Minotaur: Blooded (The Bestial Tribe) Read online

  The hag laughed softly and placed the makeshift vial down next to the doll. “Is that too steep for you, Aldora?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would ask for the life of your unborn child.”

  She stilled. “So I’m pregnant?” she rushed out.

  Calavia dipped her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Then how can I give you something I don’t have?”

  “You own your own life, do you not?”

  Vedikus owns my life. The words sat on the tip of her tongue. Vedikus has taken everything there was left of me. “I don’t.” An odd sense of relief came upon her when she admitted it. A burden lifted. Vedikus owned her and she accepted it, even felt safer, freer, now that the choice was out of her hands.

  “You own the minotaur,” Calavia said, breaking her thoughts once again.

  A laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it. “I don’t have it in me to make a claim such as that.”

  “You have his seed still running down your legs. Don’t deny it. I can smell it over the soil, but how would you know that? Minotaur semen is potent and you’ve lost your sense of smell.”

  “You seem to know a lot.”

  “More than you.” Calavia smiled eerily. “You have exactly what I want.”

  Something ran down her inner thigh and she knew what the girl wanted. There were only so many ways to bring life into this world and the minotaur’s seed was one of them. The hag wasn’t bargaining for her unborn child, but for the potential of giving old semen another chance. Was it hers to give?

  “What would you do with it?” Aldora had to know before handing it over. The thought of Calavia swelling with Vedikus’s child made her bristle. I’ve earned my place. Her hand went back to her stomach. She’d grown used to being by his side, within his presence, even in the harrowing, short time they had been together. If she was damned to this place, and even given what she’d seen, there was no place she would rather be. Safe. Protected. And well away from the monsters that sought more than a piece of her soul.

  Calavia shuffled on her knees. “We all need things to survive in this place. Seed such as his will help me protect this land and myself.”

  “You won’t use it to bring life into this place?” She was already thinking of ways to kill Calavia depending on her answer.

  The girl smiled again, brighter than before. “I only seek to protect myself and my thralls, human. You’re welcome to stay here and become one of them if you so choose. My price is low, considering, and if you have learned anything about the mist, prices are often more than any willing being is wanting to pay. Do you want to see your home again?”

  “I...” do. But the word went unspoken. Aldora looked down at her hands, the broken nails on her fingers, the cuts healing on her skin. “I’m not sure.” When she thought of home, she thought of apples, not her family or her mother’s farm, and especially not Thetras, not anymore. Apples: red and juicy and tangible, fresh and sweet with juices making her hands sticky. Like Vedikus’s seed drying on her inner thighs. “I’m not sure.”

  “You’ll never see it if you become nothing.”

  Aldora’s gaze snapped back to Calavia, pulling out another wax vial from her rags. “Neither one of us want to become nothing.”

  “No,” she agreed, twitching. “And there is nothing else you want?”

  “Not from you.”

  “Not even my blood?”

  “I have plenty. You’re not the first human brought to me, nor will you be the last.” Calavia crawled to sit directly before Aldora’s legs, looking up at her with excited eyes, the vial clutched to her chest.

  Aldora swallowed, looking down at the girl, anxious but excited, wanting to reflect the same look back at the hag. Part of her wanted to turn on her heel and wake up Vedikus so he could take the decision from her hands. It made her feel like a coward, knowing she wanted to crawl to him like Calavia had crawled to her. She wanted his hand in her hair as he looked down at her. There were no apples in the picture, just him and her, and if anything was between her hands or her thighs, it was him.

  Vedikus would not leave here without curing me. Calavia reached out and played with the folds of Aldora’s shift.

  Aldora looked back at the exit.

  A hand tugged her skirt. “This is a transaction between women. My price will not change even if you brought him here.”

  “He could kill you,” Aldora muttered.

  A laugh. “He could try, but are you really selfish enough to deny all the beings that will come after you for help?”

  There had been another sacrifice after hers. “No,” she said. Whoever it was could end up here.

