My head said he might, just maybe, but my heart knew better.
Chapter 14
He was gone. I felt the absence of his presence as if he’d taken a piece of me along with him, a longing emptiness left in its place.
Frowning, a funny, sweet smell in the air, I woke up to find while Shnik was gone I was not alone. The cell door was open and a Krampus I’d never seen before stood hunched over me. Dead eyes stared back at me, an odd, hungry look to him. Grunting, glancing at something to my left, he snatched up whatever was laid out around me and stuffed it into his mouth. As his cheek puffed and crumbs fell, I realized it was fruitcake. There was something so oddly familiar about him. I couldn’t put my finger on it but... My gaze lifted to his horns, the one with the crack in the end of one of his left antler points.
“Ded?” I blurt.
Sharp eyes snapped towards me.
He growled, very un-Ded like. The Ded I knew was sweet, if a bit odd and insta-crush creepy. Krampus Ded had me freezing, waiting, hoping he was only half feral.
My gaze met his once more and our eyes locked. We stared for so long his eyes were starting to look glazed, but there was a spark of something there, or so I was inclined to believe.
As we stared, a piece of fruitcake clump caught my eye. Spotting me glancing at it, Ded snatched it up and made to pop it into his mouth. Hesitating at the last moment, he paused, pulling it away from his lips with no small amount of reluctance. Dark eyes darted from the clump of fruitcake to me. He kept this up, his gaze ping-ponging between the two, until eventually, slowly, he held it out to me in offering.
Reluctantly, hand shaking as I reached out, I took it. His dark eyes gleamed with an unholy light as I took a nibble of it, and then he rushed me. A horn scraped my forehead as we collided. I cried out, throwing my arm up reflexively. The action blocked him, but he got his hooves dug in and began snapping his jaws, snarling viciously. Before I realized what was happening, he was sinking his teeth into my forearm. A scream tore from my throat. Clawed hands scrabbled for purchase, tearing at the pelt covering me, digging into the fat of my underarms.
Thrashing, screaming, tears streaming down my cheeks, I tried to call out for Shnikel but it was pointless. Settling down, as it only seemed to incite his anger, a muffled shriek then left me as he renewed his grip. I assumed he was going to tear a chunk from me—he was acting stark raving mad. He was not Ded anymore. Ded was gone.
My arms screamed painfully, a burning throb that wouldn’t let up. Compared to a Krampus’ bite, the bite was a bee sting that let up, his claws marking up my flesh akin to being jabbed repeatedly with a hot poker.
Pinned beneath him, he panted heavily atop me, his natural animalesque aroma pungent this close up. Calling out for Shnikel again, my voice barely above a croak, I didn’t understand why I even bothered. I had no doubt he was long gone by now but I wanted him in this moment, wanted him more than ever.
The teeth buried in my flesh dug in harder and he gave a jerk, jostling me. Stilling, clamping my mouth shut, I shivered as a sob caught in my throat. Salty tears blurred my vision, obscuring the beast tearing at my arm.
Soon enough I found myself feeling a tad woozy. Nausea roiled in my gut. It occurred to me, as I laid there muffling my screams, trembling beneath him but not fighting him, he was slowly loosening his hold, his growls softening.
Forcing myself to relax, he did as well. Eventually, his mouth opened and my arm was free. With a cry of relief, I brought my arm to my chest, cradling it against me protectively.
Staring down at me, studying me with a strange look, like he was trying to figure the trembling woman beneath him out, he leaned forward, sniffing at me carefully.
Compliance, I was loath to admit, was the way with this one. Squeezing my eyes shut, I slumped beneath him. A part of me hoped he’d think I was dead, another wondering if he meant to tear my throat out once I submitted, the third wishing he’d just get whatever he aimed to do over and done with already and put me out of my misery.
A squeak left me as his hot breath fanned over me. A nose bumped my chin, sliding along my jaw. My shoulders hunched a little but I froze at his soft warning growl. A clawed hand clasped my wrist, placing it to my side. Down he nuzzled, until he’d reached my neck. Over my collarbone he snuffled, nuzzling the pelt I’d pulled back over me aside. Lower he went, his clawed hand lifting to the fur blanket over my belly. Cool air hit my skin as he parted the material.
I was trembling so hard I was spasming involuntarily.
His hand was warm, long fingers gliding up my sternum, settling between my breasts, for the rest of him to follow. His head lifted, briefly, and he garbled something out on a breathy sigh. Scooting down my length, his head dipped, forcing me to turn my face away or risk getting facially impaled on one of the ends of his massive horns—and this guy had a set on him. His face was so gaunt he looked like living death. His belly looked like his stomach had already eaten itself, a concave shell, his ribs appearing as if about to stab free of his protruding sternum.
His hand was like a hot brand as he cupped one of my breasts, my quickly cooling flesh to his hot warmth. His thumb brushed my nipple, the bud instantly hardening, before laving the tip with an impossibly long forked tongue and suckling the puckered peak into his mouth.
My body jolted as his teeth scraped over it, and then he really began to suckle. His mouth changed angles, lips latching on in different ways. He was just going to town on my tit while I laid here, stunned, gaping down at him. This Krampus milk buffet had dried up shortly after Shnikel’s dude juice had stopped offering belly filling nutrients and his teeth had completely gone blunt.
There was nothing sexual about what Ded Krampus was doing. The male was desperate, starved. A soft growl left him when he suckled harder, pissed at being denied what he wanted, the sound vibrating my breast.
Biting my lip to keep from crying out, I tensed. What would he do when he realized this chick had tig ol’ bitties, yes, but this heifer wasn’t full of milk?
His teeth nipped my breast lightly, as if to punish it for not giving up the goods. That familiar burn shot through me and I jackknifed up, back bowing, dislodging the half crazed, malnourished beast.
Grimacing, I hunched, my hand cradling my breast. At the spot of blood on my palm as I pulled it away slightly, a sudden sharp and aching throb overtaking my breast, I gasped at the nasty looking teeth marks puncturing my rounded flesh. Hunching forward as that stinging burn grew, I bent my head, the bite marks he’d peppered me with still burning, the heating sensation they left behind climbing up my bicep. It was all too much. I didn’t want this, any of it. I wanted Shnikel. Sniffling loudly, I softly began to cry.
My hair dropped forward with the movement, obscuring the beast’s view of me. Dropping my breast, I yanked the halves of my pelt blanket wrap over me, shivering against the cold threatening to seep into my bones.
I kept thinking it over and over but it was true—I’d never wanted Shnikel or even oddball Elkfen Ded and his weird looks and strange comments more than I did now.
A loud grunt and a chuffing harrumph had me stealing a peek at the beast who’d yet to come at me again to find him hunched close but offering me a small semblance of space. He was staring at me with such a puzzled look. His eyes kept darting from the vicinity of my chest to my head. Obsidian eyes darted to my face, meeting my gaze, and he scuttled closer on bent legs.