Minotaur: Blooded (The Bestial Tribe) Page 12

  “Yes, from apple trees. One tree can produce hundreds of them.”

  “Do they taste of blood?”

  She frowned, her mouth parting in shock. “They’re sweet and sour, enough so they make your teeth ache. Nothing like blood. Do you really not have apples?”

  Vedikus straightened. “No.” And they never would.

  “Then...” she paused, “I’ll never see one again, never eat one again.”

  “Most things that grow here are as hard and as horrid as the creatures that walk this land. If you ever see one of these apple trees appear in the mists, avoid it for they are an illusion to lure you closer.”

  “Then are you an illusion too?”

  Vedikus stilled and peered down at her. “What do you think, female?”

  “If you are, you’re a painful one.” She placed a hand carelessly on her chest and turned away. He clenched his fist to keep from reaching for her and forced himself to slowly relax it and settle back on his weapon.

  “We are both painful illusions then,” he muttered and continued walking.

  Time passed by in silence with nothing but the sound of their footsteps, and after a short span, he found it grating. “Tell me more about these apples if they make you feel better,” Vedikus heard himself saying.

  “They don’t make me feel better. They make me feel worse.”

  He grunted but let the subject drop.

  The tall grass shortened into thick, short stalks the farther they trudged, and his hooves began to stick in the muck. Each moment the land pulled at them from below as if hungry for their energy, and his unease built with every step. Aldora’s gasping pants grew labored as he pushed them forward, but she kept up and remained at his side with no complaint to accompany them. Her determination was equal to his own.

  Prayer had the means to cure a human but it also had the means to further curse them. It depended entirely on what its protector demanded of them. He had little on himself to offer for payment. But the longer he listened to his female laboring at his side, he knew that whatever the hag asked of him, he would give it.

  Aldora had been forced to sacrifice her life to end up by his side, and if the human could do that—without once giving up—he could do more.

  I will do whatever I can to get her to my brothers alive. He wouldn’t have been hunting along the border if it weren’t for his tribe. For the longevity and the future that he and his brothers were so determined to have. It had been years since he had last seen the bulls of his father’s tribe, years since he felt the comfort of stability.

  He looked up at where the mist shrouded the horizon and pictured the mountains looming just beyond his sight. They were not far from where the Bathyr waited, and once they made their way out of the bog, it would only be a matter of days before he had delivered his breeder safely to their camp.

  The mountain pass and crevasses would be guarded by a thousand traps and watched over by his brothers Dezetus, Hinekur, and Thyrius. Nothing had been able to traverse it since they claimed the land, and nothing ever will now that they had a human to protect.

  After they had abandoned the old tribe, he and his brothers had left the dead lands—the lands far from all human civilization—and made their way back to the barrier lands, where true power was tested. It was dangerous to live so close to the human world of Savadon but it was the only way for him and his brothers to survive and build their own tribe. Humans did not appear randomly deep within the world, and fresh blood was a perpetual need.

  My offspring will be strong. Aldora’s hair breezed across his arm and his tail lashed impatiently.

  Suddenly, a dull green light flashed at the edge of their bubble, extinguishing the tension that threatened to burst from his bones. Vedikus approached the gaseous light. About time.

  “What is that?” The female wheezed, breathless at his side.

  “That is our pathway into Prayer.”

  “Vedikus!”

  He didn’t hear the whiz of the spear until it was too late.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ***

  Aldora saw the outline of a dozen centaurs as she caught sight of the green light. One moment there had been nothing but mist, and in the next, it was broken up to reveal a pack of them with weapons poised. She screamed Vedikus’s name as they raised their weapons to attack.

  Several spears sliced the air, cutting through the swirling, ethereal fog.

  Her heart stopped as a spray of blood splattered the grass, accompanied by a howl. Vedikus dropped to his knees and she ran forward to reach him, her eyes trained on nothing but him and the burst of red gushing from his wounds. Her fingers found his when something caught her from behind, lifting her away.

  “No!” she screamed. She fought whoever held her as she was swooped away by a pair of arms, kicking out and grasping for something—anything—within reach to fight her attacker. But her strength was nothing compared to a centaur and she was swiftly carried to the other side of the clearing.

  “Your time has come Minotaur,” one of them shouted as they moved in to surround him.

  “Vedikus!” she shrieked, seeing him rise up with his axes dripping with his blood. His flesh was torn from where several spears had grazed him. He glanced her way, rage filling his eyes and for a moment in time the mists surrounding him swirled across his body and illuminated his frame. He took a step toward her.

  The centaurs closed in with sharp lances.

  Panic laced her veins and her throat tightened, as a gut-wrenching wail rose from her chest. It was muffled when a palm covered her mouth.

  “Calm, little human, calm,” a man hummed softly in her ear, holding her tightly against his unfamiliar body. She was held like a ragdoll, subdued with her feet swinging above the ground, higher up than any mere man could hold her. Realization struck her as bloodcurdling roars pierced her ears, that she was being trotted away. The ground moved swiftly beneath her dangling feet. “Calm, calm.”