  “Then let this be over.”

  Calavia lifted and cinched up the excess cloth fluttering around Aldora’s legs. She stared at the girl and watched quietly as her bare legs were revealed. The vial was uncapped and the waxen rim ran up her leg, catching some of what continued to trickle out of her. It disappeared within Calavia’s shirt a moment later.

  Aldora walked back to the pool room with the cure firmly in her hand, uncertain about what she had just done.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ***

  “Wake up.”

  Vedikus’s eyes snapped open and a solemn, second-hand light flooded his vision. It had the likings of a berserk but with a calmness around the intent. Intently relaxed instead of intently violent. He had not awakened like this since the days of his youth, since his bedding was a nest of leathers, and his many brothers slept at his side. He would never be the first one awake; his mother and his elder brother were always up before him.

  Not much had changed. As an adult minotaur, he was not the first one to rise, again.

  Aldora kneeled at his side with just the tips of her fingers brushing his arm.

  “You may touch more of me if you wish,” he rumbled, searching her face and finding it exhausted where his would most likely appear well-rested. Her fingertips left his skin and he missed her touch immediately. He could become enthralled with it, he knew, touches that were meant for pleasure instead of pain. It would weaken him, and yet, he allowed himself to miss it. Vedikus reached up to swipe her hair over her shoulder. “You did not sleep.”

  She was beautiful. And despite the hardship that the labyrinth had placed on her, his female had grown more beautiful to him since he caught her that first night. He had not lied when he said that she was all that would be soft about him. Acknowledging his weakness had changed him. Vedikus flicked his tail. He was stronger for it.

  We both are.

  “I didn’t want to risk dreaming.” Her face fell and he tugged a rebellious strand of her hair. It was another soft touch against him, a silken touch this time. I will craft her a comb made from the bones of our enemies. “If I dreamt something sweet, then I would never want to wake up, but if I had a nightmare...”

  “I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. Aldora’s eyes shot to his, widening with shock. The word was unusual on his tongue, but it did not worry him. If he could wake like this—refreshed—and with her each morning, it was a small price to pay. “I hurt you.”

  “I may have...” She glanced away for a brief moment. “I’ve hurt you more.” Aldora shifted and peeled back the old bandages across his middle. He felt nothing but the pressure of the old material lift from his flesh. The stabs to his gut had healed over, and the outer edges were crusted over with old blood. Vedikus dropped his hand into the pool on the other side of him and wiped it clean.

  “And have healed my pains many times over. I have not risen to greet the day with jubilation in longer than I can remember. Your blood is sweet and remains in me.”

  “It doesn’t hurt? I can’t believe how fast you’ve recovered. Are you sure it’s not this place and the magic that is here?”

  “Any hurts would be welcomed. It means I have paid for my life this day, but no, I do not hurt, not in the way you suggest, female, but I’m not fully recovered.” He sat up. His gaze dropped from her face to th
e new clothes she wore. A shift that was white, stained but clean—at least as clean as any cotton could be here. “The hag of Prayer has given you a boon.”

  Aldora flinched. “She has given us more.”

  His gaze narrowed as she turned away and pulled a plate forth. On it lay boiled roots and strips of pink meat that he could not place, but it was the pale cylinder of wax beside it. He picked it up to find the top was a cork made of the same material. Something sloshed around inside. Could it be?

  Vedikus looked back at Aldora. “Eat,” he demanded and returned his attention back to the vial.

  She sighed and the sound of her chewing slowly filled the quiet space.

  He gingerly removed the cap, murmuring a rite against whatever lay within for protection, and slowly pulled it off. The stench of it filled the air immediately. The cove was the first scent that hit him but it wasn’t the one he was looking for. There was wight root and salt, bone powder and blisterwood smoke, but it was the magic laced into it he wanted. To him, magic had a smell, or a touch that made tangible things intangible. It was ever changing, but strong. He felt Aldora’s gaze on him.

