The Snowmaiden, A Bride for Krampus

by Jeanette Lynn

  I didn’t give this world so much as a backwards glance as we shot through the portal.

  Adios, bitchachos! So long, candy cane assholes!

  Chapter 19

  Ded was looking mighty confused when his eyes slid open to find me munching on a weird berry fruit thing. The fruit was not poisonous here, at least not that we’d found.

  “Hungry?” I asked my companion, shaking my jacket a little to offer him a peek at the girls.

  “This one,” Shnik was saying as Baumb nodded and began to dig an enormous hole beneath a large tree that grew the fruit I was eating. It tasted like meat, sweet, a little salty. I liked it. And I hadn’t vomited or died yet. Human anatomy differing from Krampus or Baumbel, they’d both tried the fruit first hours before I was allowed. Ded had gone and had himself a long assed fruit induced nap that had absolutely nothing to do with Baumb’s stunned stupid reaction to our new digs he mighta maybe lost his grip and dropped my poor Krampus male on his head. Pulling another segment of fruit free, I tossed it to Yule, who was content to lick the flesh from Bels’ severed skull but lifted her head to catch the treat all the same.

  “That’s going to be our den. Cozy, right?” I said conversationally.

  Ded just blinked and blinked some more, staring at the forest surrounding us dazedly.

  “I think it’s kinda pretty,” I commented, lifting a clawed finger to jerk it towards the canopy of branches heavy with fruit overhead.

  Ded’s gaze focused on the fur starting to sprout up along my hand and the claws for fingernails on my fingertips.

  “See,” I said with a sharp toothed grin, “it’s kinda a long story, but you don’t mind a gal who’s a lil’ hairy and may tend to get growly from time to time, do ya?”

  “Lumi,” Ded garbled out, like I’d just said the sexiest thing ever.

  Baumb let out a sound that said he agreed, and Shnikel glanced up, his face already gone white with Krampus fur, and that male purred.

  A shiver raced up my spine and I purred back in answer. Bright blue eyes flashed, Shnikel’s and Ded’s, at their female’s chest rumble.

  “Oop, where’d that come from?” Patting my chest, I chuckled.

  As Baumb’s churring purr started up and they stalked over to where Ded and I were lounging, I supposed our den would just have to wait a little longer.

  Chapter 20

  Somewhere in Hinter

  Turbulent blues stared sightlessly into the fire. The pile of heads smoking over the yule logs brought him no great pleasure. His boots and coat lay discarded on the floor, the wicker basket he’d carted back here bloodied and sat near the door. An Elf would take care of it.

  “There can be no light without the dark, dear.” The disembodied voice came to him. It always did this night. His Lyddie, Lydia, had been gone to him for some years now. He’d do anything to get her back. Pulling two small, glowing orbs from his sack, he twirled them in one hand. Hope filled him for the first time in so long he couldn’t remember. There could only be one maiden in Hinter at a time. The balance had to be kept. When Alfka and Lyddie had taken their Kraumpensuss forms to choose who was to stay and who was to leave these lands, Lydia the victor, he never could have imagined his Lyddie would later succumb to her wounds.

  Without balance to be kept, the curse of the Krampus had run wild. His sweet, unassuming Elkfen had gone naughty, with no help from his Elves. Some of those Christmas imps had gone positively dark while he’d given in to his sadness and locked himself away in his tower.

  “And no dark without the light, I know…” he answered the ghost of his one true love. It just never got any easier, keeping the balance so the magic that held Hinter stayed strong. He was forced to do things, sacrifices were to be made. This wasn’t like when his soulmate was here. He was drowning without the other half of his soul, the urge to stay Krampen stronger and stronger every year.

  His hands stopped twirling the small blue, glass looking orbs. “I’ve a gift for you, my heart.” Lifting one up, he held it out to the smoky visage of his white haired lover, his little Christmas witch. The vision before him twitched and flickered, blinking in and out. It grew worse and worse as the years passed. Soon she’d be nothing more than wisps of a memory. He was dying without her. He was giving in to the madness threatening to consume him without her to offer balance. She’d pulled him from the mountain caves so many eons ago and shown him another way, and offered up a half of her humanity to him in exchange for this world they’d built. He’d never looked back.

