The Minotaur's Kiss

by Erin St. Charles

  "I think that's a good idea."

  He turned his head to look at her as if he didn't have the field of vision of a sea bass. He stared at her as he continued to drive as if he were looking straight ahead. They were bouncing over the bumps in the road and Diana thought it would be a good idea to keep his eyes directly on the road but thought better of mentioning this entirely reasonable observation. This was not the time to argue with the man she loved.

  "What?" she demanded at his incredulous expression. "My wrists hurt," she said, holding up her rapidly swelling joints to illustrate her condition.

  He turned his attention back to the road.

  "And... we should check on the baby," she said, holding her breath to gauge his reaction.

  He cast her a fleeting look, turned back to the road, then looked at her again. Then he stopped the truck in the middle of the dirt road and put the vehicle in park.

  "We should?" His voice was dark and tender at the same time. A lump formed in her throat. Tears pricked her eyes again.

  What if she had it all wrong? What if he no longer wanted her?

  "Um, yes. I haven't even been to the doctor yet. I'm sure everything is fine..." Her voice trailed off. She should have been at the doctor days ago, but she knew in her heart of hearts the baby was fine. She felt as if she would know if there was something wrong with her pregnancy.

  He was quiet for a moment, eyes back on the road. They drove until they reached the outskirts of the city before he spoke again.

  "I was going to tell you--"

  "I know why you didn't tell me." Her words came out in a rush. She thought about the pain in his eyes the night he came over to help her with her bathroom. "It doesn't matter anymore. I don't care."

  This seemed to be the last thing Mac expected her to say, and he just blinked at her in amazement. He took her swollen wrists into his hands gently.

  "I have something else to tell you. I put a tracker in the necklace I won for you at the fair. That's how I was able to find you."

  Her mouth gaped open, and she cocked an eyebrow. She was about to light into him, but she thought better of it. She did kick him to the curb for reasons she now admitted made no earthly sense.

  He gave her a bemused look. She licked her lips nervously and spoke before thinking--and talking herself out of what she needed to say to him.

  "I'm getting an Omni implant. When we are married," she started, eyes boring into his. She watched his eyes widen, the pupils dilating with surprise.

  She went on.

  "When we are married, I'll just give you my Omni signal. And you can give me yours." Mac didn't like to talk about his feelings--and who did? It was best not to be too sentimental as they started their lives together.

  His face relaxed visibly, and she wanted to cry when his expression softened.

  "When we are married?"

  "I assume your offer still stands?" She cocked her head at him and raised an eyebrow. "My mother won't much appreciate us living in sin, you know. There is no way I can tell her I'm pregnant without a ring on my--"

  The rest of her words were muffled with Mac's mouth was on hers. His lips devoured hers in a kiss that took her breath away and made her heart squeeze with joy. He tasted so much better than she remembered, and she opened her mouth completely to him, moaning in pleasure. He broke the kiss and placed his forehead against hers.

  "I love you. I thought you were gone for good."

  His scent hung in the cabin of the truck like a warm mist. How did she ever think she could live without him?

  "I love you too. I will never leave you."

  Then he was landing small kisses along her jawline, down her throat, and along her collarbone. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she was giddy with relief to be back in his arms again. It felt so good. He felt so good.

  She knew then everything was going to work out.

  They were going to work out.

  Chapter 46

  March 15, 2080. Evening.

  The Ides of March was like any other early spring day in Chicago: more like a lion than a lamb.

  Mac had grumbled peevishly all day about the cold and told his fiancée that he had no idea why anyone would choose to live someplace so cold this far into March. Diana told him that as a southern boy, his blood was entirely too thin and that he needed to buck up.

  Thank God they were holding this shindig inside. They had managed to reserve the "Pope Room" of Diana's favorite Italian restaurant. The room was large and round, and so was the table. There was an enormous plastic bust of Pope Francis III in the middle of the table, encased in a clear composite box as if it were the real Pope and his life might be in danger. The statue sat on a Lazy Susan that turned to let everyone have a view.

  The whole gang was there for Mac and Diana's Chicago engagement party: the newly betrothed couple, Diana's mother, sister and twin nieces. Diana's mother had her own fiancé in tow, along with his adult son Noah and Diana's college student cousin, Anjali.

  Diana projected motion video of the scan from her latest doctor appointment above the bullet-proof Pope. Mac and Diana had saved this scan for the occasion, and everyone oohed and aahed at the image, which revealed two babies snuggled up in their mother's womb like a symbol of Pisces, heads, and rumps opposite each other as they shifted around in increasingly cramped quarters. Diana and Mac secretly agreed to name the twin girls after their very formidable grandmothers, Anita and Leona. The girls were expected around the end of June.

