By the Horns Page 15

“I’ll make it up to you later,” I promised, trotting along behind my companion, grinning when he let out his fine, okay grunt. “And I really do like the swirls on your horns. They’re... distinguished. Sexy, even. I bet no one else has handsome horns like that.”

  A grunt, his shoulders relaxed fractionally and he finally began to slow.

  We’d been traipsing about through here, careful not to touch anything, for the better part of an hour, I’d wager. My legs burned from trying to keep up, my lungs aching as I huffed and puffed after him. Taking a deep breath, I went to lean against a tree.

  “Ah-ah, we’re not touching anything,” my guardian of the forest informed me, swooping in to scoop me up.

  Afraid to touch him and accidently glue some other part of us together, I folded my hands primly in my lap. About to lean my head against his shoulder, I thought better of it, smiling up at him. “I’d kiss you right now but I’m afraid I’ll come away with a furry white mustache and you a little less hairy for it.”

  “What’s a kiss?” Going at a steady pace without me to slow him down, carrying me easily as if the feat was no great burden, he was alert, ready, ears flicking, swiveling this way and that as he eyed our surroundings. When he thought I wasn’t paying attention he kept peeking at me curiously from the corner of his eye.

  “You know, a kiss. A sign of affection. Pressing our lips together, or to someone’s cheek. It’s, uh... hmm-” Eyeing his snout, face scrunching up, I wagged a finger at him. “I see your point.”

  He walked along for a bit, thoughtful. “Tauran buss or butt heads,” he said finally.

  “Buss? I’m assuming that’s the forehead breathing thing?” My hand went to my forehead, contemplating taking a butting to my head by the horned behemoth in the name of love. “Let’s stick to the bussing thing.”

  “Your soft skull couldn’t handle it,” he agreed. Spotting me scowling up at my hand, his brow tugged low. “It is not as horrible as it sounds. I’d never let anything such as that befall you, vacha, I-”

  “Oh, it’s not that.” I smiled sheepishly, clearing my throat to admit, “Kinda think I might, maybe, sorta stuck my hand to my forehead. Good thing I’m not furry, huh?”

  His sudden burst of laughter at my predicament, a deep belly laugh, jarred me so bad I almost tumbled out of his arms.

  “Alright,” I muttered, ignoring his wheezing guffaws, his head thrown back in mirth, “it’s not that funny.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Approaching the hole my Minotaur companion claimed to have crawled forth from, which did not apparently lead to Hell—I’d asked—the flickering blue glow emanating from the pit in the terra left me speechless.

  “Strange,” he commented, “I know,” as if he’d read my mind. “Thought it a bit queer myself comin’ up on it. Slick as a beegrah, too. But it was just as the- Ah-erm. It was just as I’d heard.”

  “Right,” I muttered, eyeing him strangely, wondering what he was really going to say. It was just as the... what? Thinking he probably wasn’t going to tell me anyway, I let it go, for now.

  Eyeballing the fat stone, much like a well, surrounding the glowing hole, I shuffled closer. Definitely slick, glistening like a, well, whatever the fuck a beegrah was, the gateway between realms was definitely glowing. And that glowing? Was that normal to him, or yet another anomaly specific to this… this veil, this opening between worlds.

  “What do you call your home world, again?” I whispered.

  “Tavros,” the beastman replied gruffly.

  “Is it a magical place, then?” I gestured to the thrumming blue light.

  Daring a peek at him, wondering at his sudden, closed off demeanor—not that he was any friendlier than before since we emerged from the labyrinth’s bowels—I stared longer than I should have, noting the look of confused wonder plastered to his wide-eyed mug. Like a darned calf looking at a new gate. Those bulbous bull eyes were a step above a wide doe’s, those rounded orbs rotund in their sockets, just shy of bulging to pop clean out of his head.

  With a grunt, he stepped closer to the faerie well, as that’s what it looked like, some kind of entrance to the land of the fae—not that I knew what that looked like or anything. His thick-booted feet were surprisingly quiet as he carefully stepped over a pile of decimated leaves I’d just moments before noisily tromped through.

  Right, so, I could be quiet. I totally could. Stealth would soon be my middle name. He’d see. I’d show him.