  All it would really take was one, he thought, eyeing the orb he held out to his love, but what he’d offered Lumi in exchange for her latent magical abilities had given Lumi not only her male back, but the one thing his dearest Lyddie had never been able to attain—the compatibility to bear young with her mate. Krampus did not breed, born sterile. They were created from the fires of their own darkness and only the light could draw them out. Snowmaidens were the light to the Krampussen’s dark.

  With Hinter being preternaturally good and all that was right, it was no surprise to learn his Elkfen, created in the image of his female, would so easily fall with the smallest transgressions.

  The Elves, Klaus thought darkly, those Loki-like nuisances were all his doing, his immortal henchmen.

  Tossing the orb high up into the air as he tucked the second one back into his pocket to be locked up for safe keeping, should his Lydia ever need it again, he turned, offering her his back and the coat discarded on the floor to preserve her modesty, and turned to face the next task at hand.

  Fingers steepling, his thick pinkies pressing into his long, fluffy beard, he faced the fireplace in the large, circular room roaring with gold flames.

  The cocoa on the table near his throne of a chair had long ago gone cold. Lydia, popping back into existence and with her that feeling of peace she gave him, his coat rustled as she put it on. With a happy sigh, she came up behind him, leaned around his chair and pressed a sweet kiss to the side of his head. A happy rumble of a purr left him.

  “Forever, my light,” he whispered, closing his eyes to lean into her touch as her hand stroked his face. The rest of his person immediately responded. She did that to him, lit up his world from the inside out. Her name, etched into his flesh on his thick neck, tingled as if she were caressing the marks.

  “Always, my heart,” she purred right back. Taking his cup of cold cocoa, she toddled off, generous hips swaying as she went, a Christmas tune humming from her throat, to refill it. He was going to get thick in the middle again with her at the helm. A slow smile spread across his face as he turned to watch her go. He couldn’t wait.

  The gold flamed fire with bells jingling along the wreath over its mantle crackled and sparked. Sitting back in a relaxed pose, he waited. Bels rematerialized as if he’d never gone.

  Klausen’d watched him closely this time, mentally tracking the naughty male. He’d been up to something, he’d sensed it the moment Hinter rippled with awareness of a Snowmaiden within its bounds. He’d assumed it had meant his clever mate had found a way to regenerate herself. The stupid Elf didn’t know what he was doing, but Klaus’ Lyddie couldn’t have come back to him with Lumi in residence. The half breed descendant had no place here. Klaus was only too happy to help her go. Shnikel wouldn't have been allowed back into the fold of his herd for subterfuge otherwise. Nothing went on in Hinter that he wasn’t made aware of. Nothing. Like the naughty Elf causing ripples in Hinter’s very fabric right before him.

  This was the Elf’s sixth regeneration in a revolution—it was unheard of.

  “Beldivere,” Klaus, or Klausen, as few rarely knew him outside of this realm, grumbled out gruffly.

  Brushing dust off his naked body, muttering about Baumbels and Hebasneps, the beaked beast that had taken off with his head through the portal like a booby prize, his Lyddie’s beloved pets from her original homeworld, like the Baumbels were native to her once beloved land, the Elf stiffened as Klaus spoke.

  “My lo
rd, sir,” the Elf clipped out politely enough, but there was an edge to his voice.

  The Elf was getting too big for his bell toed jingly shoes. “Tell me, Bels,” Klaus began casually, a hint of Krampus black creeping into his bright blue eyes, “have you been naughty or nice?” Klaus’ thick hand began to sift through his beard.

  “Uhm, what, sir?” Bels spluttered. His gaze darted about but it was just them there. Relief, if fleeting, filled him.

  Bels wasn’t aware of the figure coming up behind him on silent feet.

  “I believe you heard me,” Klaus said with a jolly bit of belly shaking laughter he hadn’t felt in a long time. Klaus was going to enjoy this.