  Mac tried to put words to the way he felt. He always came back to contentment. For the first time in his adult life, he felt content without reservation. When he found out they were having twin girls, he didn't think about whether they would carry his shapeshifter genes. The only thing that crossed his mind was that he hoped they would turn out to be as beautiful and as brave as their mother. He was looking forward to being a dad and had come to accept the possibility that one or both of the girls might be carriers of the Minotaur gene. With Diana's encouragement, he had reached out to his sister and was mentoring his nephew, who had not yet begun his own transformation. All in all, life was good.

  The door to the private room opened, and the hostess walked in, with Bubba trailing behind her.

  Mac gave his friend a "seriously" look as the lone wolf rubbed his hands together from the cold and quickly insinuated himself into the party. Leona's fiancé Bill and Noah, his son, both of them alpha coyote shifters, sat up straight in their chairs, the relaxed body language of a moment ago giving way to a shrewd assessment of a potential threat.

  Alphas meeting alpha, Mac thought, watching the exchange with amusement. Bubba smiled menacingly at the two men, which did not help matters.

  The two men eyed Bubba warily as he pulled up a chair and made himself comfortable. His eyes riveted to where Vanessa sat with the twins. Vanessa ignored him. Mac watched as Bubba's gaze softened as it landed on the three of them. The girls squealed with delight with cries of "Uncle Bubba!" and pounced on him while Vanessa looked uncomfortable. Leona tilted her head sideways and regarded Vanessa with a cocked eyebrow.

  Conversation resumed when the waitress brought in the desserts.

  Diana gave her man a quizzical look. Mac shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't invite him."

  Mac was inclined to give Bubba a break. The wolf had proven to be a good man to have in a pinch. Not only had he saved Diana--twice--he oversaw the cleanup after the changeling died. The ramshackle house was set on top of a fifty-year-old bunker. The house the changeling lived in held evidence of other abducted women. Wigs, jewelry, shoes... trophies from other women who hadn't been officially reported missing. In the bunker itself, they'd recovered blood and hair follicles from two of the missing women. Mac's firm was bringing in a special detective unit to oversee the investigation.

  Julie and Amanda Wheeler were doing well. A battered and bruised Julie helped her daughter prepare for homecoming, and Mac had driven Amanda and her posse of giggling teenage friends to the event. Af
ter her recovery, Julie applied for and was accepted into the training program that would eventually allow her to become a social worker like Diana.

  Mac watched Bubba continue to stare longingly at an indifferent Vanessa.

  Mac reckoned that he knew what Bubba was now going through. Even though his friend had introduced him to the concept, he had the sense that as a lone wolf, Bubba had not considered that he might fall victim to mating fever himself. Poor bastard.

  Mac reached his arm around his woman. They had agreed to marry after the girls were born and she got her bearings back. In the fall, but in Chicago, not Dallas. Diana had made her case that the Midwest would probably be more temperate at that time of year and he felt no reason to argue.

  Their adventure had begun with a kiss under a willow tree, and soon they would enter a new phase as husband and wife, mates and parents.

  He couldn't wait to see what the future held for them.

  Epilogue

  Minions were often more trouble than they were worth.

  The changeling, for example, who could follow directions to the letter, would do anything she asked it to do without question, but seemed completely unable to solve problems independently. The changeling had kidnapped the wrong woman, nearly blowing the entire operation, and the last shipment of brides would be short. The bunker had been compromised, and she'd had no choice but to activate the remote device that delivered fast-acting poison to the changeling. It was too bad, really.

  Maybe she shouldn't have been so open with her displeasure. The more she attempted to chastise the creature, the more it made situations worse.

  She'd told it that it grabbed the wrong woman. Instead of returning her, he'd gone to her apartment, trying to find the daughter to do what? She'd already reported her mother's disappearance. Instead of containing the situation, it had invited more scrutiny.

  She'd explained this to the creature, who in an effort to clean up its mess, had taken to following the social worker and her security man, and inexplicably attacking her. And why? What did the changeling hope to accomplish?

  Then there was the freelancing at the concubine handover. Followed by kidnapping the social worker--and for what reason?

  The fact that she had a changeling at her disposal had been a source of pride to Helen. Demigods like Helen had few notable talents despite their lofty parentage. High intelligence, looks well better than average, and the ability to command changelings, the vicious creatures that were no longer actively bred and did not officially exist. The one that had served her was a savage creature, but extremely loyal to her.