  Aldora tensed her fingers, reaching whatever flesh she could of her abductor to tear with little leeway. I need to get to the ground.

  The yells raised and faded with each clash of metal, growing more distant each second. Tears pricked her eyes as she imagined the razor bone tips of the spears stabbing Vedikus’s body again and again. Her nails tore deep when she found velvet hide.

  “Calm!” the centaur hissed, jostling her.

  She didn’t care what he had to say and pressed the soles of her boots against his front legs and pushed off with all her might. Sweaty hands slid across her skin and she began to drop. They caught on her clothes before falling away completely, ripping the sleeve of her tunic.

  She fell forward and landed hard on her knees, her arms slamming into the sodden ground a moment too late to catch her fall.

  “Feral female,” the centaur sneered, rounding to her side, “we are here to save you, not hurt you!”

  Aldora bit through the pain and grasped her dagger, rising up to face her new abductor, intent on killing him. I need to get back to Vedikus. His name rose up like a mantra in her head. Vedikus. It cleared the chaos in her mind.

  The centaur trotted in a circle around her, just out of her reach. One of his hands pressed against his side where she’d scratched it. Her fingers slipped across the smooth handle of her weapon, half-hidden in the grasses. Her calves quivered within the dampening cloth of her pants, soaking up the bog water.

  “You are hurting me,” she rasped, eyes following the centaur as he continued to circle her. She moved with him to keep him in her sight.

  “You did that to yourself. You have spent too long in the minotaur’s company.”

  “It was not by choice. It is now.”

  The centaur crept closer and she dropped back. Stay outside of his reach. If she had learned anything from her childhood, it was to stay outside the reach of an animal, farm or otherwise. One misplaced kick could drop you if not kill you.

  “Is it? Little of us are given the freedom to choose, and those th
at do...” The centaur looked behind her to where the others had disappeared. “Some kill and ask questions later.”

  Aldora’s lips flattened. It was what she’d planned to do.

  “Some? No one has remained alive in his presence, nor mine since I was tossed into your world. I saw your kind several nights ago in the fray killing all who neared.”

  “Yes, we were there, the leader of our herd, myself, and Telner.” The centaur’s voice lowered. “We fought to keep you alive.”

  “And Vedikus,” she added, taking a short step away. “He kept me alive.”

  His eyes narrowed. “The minotaur will pay for stealing you away.”

  “Why didn’t you attack him like you had the rest? Why wait until now when you had the chance then?” Her eyes roved over the creature idly staring at her with interest. He was the first centaur she had seen clearly. The others had been a blur in the mist. His hair was long like a woman’s and woven into a myriad of braids over his shoulders and back; they sparkled when slivers of light made its way through the gloom and made a dull clink when he tossed his head.

  Nothing sparkled here, and the tiny glints looked so unlike the horrible, shrouded, monotony of colors that made up the rest of this world.

  “Did you not see the creatures that had come to take you? Those who would rape and eat you?”

  “I can’t see in the dark,” she snapped, still circling with him.

  The noises in the distance suddenly stopped. Aldora clenched her dagger and strained to hear, hoping that Vedikus’s voice would call out to her. The centaur whistled and was met with another that approached, and in the distance, a quick pounding of hooves from a dozen horsemen running through the mud met her ears.

  “You heard them then,” the centaur said smugly.

  I hear them now.

  She twitched to run, to slink into the fog and escape. She saw herself, breathless, sprinting through the grasses, drenched in sweat and gray water, searching for Vedikus. But there was nothing except the sound of pursuit. The panic, the racing of her blood, and the ache of her body going toward nowhere with only a breathy prayer on her lips. It flashed in her head, her boots weighed down with mud and water. The decision to try wavered.

  Would they leave Vedikus behind to bleed out, or capture him like they captured her? Would they take her to Prayer?

  Do they know I’m sick? There was no place to hide.

  The centaur reached out his hand to help her straighten from where she crouched. She eyed the outstretched hand, pale and rough with long fingers and thick knuckles, partially hidden by worn leather stretched across its back. So human, so normal.

  Aldora swallowed and refused it, rising on her own to face him.

  She lowered her weapon as he dropped his hand, regarding her with an expression she couldn’t read. The centaur whistled again, and within the next moment, she was surrounded by a group of horsemen that towered over her from every side. She hugged herself and searched for Vedikus among them—hoping they had taken him prisoner—but he was not there. She kept looking.

  “You’re safe now, female,” said a new speaker, a centaur with blood-stained bandages draped across his naked chest. He stepped forward. Her gaze dragged over him for a moment but continued on past him to look at the mist beyond, waiting for Vedikus to spring forward.

  He did not.

  Vedikus.

  The thought of his name gave her strength.

  ***

  Aldora.

  His eyes snapped open.

  Vedikus groaned, staring up at the sky. It was duller than before, and he could no longer see the tiny dot of the sun. He had lost consciousness and was weaker than he was before, but heard the splash of hooves moving farther away.