  Anger contorted the Elf’s face. He was still angry over his fallen brethren, Dedson and Shnikel. Unbeknownst to them after their reincarnation, they’d once been of Bels’ ilk, dark Elves for their lord and master gone sour, consumed with their lack of power and greed for more. Ded and Shnik would have been fine with their new lives, content with their lot, but for Bels’ constant interference. He’d turned his own Krampus with his ignorance and thirst for more. And then Elf’d brought a Snowmaiden into Klausen’s kingdom, threatening his dear Lyddie’s very existence on this plane. That would not do.

  Klaus tapped a finger along the glass table top to mask the clink of the steaming mug set down.

  Bels zeroed in on that tap-tap of Klaus’ thick finger. The loathing in his gaze was all Klaus’d needed to see and it was done.

  “Naughty,” Klaus murmured, glancing away as thick fingers grasped Bels’ shoulders and he was lifted up. The chomping snap as a jaw segmented and the Elf’s head was snapped clean off, Klaus winced at the squelching crunch.

  Turning away, mouth full, Lydia walked to the mantle, unearthing a large red sack neatly hidden away behind the bell wreath, to spit the Elf’s head into it. Tiptoeing over his body, she walked the sack to the blue flame tipped fire and chucked it into it. “I love this part,” she whispered as her jaw slid back into place and her cheeks were once more round and pink, leaving him to take care of the headless corpse.

  Hefting up the remains of the Elf, he concentrated, squeezing those slight shoulders until the telltale magical pop sounded and gold dust sparkled down towards the ground. Before the dust could hit it lifted up and floated towards the tall male, sprinkling him with the very magicks that made this world possible. Feeling fortified, he picked up his mug of cocoa and downed it. Walking to the grate, he fished out the treasures the Krampus heads had left behind, and stuffed them into his coat pockets.

  Joining Lydia by the fire, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close.

  “What should we call this one?” she asked, practically wriggling in place as she waited. Her childlike enthusiasm had him ho-ho-ing with laughter.

  “Whatever you wish, my heart.” His lips found hers as sparkling blue eyes met his.

  And then they heard it.

  That first squall had her jumping, then giggling. Breaking their lip lock, she reached right into the fire, the flames caressing her. Pulling the sack free, she unraveled the tie at the top. “Runt of the litter,” she stated proudly, picking up the little Elkfen deerling, swaddling the infant in its red sack, to hold him out for her mate to see.

  Peering down at the babe, he smiled at the innocent look on that once angry face. Reaching into his pocket, Klaus wrapped a fist around one of the black coals and pulled it free. Squeezing the coal as hard as he could, he could feel it shift as it threatened to burst.

  “His little nose is pink,” she said with delight at her newest child. Lyddie loved all her little Elkfen and treated them like the children she could never bear herself. “What shall we call him, dearest?” Her voice was but a whisper as she stroked her finger down a fuzzy brown cheek.

  “Rudolfus,” Klaus said firmly. As if to agree, the coal gave, cracking, silvery strings in its place. Holding the tinsel out, he dangled it in front of the child, who was instantly mesmerized by the shimmering threads.

  “Rudolfus,” she repeated, then grinned as she placed a kiss on the little pink bump of a nose and it began to glow. “One day, he shall lead the herd,” she announced.

  Epilogue

  Veck, Zhuii and Griever and the rest of the Lo denaii in his hunting pack found themselves peering into what they thought was an old Zhubeast’s den. What they found had them all staring in disbelief. A family grouping of Krampus, along with the large blue glow spotted beast they’d heard of but never seen.

  Veck had heard tales of the blue-eyed Krampus and the fearsome Baumbel but he’d never seen any of the like, not a one, until now. The black-eyed beasts that found their way through one of many portals hidden in their world were harsh and brutish—they brutalized and killed. He remembered a time when brides had been kidnapped and torn apart by a Krampus terrorizing their village.

  This was nothing like that.

  The large, beaked beast warning them off was curious but they kept a respectful distance from the hibernating bond group. That must be why they were so elusive, they chose to slumber in the coldest of the winters. It was so warm in their den the Lo denaii were all starting to sweat.

