The Minotaur's Kiss

by Erin St. Charles

  A child of his could very well inherit his genes. His engineered, defective Minotaur genes. His mind cast back to his teens when he started his transition. The friends he lost. The family he’d become alienated from. He looked at Bubba.

  "Do you think she knows?" Mac said quietly. Bubba opened his mouth to speak, and Mac held up a hand to silence him. "Never mind."

  Mac stood up quickly and went around the edge of the desk, and Bubba also got to his feet, scrambling out of the bull's way.

  "I'm leaving," said Mac. "If anyone wants me...tell them not to contact me. And don't you tell anyone about what we just talked about." Bubba, usually so cocky, looked nonplussed and a little frightened. He seemed to have realized that Mac had no idea Diana was pregnant.

  Mac turned his Omni to silent mode and left the office in a daze. He found himself on the sidewalk, with no particular destination in mind. Two weeks ago, summer seemed to be giving up the ghost, but it was back in full force now. It had to be over 100 degrees, and the hottest part of the day was still to come. It would make sense to drive, but he didn't trust himself behind the wheel of his truck, even with its driverless mode enabled.

  He replayed the events of the past two weeks in his mind. Nothing at all indicated that Diana was pregnant. There didn't seem to be anything different about her. Mac walked for twenty minutes or so before he realized his feet were carrying him to the Dallas Zoo district, which was Diana's neighborhood.

  Along the way, he thought about introducing Diana to his mother. Anita, his mother, had been a cop, a lawyer, and a judge, and now managed a small solo practice of her own. His mother would love Diana. She would probably like Diana's mother as well. His father, a trust fund baby, would also like Diana, because she was a career woman like Mac's mother and because it didn't cost him anything to like her. Both of his parents would be thrilled with the idea of another grandchild. But Mac wasn't thrilled...not exactly.

  Two hours later, he arrived at Diana's house. He had already performed enough inspections with Diana to evaluate her interaction with the clients, which had been submitted to Jacob. Diana had spent the days since the meeting at Pantheon catching up on administrative work, and training her neophytes, the young recent social work graduates who were training to take jobs like Diana's in the future. There was nothing work-related for Mac and Diana to do together until they were called to accompany Jaslene Duncan to her fertility rite, which could happen at any moment.

  Mac climbed the steps, raised a hand to knock. Then he hesitated. He still had no idea what he should say to her.

  Neither "Hey I just wanted to know if you knew you were pregnant?" or "What happened with that birth control you said you were using?" seemed like good conversation starters.

  He stood at her front door, fist poised to knock, while his thoughts and emotions paralyzed him. He heard a rustling sound inside of the house that made him think of the changeling's footsteps inside Julie Wheeler's apartment. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention. His hand went for his sidearm. He remembered then that he'd already taken himself off-duty for the afternoon and was unarmed. He looked up and down Diana's street. Empty.

  He held his ear to the door, heard the sound again. At six feet seven, Mac didn't often need to be armed to intimidate, and thus rarely shifted in order to engage with an assailant. His human height and bulk were enough to scare the shit out of most people, and he preferred to avoid the stares. His kind was so rare that they might as well be unicorns.

  But he was unarmed, his lover might be in jeopardy, and he had no choice but to shift. Mac's muscles and bones expanded, and his horns emerged from his temples. His t-shirt and jeans stretched until the seams began to strain. None of this was any more painful than an electric shock from a household outlet. He rotated his neck and shoulders and leaned into the door. Walking into an iffy situation was always fraught, even for the most seasoned enforcers. Mac had been trained to assume that anything that lay beyond a closed door was dangerous. Contrary to popular belief, when walking into danger, adrenaline was not your friend. Too much adrenaline can make even a seasoned enforcer lose his head.

  His vocal chords stretched and lengthened so that when he called out Diana's name, his voice was no longer recognizable. "Diana!" he boomed, rapping on the door with his knuckles.

  Chapter 30

  The sound of heavy footfalls on her porch steps could only mean one thing: Mac. Even though she'd asked him to leave the last time he'd come over, and had been cold to him, her heart leapt with joy when she heard him.