  Where is she? Nothing but pearly mist met him in every direction. It had all happened so quickly—the ambush—and he had been too distracted to see the signs.

  The centaurs had left him alive, if barely, but he knew if he rested until his wounds closed, he would be dead long before midnight.

  He sucked in a shuddering breath.

  Vedikus pulled himself upright and peered down at the damage that had been done to him.

  His chest and gut had been stabbed through several times, and there were gashes on his arms along with several smaller ones on his legs. Blood leaked from each of them to the ground below where it was diluted by the tepid water. He placed his weight on his palms and straightened his upper half out of the muck. A red boil, burst open. A pool of my own waste.

  Not just mine. There were two dead centaurs a short distance from him. Their bodies added to the stench of gore that permeated around him. He’d been so focused on Aldora that he had let them surround him, had given them the advantage.

  He gritted his teeth as another wave of agony coursed through him.

  The green light that heralded the entrance to Prayer twinkled in his peripheral vision, barely discernible without Aldora’s blood clearing the way. He’d grown used to it as he stared at the glimmer; the clarity, the colors, the extra light reaching through from overhead. She was better than any magic or drug.

  He immediately missed her comforting presence, her smell, her defiance, and her submission. Knowing she may well still be alive was enough to bear the pain. She was his. HIS. If they touched her, he would make sure every last centaur in the land died horribly. They had already taken her from him and that was enough to solidify their deaths.

  Vedikus surged to his hooves. Blood and water poured from his wounds. When nothing attacked him, he waited several minutes in silence and took in his surroundings.

  The grasses had all been trampled upon, and those that weren’t were splattered with gore. The corpses nearby had been looted of their weapons but nothing else. He looked for his own but could not find them, feeling the loss of their weight at once.

  Vedikus pressed his hand over the wound in his gut but knew it would do little to help. It was deep, and he knew it to be beyond his ability to heal with the supplies he had on hand.

  Vengeance would strengthen him.

  He made his way over to one of the corpses. He kneeled before one, wondering why the rest of the pack had left their dead behind.

  The Bathyr honored their dead.

  Vedikus tore off the corpses armor, ripping the cloth he found into strips for bandages and bowed his head. He gave them their last rites and wished them an eternity of failure in the afterlife.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ***

  The centaurs made camp after thrusting one of their spears into the ground and binding her to it. They took her dagger and the bandaged one checked her for others, running his splayed hands all over her body. The others watched it happen with intense expressions. Their cocks jutted, dripping with cum from their bodies.

  Aldora shut her eyes.

  When he was done, she swallowed the blood in her mouth from where her teeth had sunk into her tongue. Aldora observed the centaurs quietly as they unloaded packs and sheathed their weapons. She tried to be discreet in pulling out the spear that bound her, but the mud refused to relinquish it. So she worked on dislodging it bit by bit, pretending to shiver from the evening breeze.

  They watched her back.

  It was still day when several of them placed large clusters of wood onto the ground. She couldn’t figure out where they had gotten it. But the wood was erected in a wide circle around her and lit, bursting from embers to flames. Within minutes the chill of the wetlands was entirely replaced with heat. One of the centaurs sprinkled something into the fires that made them grow until they were large enough to engulf entire trees.

  They chanted words into the flames that she did not know while the one with bandages continued to watch her. He made her the most nervous out of them all.

  She wasn’t ready when he approached her.

  “I can move you now,” he said, coming to a stop at her side. “If you’re cold. The fires will help dry your skin and draw the moisture within the ground. You do not have to st
ay where it is wet.”

  “I’m not cold.” She quickly suppressed her fake shivers, not wanting to be touched by him again. “Did you kill him?” she asked, her throat tight.

  The centaur canted his head. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes,” she snapped.

  He went silent for a moment. “The minotaur has fallen, and if he has not yet died, he will soon. Do not worry, human, he will not hurt you anymore.”

  Aldora pursed her lips. The thought of Vedikus lying in the muck, bleeding out from his wounds, clinging to life, haunted her. He was there because of her. But I’m here because of him. She’d grown used to him, had come to rely on him in the short time they’d been together and now, as she watched the centaurs, she wished she was back by his side. She missed his overwhelming presence and wanted it back.

  “Can you take me to him?”

  “Are you looking for proof?”

  What to say? She knew little about what these new men wanted with her, from her. If their cocks were any indication, it wasn’t something good.

  What if I ask for proof and they bring me back his head? They hadn’t touched her since they took her weapon but they all stared at her with a fierceness that frightened her. They watch me now.

  Aldora shook her head. “When is nightfall?” she asked instead.

  “Several short hours away.”

  She had that much time to get to him. “Then why stay here?” Vedikus never stopped unless he had to.

  The centaur raised a hand to his chest and ran it across his bandage. “The wounded need time to heal, to cauterize their skin and prevent further damage. This place is a bad place to bleed.” He ran his eyes over her body. “I see you have wounds that require healing yourself.” He reached for her and she shrunk back.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

  “I don’t know you.”