  Vedikus lowered the vial. “It is safe. How did you get it?”

  She stopped chewing and swallowed. “She gave it to me after we spoke.”

  “When did you speak?” His eyes narrowed.

  “Last night when you were resting. I couldn’t sleep, not after everything that had happened, and I knew she was there.” Aldora pointed to the passage. “When she came, she offered me the dress and asked me to follow her. I knew what had to be done.”

  Anger bloomed. “You did not think to wake me?”

  “No. I did not,” she said with such assurance it took him aback. Defiance was not something he had come to know from her.

  “Why?”

  “Because I knew she would not hurt me—us—after we had entered her space. It was a woman’s conversation that needed to happen, and I—” she paused, “we needed to speak alone.”

  Many things came to his skull about what the hag would have wanted. What she could have offered Aldora... He had slept well last night, too well, and he did not think it was entirely to do with his and Aldora’s rutting, her blood fueling his veins, or the healing of his wounds. Vedikus checked for his battle axes and found them by the burned-out fire where he had set them the night before.

  “What did she offer you?” he asked, anger simmering amongst his wariness. A way home? A way to be rid of me? He looked hard at the half-eaten food. No. Aldora could not kill him, even if she poisoned him with witch spit, even if she leaned over him in the throes of sleep to slit his throat. She did not have the strength to pierce through his layers of skin and muscle and do any real damage.

  Vedikus took quick stock of his injuries and found them all well and on their way to being healed. There were no new marks felt or seen on his flesh.

  Aldora pursed her lips. She’s hiding something. “Only the vial and its contents, that and the conveniences of dress and this food. She offered me nothing else.”

  He did not believe her. “And you did not ask for a way home?”

  Aldora startled and looked away. He followed her gaze to her clenched hands. “I thought about it, but did not.”

  “Why?”

  “I realized there is nothing for me there now. Like there is nothing for a woman such as the hag, who could enter Savadon if she so chose. I would never be accepted back.”

  That gave him pause. He knew very little of the ways of humans beyond the barrier but knew they ruled in large numbers over vast lands. “You could not go elsewhere?”

  “I could, but they say those that make it back from the mists come back marked. They’re shunned and often removed out of sight, to be forgotten. They’re never spoken of or seen again. I have not met one, but I have heard the stories.” She chuckled suddenly, softly, briefly. “So many stories.”

  “And you believe this even after all you know has been untrue?” His curiosity was piqued. Vedikus knew some humans made it back, if only because the centaurs used such means as leverage. But a mark? He reached for Aldora and pulled her close, momentarily forgetting his suspicion, and pulled up her shift. The female shivered in his embrace as he trailed his fingers over her skin, making his own tense to react.

  He tempered his sudden need to flip her over and bury his cock deep when she spoke. “I don’t know what I believe, but I did not ask Calavia to go back. We only spoke as women, as women often do, and she gave me the cure.”

  Vedikus pressed his outspread hands over her smooth back, remembering how her pale spine moved as he mounted her hours earlier. Like silken thread. And lowered his mouth to her ear. “I know you’re lying.” She stiffened further, but all he did was hold her naked body against his. “Do not deny it or find my wrath. I rode you hard, I can ride you harder still, Aldora.” Her shallow breaths warmed his chest. His bulge stirred to lengthen and rest upon his thigh. New seed brewed deep in his loins. “Tell me,” he warned, raising her chin.

  Her clothing was still bunched up between them and he lowered it to cover her, wanting to stop her shaking. He found he did not like her discomforted, even by his own hand. Vedikus restrained more than his body’s need for her at that moment. If she is not cold, she’s afraid. His threats against her were shallow at best, but it reminded him of the hundreds of times his sire had handled his mother.

  There had always been firm, simmering heat between them, and when it boiled over, curses filled the stable of their home. His parent’s fights were as heated and as deep as their love for each other.

