“You were the naughtiest one we came across,” he quickly continued on, but stepped back and quickly assumed the position of cautious back end to this prison train as Bels’ ears swiveled and he turned suddenly.
“Everything alright back there?” Bels’ eyes narrowed, large, pointed ears flushing flat against his skull.
“Ded was just telling me why he thinks I’m the one,” I informed the Elf dryly.
Bels glanced from me to a spot over my shoulder. “You were a surprising fit in the end.” His gaze slowly slid away and he turned forward once more to trudge on. “I’d like to think your potential ties to Hinter, if I am in fact correct, will be to our advantage.”
The look Ded gave me said he thought I was the one alright, but not in a help his friend in need kind of a thing.
Glancing up at him from beneath my lashes, I offered him a friendly smile. Would he go against Bels to help me if he thought I was into him?
Ded beamed, pleased with the mild flirtation. His ears began to flick like they itched and he stood up taller. The tufts of fur on his chest, darker towards the top of his fur covered pecs to taper off into a white and grey speckled poof, puffed out.
After a moment his mouth moved, like he wanted to say something, but then his brow pulled down into a slight frown. His lips slowly dipped downward. Again and again he started the stop and repeat thing, like he just couldn’t find the right words. I supposed one might think it adorable, if they weren’t receiving said looks from the male who’d drugged and kidnapped them and meant to use them to help their friend out in some as of yet defined to me way. I supposed...
His eyes were a crazy brown color with flecks of gold and green in them, yellow near the irises, the lightest green hugging the outside of the brown. Ded’s eyes locked on mine and I felt like something, some undefinable thing, had snapped into place. A wave of dizziness fell over me. The way Ded was blinking, I wanted to ask him if he felt it too. The longer we stared, eyeballs locked, the harder it was becoming to draw away. What the hell? My heart started to pound a mile a minute, palms going sweaty. Drugs. It was that dust stuff. Had to be.
“Ded,” Bels barked suddenly, snapping us out of the strange staring contest that’d overcome us. The Elf looked flustered, as if he’d been calling us for some time.
“Hmm?” Ded looked like he had to drag his gaze away from me.
“What’s the matter with you?” Bels demanded. His eyes were so bright I could practically make out the liquid silver bubbling.
Ded blinked. He stared at his friend. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I had a weird out of body sense kind of moment as I saw the cave mouth just up ahead. Instead of the whimsical meets winter landscape we’d been in, I felt like we’d just strolled up to the antagonist in this piece’s dark lair. Gloom and doom wrapped up in a purple-mountained, snowcapped package. The sun had disappeared as if it had never been, in its place a chill on the air that had my teeth chattering loudly. The place had a total Beware all who dare to enter vibe going on. It had an I boil Misfit Toys atmosphere that made me want to grab the first character from my favorite childhood movie I came across, tuck it into my coat, and get our ill-fitting-in butts the Hello, Santa outta here. The place was rife with dark, bad, do not enter, ominous tones.
Apparently, while Ded and I were having a… whatever that was, we’d just strolled right on up to this place like a couple of Whos down in Whoville tromping up to the Grinch’s digs on a dare.
“Just this way now.” Bels held out a hand, motioning for me to precede him into the cold-mountain-deathscape’s entrance.
My steps slowed until I found my back bumping into Ded’s front and my heels started to dig in. “You’re sure he’s in there...?” I stammered.
A strange noise echoing from the depths of that hell mouth had me balking. My heart felt like it had shot up to my throat, that heavy thump-thump pounding away so loudly in my ears I could barely make out anything else. I was literally drowning in my own panic.
“I don’t-” I started to protest.
“Times-a-wastin’,” Bels snarled impatiently. “If it isn’t too late already. Ded, grab her!”
As if the Elf had seen I was about to try and bolt, ropes be damned, he lunged as I went to dive to my left. Strong arms came around me as Bels and I collided.
Frantic, I clamped my teeth down around the first bit of flesh I came into contact with. Howling, Bels jerked free and then his teeth sank right into me, clean through my coat. A scream left me as he snarled and began to shake my arm like a dog. The only thing that stopped the Elf from mauling me further was Ded jerking me back, a startled noise leaving him. The Elf flopped to his ass in the snow. His mouth was covered in strange brown ick. It reeked of molasses.
Glancing down at my bitten arm as Bels sneered and swiped the sticky mess from his lips, I gaped at all the blood and brown smearing my coat.
“Bring her inside,” Bels grumbled out, his voice a strange, strained, high pitched snarl.
“What the hell just happened?” I whispered wonderingly.
“You never wondered how the big guy has gone around for so long without being caught? It’s even greater if you realize time runs differently here. You have your Christmas once a year, but here on our time, in Hinter we’re ready every three cheese-ball-in-the-sky fullnesses for the big day, The Night. Four Christmases a year.” The arms banding around me gave me a squeeze. “You’ll like it here, you’ll see.” Clearing his throat, Ded leaned in to whisper, “Just don’t eat any of the fruit that falls, from the vine or off the branch.” Shaking his head, his fur dusting the top of my head with the action, he babbled on, “Spoiled as soon as it hits the ground. Makes a wonderful sleeping draught but it’s potent, dangerous to humans.”
“Ded!” Bels bellowed.
“We’re coming!” Ded called out hurriedly as a weird, foggy feeling slowly started to fill my head. I was lightheaded and the burning pain in my arm was suddenly no more than a light itch.
By the time Ded had lugged me into the dark, cavernous space to where Bels was waiting, I felt like I was in a weird dream state.
Chapter 10
“I’ve bitten you, that’s what you’re feeling,” Bels commented as he worked. The ties at my hands loosened, falling to my feet as I stood there blankly staring after him, pliant and loose. My jacket was next. I felt the cold, but it was like I’d shelved everything at the present and put it all into a little box to get to later.
I all but helped him get me out of my boots.
My toes pricked, the rest of me bared past the pinpricks feeling and cold to the point I couldn't tell if I was moving them.
“We need some more fruitcake,” Bels told Ded, who was staring at me with a glazed look in his eyes. Not personally feeling I was all that impressive in my underpants and nothing else, knowing in the back of my mind, should I have been in the right mind I’d have told him to quit staring, a funny noise left me that had the Elkfen ungluing his eyes from my breasts and glancing to Bels. “Fruitcake,” Bels barked at Ded.
“But what about-” Ded started to protest.
“She’ll get hungry,” Bels said with a much calmer tone, his voice almost soothing. “You don’t want her to get hungry, do you?” He was lying and Ded was buying it. I felt like a spectator in my own demise.