How dare they, I screeched inwardly, glaring up at the pair in equal measure.
“You are alive and complaining,” Kvigor grumbled out, then, smiling slowly at my huffing display to that announcement, the twist of those thick lips oddly charming, his eyes as warm as that slow lifting smile, warming me from the insides out, “it fills my heart, Addie-mine.” Leaning in, ignoring my struggles to easily subdue me, he pressed his snout to the top of my head, careful of my new head ornaments, to inhale, sucking in a deep lungful of my scent, and exhale slowly, blowing his breath over my wet hair. “You are steaming, my mate,” he whispered. “You smell sweet when you are angry.”
I gave a sniff. “I smell like burnt ham roast and peaches! And smoke from this nose,” I made a point of jabbing a clawed hand at my face, watching as the nail flexed to shift, sliding back towards the quick until it looked moderately human once more, “is not normal!”
Kvigor made a show of inhaling deeply. That smell wasn’t going anywhere. “It is now.”
“It’s not!” Giving up, I reached for my white beast bull, clutching at him, climbing him like a tree until I was cradled to his chest, his hand at my back stroking my sensitive flesh, his arm and other hand cupping my butt, his wide hand spanning one abundantly fleshy cheek.
His body shook as I buried my face in his nape, my arm sliding around his neck, fingers gripping his flesh tight, and I held on for dear life. “Hold me,” I mumbled, my voice muffled. “You ridiculous beast.”
Adelric came up behind me, carefully pressing himself to my back, the side of his face resting against mine, situated so his horns didn’t gouge anyone or anything. He was warm, the curly hairs of his chest tickling my back. My free hand slipped behind me, his unerringly finding mine to curl around it. A wet snout pressed to my dripping locks.
Mine, I thought. Both of them, all mine. This felt right.
Trying not to melt on the spot, knowing I was forever changed physically, in some ways mentally after everything I’ve gone through in such a short time, and the two males who mattered most to me could not give a single shite about my altered appearance, caring merely that I was here, I was whole, and knew who they were. I was their Addie. I tried horribly to hold back the flood rushing forth and failed. Tears dripped down my cheeks freely but I didn’t care.
When my head started to cool, exposed to the cooler temp of the room as opposed to the warm water, that wet, snuffling snout hit a particular spot on the side of my head that made me jump.
“Sorry, luv,” Adelric pressed a kiss to the spot in apology, his fingers coming up to smooth over the side of my head, bringing something now glaringly obvious to light. “Is it sore? Do they hurt? I can ask that Suzaela make up a paste?”
“Huh?”
“She doesn’t know,” Kvigor said lightly.
Aware I now sported a potentially deadly set of weapons spiking from my skull, I lifted my head slowly, brow beetling in utter confusion. “I don’t know what?” Please don’t let it be more horns. Please don’t let it be more horns. No way was I living with spikes along my head.
Maroon eyes, settled but now starting to spring back to red, glanced from me to his sibling. “They are greenish gold, now might be the moment,” the male observed impassively.
“They are?” I perked up at that, finding myself temporarily, easily distracted. There’s still me in there!
“They’ll turn when she’s riled,” Adelric mused idly. Stalling, it was more like.
“Tell me now,” I wiggled in place, anxious and terrified all at once, “what’s become of me?”
“Other than the demon thing? Kinda fitting, right? Like the prophecy foretold.” Vachel.
The crunch of someone taking a huge, chomping bite had my gaze drifting towards the other side of the room. Vachel stood leaned against the wall, biting into one of those bitter blue fruit balls she liked so much, the ones that tasted rather like sour corn than a peach or an apple.
“Prophecy?” I queried quizzically.
“Aye, in the book of our lord,” she said between bites, “it is said a beast from a great beyond would come to us, challenging the old ways.”
“And you all treat outsiders like muck because...?” I blurted, flabbergasted.
“There’s where that Puck thing comes in.” Another chomping bite and methodic chewing. “The great test before the infinite uprising or eternal darkness.” At my look of utter disbelief she shrugged. “I didn’t write it,” she spared a glance over her shoulder towards the room they stored herbs and salves in, “but I was sure forced to read the good texts!”
“And well you did!” Suzaela snarked back, making her youngest chuckle.