  Glancing around, my horned maze runner crouched, picking up a rock to chuck it in. Moments later it came back up, as if rejected by some magical force. A spell, protection, ward of some type, perhaps?

  “What’s that about?” I wondered.

  My pair bond grimaced. “Needs a price.”

  “A price?”

  “Aye.” Lifting his arm, he exposed a nick on his elbow. “Got this trying to climb up and getting thrown off. Wondered at why it finally let me through. Thinkin’ might be this. Your peacock hinted as much, whispering his nonsense in my ear, the worm.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah.” My pair bond glanced away, his hand coming up to scrub at his neck. “Said a lot of things, he did.” Thick lips pulled into a grimace.

  “Is that a good thing or bad?” I wondered aloud.

  “We should get this over with, then,” was all he offered.

  With a sigh I moved even closer, carefully peering down into the well-like structure’s depths. The light grew so bright farther down, steam wafting up from the pit of a hole, I couldn’t make anything out beyond that.

  Kneeling, reaching out to run one thick-fingered hand down along the bulbous, bulging rocks lining the inner well wall, some sunken in, others jutting out, he gave a lopsided, dark stone a knock.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. His fingers began to knock across the rocks, one by one.

  It was dark, and I had no clue what the horned male was doing, but maybe this was some sort of... Minotaur thing? Tap a password? A code? For other bull men waiting below for us?

  Tap. Tap. Tap. He continued.

  Tap. Tap. A hollow thunk pricked my ears.

  Tap, tap, tap, we’d like to pass? “Uhm...” I sidled up to him, crouching down beside him. What was that all about?

  Pausing, head cocking, long ears flicking this way and that in surprise, he tapped the same spot again, then next to it. Thunk. Tap. Thunk. It sounded rather hollow for a rock. A frown marred my face, matching the scowl bunching his.

  “Is it, uh, supposed to do that?” My voice was high, I couldn’t help it. We were taught from a young age not to go mucking about in these woods, warned of the many pitfalls, horrible ends to be had that might befall us, should we ever be stupid enough to dare.

  Another tap, thunk, tap, before he shook his head and went to stand. Being so close to him, he nearly sent me flying in when, knees bunched, like a spring he shot up.

  About to kiss the soggy ground butt first, thick hands grabbed me up, lightning quick, hooking underneath my armpits to jerk me up. With a soft, barely muffled squeal I was momentarily airborne, then shoved against a wide chest, a meaty hand clamping over my mouth.

  “Shh,” he whispered, his other arm banding around my waist as he hunched over me. “See that? Now we’ve gone and done it. Upset those things.” A thick finger jerked towards the lumpy tree barnacles. They began to move at once, their sides peeling back, exposing soft, wiggling insides.

  The barnacles puffed up before our eyes, swaying, lifting to fall, moving up and down in a pumping motion. It was like the dancing urchins Vet and I used to hunt for as children, tiny tentacles branching out as they moved to some unheard to us rhythm.

  Some barnacles grew to the size of blood oranges, thick, orangey insides ballooning until they looked about to pop, and then poof. Literally, poof. Gobs of white smoke pumped out of them in a steady stream, their squishy, porous innards writhing. When they’d emptied, slumping exhaustedly, they slowly built back up, pumped and puffed up and out to do it all ove
r again.

  The large mushrooms at our feet, surrounding us, began to sway drunkenly, as if alive, smacking the ground back and forth as if to start the song. And of course, the red and white toadstools gave off, you guessed it, glittery gold dust.

  “Oh gods,” I murmured, the words muffled against his hand. Not again! “We have to get out of here.”

  His lips were at my ear, already doing strange things to the bugs having a parade in my stomach. Vetra called it butterflies, but butterflies were pretty and fluttery, this felt like a heard of horned tomato worms were celebrating my imminent demise, writhing around inside my stomach and smaller intestine to the devil’s drum.

  He was so close, his breath warm on my neck, one of his horns brushing the back of my head. This beast, my Minotaur, gave off heat like a fire pit, radiating it, his front pressing into my back. He was thickly muscled, the fur coating him short but dense. Closing my eyes, my heart stuttered just thinking about what we, not the queen and her lackey, but us, had been up to in his labyrinthian prison. Was it the dust in the air or just us?

