Married to Krampus - Marina Simcoe Page 0,62

some cultures. Aside from its elongated face, that creature looked remarkably like...a Voranian male.

Horns. Hooves. Thick fur. In some illustrations, Krampus even had the Voranian tongue sticking out—dark-red and long. And the red eyes were...just like his own.

According to the stories, Krampus was not a nice character. He stole and tortured children. And he was called ugly and terrifying.

Grevar’s breathing turned rushed and shallow as a dreadful feeling slithered under the fur on his back. Daisy grew up with his exact image being used to scare children. To her, he must look like the reincarnated monster. In fact, he remembered her calling him Krampus once.

Chills spread through his chest. Daisy’s shrinking away from his touch suddenly made so much more sense.

He quickly loaded pictures of prominent human males, then filtered them by age and occupation. Similar to Neron, he assumed that popular actors and models would be the embodiment of male beauty on Earth.

Scrolling through the pictures of human males, he became more and more aware of the huge differences between them and him. There were no horns there, no tails or hooves either. No fur. Generally, having any kind of body hair appeared to be unacceptable on Earth, as even the men’s chests were completely hairless and smooth in many pictures.

All of them, of course, would have toes and wouldn’t mind Daisy having them, either.

Not that he minded human toes himself, contrary to her teasing.

Daisy knew that. She’d become comfortable enough around him to walk in strappy sandals or even barefoot in the house. He had plenty of opportunities to see her toes, and he no longer viewed them as even remotely creepy. He found her toes cute, and he liked how she painted them in different shades of pink or red to match her finger nails.

His biggest worry now was how she viewed him. He’d always been confident about his looks. He knew Voranian women found him handsome. For Daisy, however, he must’ve been a hideous monster all along.

Deep inside, he’d hoped she would become his wife in every sense of the word before the year was up. Now, he feared Daisy would never let him touch her, at all.

What were his options, then? Either she would leave his world for good next year. Or he could try to talk her into staying as the friend she said she was, with no hope of them to ever become more than friends.

Both options would equally break his heart.

Chapter 17

“GOT YOU!” I GRABBED one running little boy and spun him around.

Olvar kicked his hooves in the air squirming and giggling in my arms. His brother got captured by his father just a moment later.

“We won!” the Colonel howled triumphantly, tossing Zun up into the air. The boy laughed and screamed in delight.

“Again! Again! Chase us again!” The kids hopped around us as soon as we’d set them down on the grass of the indoor park where we’d come to have a family picnic.

This was their second weekend at home, and it’d been busy, exhausting, and simply wonderful.

“Lunch now.” I shook my head. “We have the Zoo in the afternoon, remember?”

The Ministry’s requirements were rather strict. I had to design and maintain a daily schedule, using the guidelines I’d learned during the parenting course. Any serious deviation from the rules could result in the Ministry’s revoking the Colonel’s right to take the boys home for the weekends, so I made sure to follow them diligently.

The schedule allowed for some flexibility, and that was the time I used for some unplanned fun with the boys. Every kid needed an opportunity to jump around and scream with no rules or regulations, once in a while. So, that was what we did in the park today. Though, wildly running around could still be checked off as physical activity on the schedule for the Ministry.

“I want a cupcake!” Olvar leaped toward the blanket I’d laid out on the grass next to our picnic basket.

“I have three mini cupcakes for each of you. All you have to do is finish Omni’s food first.”

I removed the lids from the trays with food, handing one to each of the boys, then gave one to the Colonel too. The boys immediately started to shove the food in their mouths without arguing.

Every point on their daily schedule ultimately benefited the children, which made it easier for me to get behind the Voranian system. In a way, it made my life simpler, too, as the twins’ nutrition, education, physical activities, and