“Must be a him not an it,” Vachel continued, thoughtful. “We were thinking famine, like your home world is enduring, a great war, a battle to end all battles, something like that, not a usurper, a pretender in our midst.” She pointed her half-eaten fruit towards the ceiling. “Clever.”
“Clever? I’m- I’m a-a-a-a thing!”
“Not Tauran,” she gave me a long, measuring look, “not hooman, human, however you say it. Like a demon,” she glanced pointedly to my back, “but kinda not. A being to counter the being in our midst. Kinda funny if you think about it. right under our noses the whole time. Send a savior from a far off land to get rid of a plague of a being from a different far off land. How did we not think to consider it before?”
“Quiet, Vachel,” Kvigor grumbled in warning, Adelric’s to follow giving me a start. Never would I have imagined he’d take my side over his baby sister’s.
“You are frightening my demon,” Adelric informed her primly, too primly.
“This is hardly the time to joke,” Suzaela, warned, sweeping into the room, as usual.
“I wasn’t saying it to be funny,” my dark-furred mate replied curtly.
He was offering me a distraction, which I so desperately needed as I tried to process, even if it meant earning my ire. My head was still pounding something fierce, whether from the fat things branching out from my noggin or the head splitting pains those magic smacking lights Oberon seemed to love so much to ‘bestow’ things on us plebeians had zapped my eyeballs right into a brain melting headache.
Reaching out, I tapped his cheek, once, twice, harder the last time, making him flinch, to gently pinch his furry cheek, wiggling it this way and that to let go. “I appreciate it, nonetheless.”
Kvigor snorted out a laugh and I closed my eyes, pretending, if only for a moment, this was all normal and everything was going to be just fine.
“But it is, vacha.” Adelric lifted my hand, kissing the center of my palm.
I started, realizing I was yet again speaking aloud. “Bad habit, that,” I muttered. Then, softly, unsure, “Is it really... alright?”
“Yes,” Kvigor said simply.
“You’re beautiful.” Adelric’s words rang with sincerity, but they still earned him a startled look from me.
My brow slammed down, an instant scowl, but he lifted his hand, his thumb smoothing out those deep etched worry lines.
“I have my very own demon-pixie, in the flesh.” Teasing lips, twitching, dissolving, he leaned in, until bronze eyeballs turned to gold and that all-encompassing stare sucked me in, his hand going to my chin, gripping it, tipping it towards him so we were eye to damned eye. “You are you, one armed, two toed, six legs, purple, black, pale, spotted or otherwise, I don’t care, it matters not to me—us,” he softly corrected, not bothering to spare his brother a glance, “and you are mine—ours. That is all that I—we—ask.”
My lips started to tremble, but I really didn’t feel like having myself another cry right now. “You say the sweetest things, you know, with that grumpy, serious face of yours, you bull headed, stubborn, curmudgeonly, hot headed-”
My chin was released, his hand cupping over mouth. Gold eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Perhaps it is best if we leave the rest of that to the imagination, yes?”
Like hell.
; I continued to talk, much to Kvigor and Vachel’s amusement, because, damn it, I was going to get this all out. When I stopped to take a deep breath, he gave me a dry look that should have looked menacing but was so gods be damned adorable my lips kicked up in a smile. “Hum himes I h-wanna heat hoo, hoo ho-w, hut hammit I hwuv hoo.”
The temperamental Tauran paused at that, his head cocking in that funny way of his. “I love you too, vacha.”
“Hones han hall,” I mumble-shouted.
Ferdinand’s lips pulled back into a weird, semi-creepy Tauran grin as he glanced to the rack I had going on myself. “Horns and all.”
“If she’s that worked up over a set of horns, which are magnificent, if I do say so, best not tell her about her back.” A pause and a tiny, teasing smirk, a speaking glance in the direction of my backside. “Or that tail.” Vachel pointed.
“Hut?! Hail!!” Squirming wildly in his hold, Kvigor almost dropped me when I started bouncing up and down on his impressive, rock hard abdomen, desperate to dislodge my clinger on lovers and get a peek. A tail?! What the- Poseidon’s pearly nipples?!