  We were... It was... completely different than anything I’d ever done before. It didn’t just feel like sex. This was definitely something more.

  Claimed by a Minotaur, it didn’t sound so ridiculous now.

  The Minotaur chuffed, the sound loud enough to make me jump. His arm on my waist tightened, pressing the thick appendage thickening along my spine into my back.

  “Soon.” A long, thick tongue snuck out to swipe across my nape, his hold on my mouth loosening. “First we must quit this place, yes?” His mouth nuzzled the spot, nipping gently, making me yip. “I feel uneasy here. Something feels... wrong.”

  He was most definitely feelin’ somethin’. Dust lust.

  When I nodded vigorously in agreement, strangely forgiving of his rough handling, something I didn’t think too hard on other than the fact I trusted him. I just did. He’d given his word, and I took him at it.

  His sudden wishy washy, hot cold temperament could be put off to the stress of the situation and feeling humiliated, his new bonded having seen him in such an embarrassing state, for him. He was a hot head, and sensitive, I’d have to keep that in mind. We’d come this far already, hadn’t we?

  Oh, we’d come alright, enough to paint the walls in his chamber prison. My sex clenched reflexively and my eyes popped open.

  I found bright yellow eyes peering at us from the bushes just up ahead. A flash of white teeth shone next. Gods and monsters, what was wrong with me?! And what is that?!

  Damn. I was dust lusting too, and there was a freaky creature glaring at us menacingly. I can’t think straight!

  The hand at my mouth slid down my face until just his fingers remained at my lips. But for the wide, rounded, doubly thick nails that brought to mind altered hooves, and the missing knuckle on the end, giving each finger a single bend as opposed to three, I could almost assume they were a human man’s.

  His index finger stalled at my mouth, tracing my thin upper lip as if he liked the feel of it. A funny noise rattled the soft, loose bit of skin at his throat over his Adam’s apple as I opened to him, my lips parting to suck the tip of his finger into my mouth.

  The creature from the bushes let out a low growl, taking a step from the shadows. A large—larger than I’d ever seen—black wolf stepped forward. His paws were huge, yellow eyes swirling with bits of gold. Rich black fur with streaks of grey stood on end on his thick frame, hackles up, teeth bared. He wasn’t happy.

  The arm banding my waist grew almost painfully tight. A warning growl tore from my monster’s throat.

  The wolf paused, snarl faltering, and took a step back.

  “Wingless siren.” My Minotaur hissed the words through gritted teeth, as displeased yet horny by the sudden, overpowering impulse to fuck, and soon, despite knowing we needed to make a hasty exit, as I was. All with a glowing-eyed threat looming, though the beast appeared to be slowly backing off. “Now is not the time.”

  “Agreed.” Someone just needed to tell the rest of me that.

  We disgusted, erm, us, I thought as he muttered something, steam wafting around us, pouring from his flaring nostrils, sending faerie dust mushroom moats every which way as he gripped the rope tie at my pants. My hand fell over his, the other working its way to his hip. Fuck. Shit. Damn. Now was not the time! And yet I scrambled, my hand flailing behind me, smacking his massive thighs, searching for the edge of his kilt.

  “Quickly. Qui- uh, ung! We should move quickly, before that beast gets any ideas. Goblin shite! N-n-not too hard, little v-v-v-viper.”

  His mouth said, Not so hard as I pumped his thick shaft with a firm grip, but the noises he was making, his hips jerking in time to my hold, said otherwise.

  My hand found the end of what I wanted and I yanked it to me without thought. My beast lover yelped, the sound deep and masculine, ending on a high-pitched yip I should have found ridiculous.

  When he should have been growling at me, a deep, purr of a laugh rumbled his chest. “Come, let us get away from here and I’ll make you squeak, little mouse.”

  Come. Yes. Let’s do that. I was all for coming. Wait! No! What?! The gut bugs swarming in my stomach grew frantic, but for, mostly, all of the wrong reasons.

  The wolf, barely hidden inside the bushes, face still visible, snarled viciously. He wanted us gone, and now.