  But then he bellowed her name, and she looked at her Omni video screen a completely shifted Mac, obviously waiting for the door to open, ready to pounce. She had dressed in cutoffs, a ratty tank top, but no bra, having planned to tackle the rest of the cowpoke wallpaper in the guest bath. Her eyebrows knit together, and she paused before opening the door to him.

  He looked uncertain. "Diana."

  She felt irritated. "Mac. Do I want to know why you're lurking outside my front door, ready to attack me?"

  He gave her an apologetic look. "Could have been worse. I could have had my gun."

  She sighed and waved him in. As he stepped over the threshold, the tip of one horn caught the doorway. Annoyance gave way to amusement, and she had to struggle not to laugh.

  "Try ducking," she suggested.

  He backed up, waggling his head in an effort to get free. The animal planes of his face were brutish...but kind of beautiful. But there are few things funnier than a tall shifter dude with his horns caught on a doorway, trying to get free, madder than a wet cat, but trying not to show it.

  "Here, let me help you..." She reached out to touch him, but he froze. Okay then...

  "I'm fine." She watched him shift back to full human, like a deflating balloon. He righted himself and stepped in as she backed up. He closed the door. Then he just stood there, and Diana became aware of just how sloppily dressed she was.

  "I thought I heard noises...I thought you might be in trouble," he said.

  He looked around her living room, then his eyes roamed over her body.

  "I was just--"

  "You're not afraid of me...are you?" He raised an eyebrow at her, his hazel-blue eyes boring into her.

  "What? No!" she cried. "But, um, you were kind of lurking on my front porch. I was just ... surprised."

  She watched his body relax. She took his hand and felt the familiar sizzle of electricity whenever they touched. She tugged him over to the sofa.

  "I probably shouldn't have just stopped by. I know you wanted some time alone." His eyebrows drew together. "I was just thinking about you. Wondering whether you were tired of me leaving you alone yet." His serious eyes were so sincere, his words so plain and beautiful, that she was charmed, rather than annoyed. Her insides turned to fondue the way they always did when this big, brooding man was unexpectedly tender.

  She hugged him, burying her nose in his chest and melting into his body. "I'm glad you came."

  "Is there anything new with the case?"

  He looked at her, surprised, as if that were the last thing he expected her to say. "Julie Wheeler was kidnapped by mistake."

  Diana listened as Mac filled her in on the latest developments. The selection process for concubines had always been cloaked in secrecy, but she did know when women were selected as candidates, they were essentially sequestered as they prepared to become a concubine. She imagined the gods liked it that way.

  She was beginning to feel awkward. Mac seemed distant, and she couldn't help but wonder if it was her fault. But would he be here now if he didn't want to be? Was he just here to ask her about the case?

  "Can I get you something to drink?" Lame. So very lame.

  He frowned at her again. There was an emotion in his eyes Diana couldn't identify. "Am I keeping you from anything?" He made to stand up, and she put her hand on his arm.

  "No! I mean, no." She dropped her hand in her lap. "It's Fair Day, and Jacob gave the Bureau the day o
ff. So, I decided to work on the house."

  His face brightened, and his mouth twisted into the smile she'd only ever see him use on her. Hope fluttered in her chest, and she beamed at him. He just shook his head.

  "What?"

  "Doing more work is your way of relaxing? You are a weird woman."

  She gave his arm a playful shove. "I like to relax and to be productive at the same time. What's wrong with that?"

  He shot her a dubious look. “Making home improvements is not fun, and it is not relaxing."

  "Well, what do you think counts as fun and relaxing?"

  This was how Mac persuaded Diana to go to the State Fair of Texas with him. He needed the distraction of fried foods and tacky rides as much as she did. He hadn't been to the fair since he'd been a boy, before his transition, before his solitary Minotaur nature began to assert itself and he started to mistrust crowds of people. With Jacob's mentoring, Mac eventually began to tolerate crowds, the closed-in feeling became less overwhelming.