  Loyal, eager to please, but stupid.

  Helen was now looking at the screen of her Omni, watching the last item for her shipment navigate the bar of a brothel in the Hell's Half Acre section of Fort Worth. She was serving drinks to the patrons who were cooling their heels as they waited to make their selections from among the available upstairs girls. This last one brought a different flavor from the usual types Helen offered her clients. She was tiny and delicate, but she had a mane of long, thin dreadlocks that cascaded over her shoulders and framed large, soft-looking breasts adorned only in ruby red pasties.

  She would do.

  The only remaining problem was how to get her. Now that the changeling was dead, she had no help tracking the girl and snatching her in a way that avoided inquiries from the police and the shifter agencies. She had no way to transport the girl to Perdition for pickup. Helen felt a tension headache coming on.

  Helen's secure Omni warbled, and she frowned, shutting down the remote camera before answering it. She sighed. She knew who it was before his face even appeared on the screen. She'd have to update her sponsor on the status of the project when she had no idea how she would complete the shipment.

  She started talking before her sponsor said a word. She explained the problem and offered a solution, who was currently serving drinks and would be off her shift early in the morning.

  "Sir, this is just a minor complication. The shipment is almost complete, I just need one more bride, and we will have fulfilled the terms of our agreement with the buyers."

  "Complication?" came the sponsor's reply.

  Shit, he hadn't heard yet. She'd given herself away.

  "A minor glitch, sir. The last item...didn't work out. But I think we can give the buyer something even better than the profile."

  Her sponsor did not immediately reply. She held her breath.

  "Keep me apprised of your progress."

  "Of course, sir," she replied, letting out a harsh breath, waiting to see what else he might say.

  "That is all for now," said her sponsor.

  "Thank you, Father," she said, but he had already hung up.

  The one most people thought of as Vulcan, god of the forge, was her father and Helen, the daughter of his last concubine, Rebecca, who had died eighty years before. She kept a paper photo of her mother on her desk where she could see it. She liked to look at her mother's swarthy beauty. The piercing blue eyes. The shiny black hair. The image of the aristocratic beauty soothed her every morning as she sat behind her driftwood desk.

  Leaning back in her chair, Helen's dark eyes took in the plush surroundings of her office, the windows that covered two adjacent walls, affording her a panoramic view of downtown Dallas.

  A low-slung tweed sofa and chairs backed up against the windows. She had grouped these with an antique Persian rug, faded from many years of use. The coffee table that completed this suite was sleek black soapstone and chrome. On top of the coffee table was a very old bread bowl that had been her grandmother's. A large conference table sat opposite seating area of her large office. Her office was near the top of the Pantheon Building, a testament to her station in life. She rarely went anywhere for a meeting; the meetings came to her.

  But it was looking more like she'd have to get her hands a bit...dirty with this operation. But she was okay with a little manual labor. Most demis like her were lazy and lacked ambition. But Helen had always been outside of the norm.

  Helen had ambition to spare. More than that, she had a vision of what it would take to vault Pantheon, already the biggest corporation in the world, to the next level. Hardly anyone she knew, including the other executives who worked for Pantheon, had a vision for what the company could be and what must be done to get there. But Helen knew.

  Helen knew the key to realizing her ambitions was to keep her special project in motion and drive for the desired outcomes. Helen walked to her office door, pausing as it opened for her automatically. Her assistant was at her workstation, eyes intent on her Omni as her fingers flew over her the holographic screen.

  "Stella?" she said. The young woman looked up from the glowing screen of her Omni and fixed her large brown eyes on her boss.

  "Ma'am?"

  "Could you please step into my office?" said Helen.

  "Certainly ma'am." Stella shut down her screen and hopped to her feet.

  "I have a special project I'd like to discuss with you."

  Author’s Note

  Thank you so much for reading The Minotaur's Kiss. I feel like Mac, Diana, Bubba and Vanessa have been in my head for so long! I hope you enjoyed getting to know them.

  Follow me on:

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  About the Author

  Erin grew up watching Star Trek and reading Barbara Cartland novels (don’t hate), wishing she could create something that brings her love of science fiction together with her love of romance. Still a romantic nerd at heart, she writes stories that blend fantasy with love.

  Acknowledgments

  I could not have finished this story without the help of many invisible author friends who inspired me, answered my newbie questions, read my early drafts, and most of all, told me I co
uld do it! Thanks!