way over here.
A small, humorless laugh suddenly left me, followed by more hysterical crying.
An Elven face came into view as bony knees bent. “What have you done to her? She’s positively apoplectic.” A scowl crinkled an ageless brow as he glanced from me to his accomplice.
“Me? Why is it my fault?” One of three hoof ended looking fingers on his wide palm lifted, jerking towards Bels. “You’re the one that made me tie her down.” Ded fairly pouted, crossing his arms over his wide chest. “She should be mad at you, not me,” he muttered sullenly. Hooking his thumb at himself, he informed his friend primly, “I even offered to help her use her defecation stool, if that was what she required.”
Bels just stared at him. “You’re a marshmallow brained half cup of cocoa,” he told the furry dressed Ded, like that was a grievous insult.
Ded gasped as if it indeed was, hurt flashing across his expressive brown eyes. “You take that back,” he sputtered.
Bels snorted. “No.” The Elf straightened. “And quit messing with the maiden.”
“I’m not a maiden,” I blurted. My throat worked convulsively. Bile filled the inside of my mouth.
“Course you are, m’dear.” The sound of rustling reached my ears as Elf boy made a clicking sound with his mouth. “Oh,” he said as his hand flicked and I watched one of my credit cards flutter to the ground. “Now that is interesting…”
“What?” Ded asked, standing so I was just staring at their feet as they conversed over the top of me like I wasn’t there.
Reserving my energy, realizing fighting right now was useless, I slumped against the padding beneath me.
“She was born under the winter solstice,” Bels murmured, a curious note in his voice. “You don’t think… No.”
“What? Don’t think what?” Ded demanded.
“Could be, but maybe not…” I could make out my driver’s license as the Elf began tapping the laminated card in his hand.
“What?!” Ded barked.
“The Mrs had a sister who went missing several revolutions ago, at least a thousand, give or take a few hundred turns. It was thought Alfka’d been taken by a Krampus or run off with a Baumbel, but... If she’d taken refuge in the human realm, it stands to reason she could have chosen to stay in this crumbling ruin of earthen crust, given up her immortality, accepted the courtship of a human, and procreated.”
“But why would she do that when she could stay in Hinter?” Ded mumbled, like that was the craziest thing he’d ever heard.
Bels made a noise that gave me the impression he could name a few reasons but held his tongue.
“That’s not her, Bels.” Ded let out a long sigh. “She’d be old and dead by now. Humans don’t live that long.” The duh hung heavy in the air.
“Not that this was her, you popcorn headed, candy cane powder snorting nutcracker, that she was a descendant of Lady Lyddie’s lost kin. Ugh.”
“Ohhh. That makes much more sense,” Ded replied softly.
Bels snorted. “Well- ahem, yes, but enough about that.” Clearing his throat, he went on, “I was merely stating if it were true, her birth date added to her heritage would explain why our glamour doesn’t work on her, and why she’s desensitized to the dust the way she is.”