  The rest of their party waited outside to hear what they’d found.

  Griever and Zhuii both wore soft expressions as they studied the female and child huddled in the middle of their sleep pile. The fluffy furred baby at her breast suckled away in his sleep, his mother’s belly slightly rounded with the next of their brood. The Krampus female’s males protectively encircled the pair. Green eyes shot open as the beast watching over them snapped its beak with a clack. The Baumbel did not appear alarmed to wake and find a group of Lo denaii gaping at them from the base of their den entrance. If anything, he appeared annoyed. With a warning rumble for them to fuck off and a glance to assure himself his female and child were fine, he snuggled back in beside her and closed his eyes with a yawn.

  The Lo denaii wisely backed out of their space.

  “Sweet,” Zhuii commented as they brought the others up to speed, standing outside of the old nung-nung tree, thinking of the little family and baby.

  They all grinned.

  They couldn’t deny the grouping made a sweet picture, fierce as a Baumbel and bunch of Krampus could be. And it made them think of their own families.

  “Leave ‘lone. We no tell. They be’d safe,” Zhuii grunted out with a look that said anyone who disturbed their peaceful sleep as they hibernated would not only deserve whatever they got, but be dealing with him as well.

  They all grunted their agreement. Griever came up to Zhuii and patted the male on the back. He grinned, pleased with the son of his heart. He was a good male.

  Veck, catching it, slapped Griever on the back. “Good male,” the hulking Lo denaii told him.

  “Yes,” Griever said simply, proudly.

  And the blue-eyed Krampus crew, plus one very agreeable Baumbel, lived happily ever after.

  The End

  Interested in more books in this world?

  Lemme know!

  Loved it? Please leave a review!

  Thank you for taking the time to slog through my nonsense! I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did coming up with this kooky nonsense I love so dearly. From the cheese ball in the sky and back, seriously, thank you!

  About The Author

  Jeanette Lynn

  Jeanette Lynn lives with her Neanderthal, beyond awesome kiddlens, slightly eccentric terrier mix menace and Hobbit Chi-shweenie. She’ll most often be found traipsing around in a pair of her kooky themed leggings and one of many a comfy, nerdy T-shirt, a book somewhere nearby and a sarcastic retort on her lips. (Ooo. I sound so fancy)

  She enjoys hangin’ with the Lo denaii before the big Bridal Hunt under a new moon, riding along the mint mocha moors of Hinter on her sled pulled by shifted Elkfen, sleigh bells ring-a-ling-in’, and making up odd crap for her author bio section in the back of her books that’ll have you blinking, double taking, momentarily questioning he
r sanity, and then rereading. Heh.

  No, but really, she enjoys creating quirky, offbeat characters in out of this world stories. And, of course, a good happy ending.

  Author’s note

  First, thank you so much! For taking the time to read this! I hope you enjoyed The Snowmaiden, A Bride for Krampus, as much as I had a blast writing it.

  Easter eggs, there be, in this book baby!

  Questions there might be... Why didn’t Ded return to an Elkfen? He’d already fully gone Krampus. It was too late for him. But those blue eyes? He’d regained enough of his humanity due to his bond with his Snowmaiden he wasn’t the completely feral beast he’d once become. Lumi tamed, tempered him, you could say.

  Dudes in the epilogue?

  The Lo denaii are the beastmen from my Brides of the Hunt series, for those who aren’t aware and wondering who the what? Abominable beast men looking for women to form family groupings with and live happily ever after. Veck is from book one, The Bridal Hunt, and Zhuii is from book two, Bride of Glass. That series is RH, Reverse Harem. Lumi and her crew landed in Lo denaii territory when they jumped ship from Hinter. I wanted these stories connected when I started out.

  More than a few of my book worlds are connected somehow, Adorn starting it all off and giving away to this.

  Books by Jeanette Lynn

  Cosmic Soul Mates Series

  Stellar Proportions

  Out of this Orbit

  On Her Axis

  Collide

  The Brides of Mordenne Series

  A Mate To Match

  In Her Eyes

  Tales of Mordenne- A Brides of Mordenne spinoff