  My heart was pounding, my breaths coming out in noisy, poorly concealed pants, his hand at my face squishing my chin. My body wanted things, I wanted things, if I was willing to admit it, a certain bossy bull being with a fat cock and-

  “Stop tuggin’ me meat, ye maddening woman. We’ve a need to be off.” His gaze slid to the angry wolf slinking forward as I released him. “A very great need.”

  “I take it this isn’t normal for you, either?” I ventured, going along docilely as he lifted me up, until he was dangling me over the blue glow infused portal before us, to find myself being ignored.

  Springy, oddly colored, speckled, bright green moss lit within the circle of stones as my feet scraped the inside. Gods and goddesses, the drop lit, unfathomable darkness awaiting us below.

  A sound of protest caught in my throat, I began to shake my head, heart pounding, but it mattered not. The only way out of this place was down. Down we’d go.

  There were these glowing fish, they’d light up at night. Thess and I used to sneak off for night swims to watch them. The path was lit like that, as if the fungus and bits held the same luminescent talents, brighter than the fungus spewing faerie dust around us, twinkling in the peace and spooky lonesome of the Hollows.

  Leaning forward cautiously, eyeing the rocks encircling his means of entry into the human realm, and our ticket out of here, it could almost pass for an old, half buried well, the stone rim and mud and whatever else packed into, onto it, and growing around it disguising it well enough. Pun intended.

  But that glow... and the strange rounded white bits embedded farther down into the walls of that seaming abyss, they twinkled gold, green, blue, red, to fade to black and flash a suddenly bright white, then repeat.

  My fingers tugged until I could find a gap in those thick fingers cupping my face to speak. Why he felt the need to keep muzzling me, I didn’t know. “How, uh, how do we get down?” Gulping, I reeled myself back in, hunching a little, legs curling up as if to stave off the inevitable. My hand slipped to the strap on my pack, where I strangled it, mangling the fabric. Nerves, I was overwhelmed with them.

  Come now, you’ve given yourself over to the brute of a creature, and worse, those awful fae. Together my companion and I have traversed the unknown, found our way out of the labyrinth and now the Hollows, the worst of it’s over. Plus, I added, the pact was made, we weren’t just partners in this, we’re bonded, by those invisible ties that join us and the unholy union we’d flippantly entered into. He has to take your mouthy arse with, Adne, quit your snivelin’, girl!

  The voice in my head was self-critical, and almo
st snide. I knew I was harder and more judgmental of myself than anyone, but sometimes that’s what I needed.

  There was a snap of jaws and a thud. I jumped, causing the male holding me to pop up like a little jack in the box in shock as well.

  My Minotaur snarled again in warning, his teeth snapping to make a horrible cracking, clacking noise. Flat out flailing at this point, a squeal muffled between my clamped lips, shrieked out of me.

  The wolf was right there, right upon us, primed, coiled tight, ready to pounce.

  My head shook faster, eyes wide with fear and panic. Hands scrabbling, scraping the stone near my waist, I tried to grip it and hold on. It was slicker than it looked, easily taking a nail and bits of the skin on my knuckles as they slid across the expanse.

  “This’ll be ours. Cover your ears, vacha.” Standing, fearless in the face of a protector of the forest, my mate-husband threw his head back, chest filling, and let out a bone rattling roar. I had just enough time to slip my hands over my ears, and then he leapt and we dropped.

  The hand at my face fell away to tighten around my waist, his wide head tucking in next to mine. His long horns on either side of my head, out of my flailing arms’ range, left me free to flail about and scream to my little heart’s content.

  Horns scrape stone, sparking as we sped up, his booted feet shooting out, sliding down the wall doing nothing to slow our momentum.

  Daring a peek up, I found the wolf staring down at us, eyes flushing a deep, burnished gold. If I didn’t know better I’d think the beast was smiling, pleased with the outcome. Did he just? No. Wolves can’t wink!

  Blasted magick and realms and creatures!

  “I don’t wanna dieeeeeee!” echoed all the way up and all the way down, down, down, down.

  ˜˙˜*˜˙˜

  “Will we never stop falling?!” I croaked out, voice hoarse from screaming. It felt like we’d been falling forever. Would there never be an end? Not that I necessarily wanted to meet my end, but...

  “Can’t say I’ve gone this way, ye know,” he shouted above the wind whipping around us.