  Diana's face had lit up like a child's when he'd asked her. She'd never been to any state fair. He thought she was glowing, though it was probably too soon for her to glow from pregnancy. This thought gave him pause, knowing he'd have to tell her about the baby, hoping she'd figure it out herself soon so that he wouldn't have to. If she knew Mac and Bubba knew she was pregnant, she'd have kittens. He pushed the idea out of his mind and relaxed into the moment. They were not checking on a missing woman. They weren't conducting a brothel inspection. This was a date. He was taking his girl on a date.

  She'd kept the cutoffs on, donned a t-shirt and a beat-up pair of trainers. She had let her hair loose, and it formed a glowing halo around her head.

  "Where's your truck?" she asked, looking up and down the street.

  He couldn't tell her that he'd walked miles and miles to her house because he was so upset about finding out she was pregnant. So he lied. "I wanted to take the Glide."

  She narrowed her eyes and twisted her lips to one side. "You're too much of a control freak to let anyone else drive."

  "I am?"

  "Uh, yeah."

  Was this why she kept rejecting me?

  Her onyx eyes held a somber expression as she looked up at him. Then she chuckled. "Don't tell me you haven't heard that before?"

  Diana didn't know about his meager dating experience, his more or less friendless personal life, his estrangement from his family. None of these would have helped him plead his case as her mate and father of her child. The child he knew about, but she didn't. He felt a twinge of guilt and reasoned that she would find out in due time. He just hoped like hell she never discovered his deception.

  "A couple of people have mentioned it to me. I had them 'disappear'."

  She laughed.

  Diana lived close to Fair Park, where the State Fair of Texas had been held for nearly 150 years. They walked for about fifteen minutes when Diana surprised him by placing her hand in his. Their fingers interlaced, and she beamed at him.

  "I still can't believe you've never been to a state fair," he said.

  "In Illinois, it's held in Springfield. For a Chicagoan, it would be like going to Mars."

  The fair was in full swing, despite the fact that it was a weekday and not even noon yet. The smells of roasting, baking, and frying meat assailed him. After all these years maintaining a vegan diet, it turned his stomach to smell cooking flesh. Carnival hawkers enticed patrons to try their luck at winning cheap toys and stuffed animals in exchange for guessing their weight, shooting rubber ducks on a conveyor belt, and swinging a mallet to make a bell ring. Trash cans overflowed with half-eaten food, and discarded cans made of recycled composite materials. The metallic ground sweepers, which resembled a cross between a turtle and a beetle, crept along the sides of the fairway, industriously sucking trash up into the receptacles in their domed bodies. He steeled himself before wading into the crowds of people talking animatedly, cranky children begging for junk food, and crying babies pushed in strollers. He tried and failed to picture Diana and himself pushing a baby around in a stroller. He would never bring his child to a place like this.

  Diana looked as overwhelmed by the sights and sounds as he was. Mac slipped his hand around her waist.

  "Play first, then eat?"

  "Sounds good." Diana nodded in agreement, craning her head to get a good look around. Her eyes flared with excitement at the sight of a roller coaster with an initial climb that seemed to stretch into the clouds. "Come on!" She set off with determination, pulling him behind her.

  Mac was not a fan of roller coasters, but he allowed himself to be dragged toward the terrifying thrill ride, reasoning that he'd be too tall to fit in one of the cars. It had happened before.

  But not this time. The fair organizers had upgraded the rides since he was a boy, and they were plenty big enough for even a six-foot seven giant who pushed 300 lbs. They boarded and started the hair-raising ascent, which seemed to go on forever, and Mac glanced over at Diana. Her eyes shone with excitement, and he gave her a weak smile in return. It felt as if his heart were falling through his stomach. She gave him an encouraging smile, reached over, and squeezed his hand.