  Vedikus stiffened, dropping his hand back down to Aldora’s back. He found he wanted to touch more of her, and if he couldn’t, he wanted to hold her impossibly tight against him. She was safe in his embrace, and the idea that she had left his side, even when she had the freedom to do so, made him nervous.

  The centaurs almost took her from me.

  Never again.

  If he had to tie her up, tie her to him for the rest of their lives, he was willing to do that if it resulted in giving him peace of mind.

  “The hag asked for one thing...” she murmured, her head resting under his chin.

  Her body? Her blood? Locks of her hair? He would not have her barter her own being after all that she had already lost. His anger flared again. “What?” Everything she owns belongs to me. How dare she assume otherwise...

  “Protection for her and her thralls.”

  Vedikus wrapped his mind around her words. “And how do you expect to give her something like that? You may be able to save yourself, but another? And one who is not me or part of our clan? That request is void upon asking it.” His confusion grew. Whether it was a lich, a witch, warlock, or hag bargaining their services, one thing was always the same. They never gave their services unless they had received their end of the deal.

  “She will not use it for anything but strengthening her defense of Prayer.”

  “She will not use what?” He pushed Aldora back and searched her face. It was less sun-kissed than before. The mist’s pallor had begun to take the color from her skin. She gripped his forearms and her nails bit into him. “Use what?’ he asked again, wracking his skull for any possibilities.

  “Your seed.”

  Vedikus peeled his hands from her and shook her off. “You gave her my...” He could not finish the words, dropping his gaze to the crux of her thighs.

  “It was the only thing she wanted. Please.” Aldora wrung her hands. “She would accept nothing else, and I tried. I offered her all that I could, but she knew it was still fresh between my legs. I thought she meant to bargain for our first child! Anything asked was better than that, anything. I would never make a child pay for the sins of another.”

  He barely heard her words. His eyes stared where the cloth of her shift was bunched up in her lap.

  Trickery.

  “Vedikus...”

  “Do not!” he snapped. “Do not say my name in such a way, female.
And what may I ask, did she want with my lifeforce?” His muscles tensed and he ached to break something. He imagined the worst possible outcome. Vedikus saw Aldora’s belly grow with his offspring. It all flashed through his skull in quick succession.

  “She said it was for protection.”

  “And did you think to ask how it would protect?”

  “Yes! Listen to me, please—”

  “—would you have told me this if I hadn’t asked?”

  Aldora lowered her head.

  His anger grew.

  “She would have nothing else,” she continued.

  Lies! And yet he knew it was the truth the moment it left her lips. Vedikus reached for his axes, sending Aldora staggering to the ground on her backside, her legs tangling in thin material. He wanted to rip it clean off her and force her nudity in his presence.

  “Please,” she gasped. “She swore it was for nothing else, and nothing else would satisfy her. What would you have had me do?”

  “I would have had you sleeping by my side while I dealt with the bitch!” he roared, releasing steam hot enough to sear into the air. “She’ll die this daybreak.” He rose to his hooved feet, stamping one down to crack the stone beneath. Aldora looked up at him wide-eyed with fear. Vedikus went for the exit.

  “She’s gone,” she rushed to say, and he felt a tug on the back of his leathers. Aldora stopped him, and he turned, sneering.

  “Where?”

  She shook her head and he was momentarily transfixed by the way her hair moved in the subtle light. “It was either your seed or my life,” she pleaded. “Your seed or nothing else.”

  “The hag dies,” he hissed, pressing his hand against her chest and pushing her back. Aldora refused to let go and he rounded to fully face her.

  “After everything I’ve been through you will listen to me!” she yelled, startling him. “What is worth more to you? My life, which you so desperately saved at every opportunity, or control and authority? Did you think we would be handed what we needed with nothing on our bodies but bloodied rags and wounds? She could have asked for worse, could have asked for so much more, but she did not. I’ve sacrificed enough and was willing to sacrifice more. Now you know how it feels to lose something you did not want to lose.” She released him and returned to the ashen fire pit, taking a plate of food.