“It’s a lovely tail.” Suzaela sailed back in, moving closer, a small jar in her hand, dropping a wad of linens by the pool’s side to shake them out. “Can’t tell its hairless from afar, just looks white, like Kvigor’s. It’s rather pink, and small, but, uhm, cute. I’m sure it’ll grow hair when it finishes coming in all the way.”
This did nothing to reassure me. “Humming in hall the hay?!” Slapping Adelric’s hand free, I caterwauled in a rather dramatic fashion, “A tail? Oh gods, a tail! I’m going to look like a rat! A stubby tailed vermin!”
“It’s not that bad,” Vachel offered, “the bunched up skin on either side of your back is all dark and the bones poke up,” she motioned to her back, “like humps or hunches, take the eyes away from that little nub of a- Well, ye know-”
“Vachel, shut it,” Adelric grumble-growled warningly before Kvigor or Suzaela could speak up, surprising myself and my strangely silent bonded as Kvigor stiffened, eyes flashing red, a low rattle emitting from deep within his massive chest.
My stomach, always one with that impeccable timing, chose that moment to rumble loudly.
Kvigor hitched me up higher, grunting at Adelric to move before making his way out of the pool, his woman in tow.
“You can put me down now,” I whispered, watching as he took the towel his mother held out, gently wrapping it around me, to take another, walking us to the table to pull out one of the chairs and plop us down into it. Still straddling his waist, my legs dangling on either side of his hips, I watched docilely, curious, as he took the towel in his hand, picked up a hank of my hair, and proceeded to methodically, carefully dry it.
“That lingering burnt hair smell, that’s me, isn’t it?” I had to ask.
“Yes, but you still have all of this, and more.” Kvigor held more than a handful out to me. There were patches of white in places, like the color had been stripped clean off of it.
“It is just on the sides.” Adelric came up, dragging a chair out to plop down into it. He looked sufficiently dried, considering he was a curly mass of hair covering muscles, a dry k’h se already tied around his waist.
Noting Kvigor was dripping water everywhere, his naked arse wetting his mother’s chair, I took the towel from him, studying his thick frame, and began drying him off instead. I started at his cheeks, pretending I didn’t notice the look of stunned surprise on his scarred face. What was left of his horns got a quick cloth rub, his ears twitching, eyes closing, practically crossing in his head, throat working, big body squirming in place, fighting to hold still as I did as I would.
His neck was next, everyone and everything around us, the bustling of people as they made their way to the kitchen and back, Vachel keeping a running commentary all the while, falling to the background.
“You don’t have to do that,” he murmured in my ear as I leaned in, rubbing the thick material over those wide shoulders of his. His skin rippled at my touch, a happy rumble, barely muffled, working its way up his throat.
“I know.” I didn’t know why, but a pink flush stole across my cheeks. I was a young girl again, awkward around a boy she liked all of a sudden, not sure what to do with myself. “I want to.”
“Good.” Thick hands reached up, entwining with mine over the towel, those massive arms on either side of my head. “I’ve missed you.” Careful of our horns, he gently pressed our foreheads together. “You’re mine, Addie-mine. Little wee, wingless beast.”
He smelled like Kvigor, just like my Kvigor, said those sweet words I’d wanted to hear. My heart started pounding as I tried to focus, tried not to think about everything that’s gone on, the hurts, the worries, and just be, us, in this moment. A ringing was clanging in my ears and I was blinking rapidly, swallowing convulsively, trying my damnedest not to lose my ever-loving shit right here at the table.
White lids with dark lashes popped open, red eyes studying me. “You know I love you, don’t you?”
When I didn’t answer, ears red as I struggled inwardly, he pulled me closer, until he was squishing me to him. “I’m sorry, Addie. I wish I could take it all back and we could just start over. I’d drag you back to that stupid tree or the labyrinth if that’s what it took. I never wanted to hurt you. I-”
Shaking my head, I lifted up, waterworks leaking away, telling him most emphatically, “I’m just glad I got you back.”
My big, bad bull’s chest hitched and, nuzzling his face along the side of mine until his expression was curtained in what was left of my hair—my frickin’ hair!—he let out a deep, tremulous breath.
“Kvigor,” I whispered back, waiting until I thought he could hear me to tell him softly, “I love you too.”