  He was so fixated on Diana that the first drop took him entirely by surprise. Diana screamed and laughed as the car plunged down several hundred feet of terror. The roller coaster turned them this way and that, then flipped them over in a series of stomach-churning loops that made his head thump against the padded shoulder restraints. Why did he ever like roller coasters? But Diana was having the time of her life, and he liked watching her. This was another side of her, one he didn't expect. Thrill-seeking Diana, who was miles away in temperament from Professional Diana and Home Improvement Diana, but as loose and free as Sexy Diana. Towards the end of the ride, Mac began to relax a bit. As they exited the ride and went down the steps, Mac noticed a sign he hadn't seen when they entered. Along with warnings prohibiting those with recent surgeries, bad backs, and necks, or heart trouble, there was a side diagram of a pregnant woman, her shoulder-length hair flipped at the ends, a fetus floating in her distended belly. Superimposed over the pregnant woman: a red circle with a red line drawn diagonally through it. "GUESTS WITH THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS ARE FORBIDDEN TO RIDE," the sign proclaimed.

  Shit.

  Diana had the look of a child in a candy store when she spotted another roller coaster with a steep initial climb and a truly horrifying death plunge. He thought about Diana as a cutaway illustration with a tidy bun, instead of a Mary Tyler Moore flip, their fetus floating around in her womb. He stood stock still, stopping her momentum.

  "You know what, I'm not in the mood."

  She frowned at him. "In the mood?"

  Thinking fast, Mac blurted, "That last one was a bit more intense than I thought it would be." He gave her what he hoped was a sheepish smile.

  "But--"

  He steered her away from the roller coasters towards an attraction he'd noticed when they first arrived. Diana gave Mac a tentative smile when they approached the Ferris wheel. They waited in line until it was their turn, and Mac helped her into the car. The ride started with a jerk, and Diana yelped in surprise. Mac held her close. He whispered in her ear, "I'll take care of you, baby."

  The Ferris wheel began to climb, slow and steady, as passengers boarded and exited. Mac watched Diana's anxiety grow. His arm went around her shoulders, and he rubbed her arm in reassurance. She trembled in his arms and tried to smile again, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. In fact, she looked petrified.

  "Are you afraid of heights?"

  She winced and nodded. "A little."

  "But you loved the roller coaster."

  She shrugged. "That's different. I don't notice it so much when I'm busy screaming at the top of my lungs."

  "Then why did you agree to do the Ferris wheel?

  "I didn't want you to think I was chicken," she said. "And I thought you wanted to."

  He chuckled. "I'll protect you." Trust Diana
not to want to admit to any weakness. She felt wonderful in his arms, soft and pliant. Her dark eyes went soft as he held her. Desire slammed into him like a freight train. His head lowered, and he brushed a kiss over her lips. Light and teasing at first, the kiss became adamant when she let out a squeak, and her lips chased his. He pulled her closer and deepened the kiss.

  Her mouth opened to him and his tongue slid over hers. She tasted sweet, and her musky scent enveloped him. She breathed deeply and moaned into his mouth, setting his body on fire. The Ferris wheel, the fair, the noises, scents and sensations, all fell away as he poured every bit of his love into the kiss. Her mouth was so soft and wet and inviting that he could do nothing else but give himself over to the sensation of loving her and being loved back.

  He loved her. The man who had never really dated a woman, who had never pursued a woman, loved this woman. He hadn't known she existed three weeks ago, and now thinking about being without her made his gut tighten.

  The Ferris wheel jerked, and he held her close, stroking her arm reassuringly. When they exited the Ferris wheel, Diana looked grateful to be leaving. They purchased vegan ice cream, and they strolled down the fairway, eating it.

  "What do you think of the fair?"

  "It's noisy, and it smells bad."

  He gave her a wry smile. “That’s all part of the charm."

  She shrugged. "It's fun though. My parents were both workaholics. We didn't do this sort of thing very much. My mom is very ambitious, and my dad interacted with us mainly through sports."

  "Aside from basketball, what else did you play?"

  "Soccer, volleyball, softball. You name it, we played it."

  "Did you enjoy it?"

  Her face screwed up. "Sometimes. My sister hated it, and of course, she wound up with two kids who are total jocks. I think they get it from their dad."

  Mac thought about the twins and how rough and tumble they'd been with Bubba. "Their dad?"

  Diana's face clouded with sadness. "Ben was a coyote-wolf hybrid. He was literally the boy next door. We were friends with his family for years. After high school, Vanessa and I went off to college, and Ben went into the Army, but we all kept in touch over the years. He was killed in action before the girls were even born."