˜˙˜*˜˙˜
Dinner or whatever blasted time it was, was a strained affair. Temple maidens kept staring at me until my upper lip curled up on one side and I growled at them collectively. It was then Yhem, a surprise drop in, announced with barely contained mirth, either unfazed, uncaring, or pre-prepared for my new looks, “My, what sharp, pointy little teeth you have, little demon.”
I was going with pre-prepared, though if he was assuming I was this prophecy’s messiah, come to stop the cow-pocalypse, surely he’d soon realize he was mistaken. Mayhap that had something to do with the drastic change in his doom and gloomy mood upon arrival.
“Hah. Hah. Yak-otaur,” I replied primly.
Adelric spluttered, choking suddenly, spraying Yhem and Vachel, seated side by side, with tea. “Yak-otaur?”
“It sounds like a name of nicking,” Kvigor grumbled, hugging me to him tighter, my rump firmly planted in his lap, Adelric squashed up next to us, his hand on my thigh as he ate.
Kvigor was still not okay, practically vibrating in place when I’d left his side. He was chomping at the bit, biting other’s heads off if they so much as spoke to him. I caught sight of this firsthand, watching him, standing off the side for a moment to study him as I’d made my way back. I was certain he’d have followed me to the loo if Suzaela hadn’t insisted she needed him for something.
A fresh shawl and k’h se on, my hair in a thick braid down the middle of my head, compliments of Vachel, who’d offered to style it for me, I felt marginally more human. If I might deign to call myself human anymore.
I felt human, sort of, not that I knew what it was like to be anything else.
Demon? Nope. Not a demon...
Hells, I’m a me. Fuck all.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told Kvigor quietly under my breath.
“I know,” he got out around a mouthful, chewing, swallowing, smiling as his hand, tucking me close, flexed slightly, and took another bite.
“That’s not what I meant.” Pointing my fork at him, I shook it, a fat hunk of meat skewered to it.
“Know that too,” he replied, and stole the bite off my fork with a teasing glint in his eye.
“Food swindler,” I huffed under m
y breath, turning to grab myself another bite. Of course, I was eating off his plate, and though it all should feel strained or awkward, I couldn’t say it was, not to me, not in the least. I needed all the smothering I could squeeze out of these two at the moment, shaken from the events of earlier. Too much at once, too fast. Everything was ever-changing, myself included. Forking up another bite, catching the look on Adelric’s face, I lifted the pronged utensil plump with meat to him.
Adelric took the offered bite, his thick fingers curling over mine to bring it to his mouth. His smile was all in his eyes as he pulled away, leaning back in his seat, and chewed his bite.
“You lot almost make me sick,” Vachel informed us, her prettily bovine face scrunching up in distaste. “If you weren’t so cute and I didn’t find this all sick yet adorable, I mean to say, because I care and, uh, stuff,” she added with a goofy look and a wave of her eating utensil.
“It is the tea bath, I feel, I might do well to avoid,” Yhem said on an overloud cough. “This... display,” his fat finger waved between the three of us, who all sat there watching him impassively, “I can stomach. It is nothing compared to the strangeness that invades our village daily at Ekodar’s hand. That-” Suddenly Yhem jerked, grunting and jumping, and began coughing like he was choking, his words trailing off when I’d rather he finished.
The village, all those Taurans. Puck... What was the great arsehole doing?
Glancing down at Kvigor’s plate, I suddenly wasn’t as hungry as I’d once imagined. Here I am, a veritable feast before me, and there’s a village ran amok by a delinquent fae. What kind of savior am I?
Remembering exactly what I’d done with said fae, my shoulders hunched. It made me feel... wrong. Just, completely wrong. Slowly, I felt myself hunching inward, closing off, clamming up tight. I didn’t want to talk about this, any of it, but what good would sticking my head in the sand and pretending it never happened do?
“I’m a little cold,” I murmured to Kvigor, tapping his trapping arm. “I think I might go and fetch my fur from the room.”
Kvigor glanced down at me, eyeing my suddenly chattering teeth, my goose pimpled flesh as I shivered for all the wrong reasons. “Adelric’s room is not, ah, ready yet for-”
By the Horns Page 50
