by Naomi Lucas
“I’m sorry.”
He snorted, and a sliver of sunlight pierced the mist to glint off one of his horns. “You’re not sorry, and if you are, your sorrow is best deserved elsewhere. Those who were here before have nothing to do with you. If you want to survive in this place and to survive well, it’s best to keep your emotions close.” He looked away. “Nothing of mine can be weak.”
Aldora lowered her eyes and rested her head against his iron-honed bicep. She would take his sentiment to heart.
Lost in her thoughts, it wasn’t until they circled around a clearing for a second time before she realized they were off the winding paths. Her gaze lifted to a copse of trees so close together that they had tangled to become one long, strangely-shaped knot. The bark appeared wet, and as the beast walked past them for a third time, she discovered the wetness wasn’t condensation but was coming from a seepage from within.
On the fourth pass, she squirmed and asked to be let down.
“I won’t run,” she breathed.
He stopped. “Won’t you?”
Aldora grasped her wrist, biting down on her tongue.
“Tell me why.”
She looked at the space around them, looked everywhere but at him and tried not to acknowledge that his hands had grown hot and damp where he touched her. “I won’t run... because I don’t want to die.” She squeezed her wrist, uncomfortable, and afraid but not as afraid as before.
He walked them back to the trees and dropped her to her feet, making quick work of tying her to the warping branches. They twitched and moved at his touch, stretching to engulf the entity that disturbed them. She sat as far away as she could. They oozed over her rope.
He crouched a foot away from her, once again blocking her view of everything but him. His horns lifted up into the mist and an urge to grab them and twist them off overcame her.
“You don’t want to die but there are more reasons to stay by my side. I want to hear them,” he demanded.
Aldora pulled at her rope. “There are no other reasons, why would there be? You’ve taken all my chances away.”
The beast snorted. “You spoke to me across the wall, female, if you can remember that far back. I did not answer you at first. I took none of your chances away.”
“I thought you might’ve been a human trapped.”
“And it was your sense of charity that stopped you? Are you charitable?”
Aldora narrowed her eyes. She’d given her mother’s apples to the poor and the children of Thetras, had covered the work of those in need, had accepted her life as a peasant and a farmer, as a nobody who could not so much as force a flower to grow as make a change in the world. “I’m not charitable,” she said after a minute, thinking of all that she could have done but hadn’t. “I was curious, but I’m not a bad person. I’ve never hurt someone intentionally, and if you had been a trapped human, I would’ve helped.”
“I was curious too,” he said after a moment. “But I’m not charitable either, nor am I kind. I have no delusions of goodness, not here, not in this place. I have hurt beings intentionally and...”
She waited but he just stared at her. “And?” she asked softly.
“And if you run again, I will hunt you down, subdue you, tie you up and drag you naked and sobbing through these dangerous lands and watch whatever hope you have left wither, happily. There’s a high cost for life, and one you will pay for.”
He moved away and circled the clearing again. Her gaze dropped to settle on his inhuman feet. No, not feet. Hooves. She hugged her arms around her stomach, trying not to watch him, but her eyes would not leave his body.
The fear that the morning light had diminished had come roaring back to life. It further clawed at her insides as she realized how futile it would be to run. He was twice her size, if not more, and naked except for a thick loincloth that draped his front and back. It left nothing to her imagination, and every part of him that was human versus animal was fully on display for her.
He. It. Thing.
Aldora knew him for his maleness from the very core of her soul. It wasn’t that he looked like a human male, it was the abysmal, unbreakable aura that threatened to drown her whenever he neared. They were alone, and being a female, she was worried.
He stopped in the middle of the clearing, barely an arm’s length away, and grasped the ties hanging at his sides, removing them.
They landed on the murky ground with a splat.
“I won’t run,” she mustered warily. His head snapped up to peer at her. “I won’t run because I want to live and...” she sucked in air through her nose, “I can’t smell anything but you anymore.” Aldora tore her eyes from him to look at the fog overhead. “I don’t know where we are, and even if I made it back to the barrier, I’m in no state to make the climb.” Her body was on the verge of collapse. “But...”
He made no move to speak and she clutched her arms tighter.
“I’m sad.”
The silence that stretched between them had her curling up on her side on the wet ground. The quiet lingered far after he had risen to his feet and stormed off and out of her sight. It was the best gift he could’ve given her.
Aldora closed her eyes against where his form had long since vanished and wished she could smell the dirt beneath her cheek.
That she could smell anything that wasn’t him, anything at all.
Chapter Seven
***
Noon light played upon the female’s face, casting a multitude of weak colors over her soft features. They were more vibrant than anything he had seen in years and he relished the renewed hues.
His gaze drew back to her skin. It was darker than the pale flesh he knew of, as if it were kissed by the sun, and it shimmered like oil over hedge-bread. She did not have the sallow look that he thought all humans had but instead appeared healthy, as though she was forged by sunlight.
It won’t last...
He stamped the memory of her as she appeared now because there would be no more sunlight left in her life with him, nor with the Bathyr.
Vedikus returned to the center of the copse and deposited the items he had foraged onto the tops of his bags. He pulled his axes from their sheaths and unstrapped his buckles, one by one, letting them hit the dirt. The bone knives, the herbs, his mementos he kept from battle all fell away from his body until it was just him, his cloth, and his wounds.
The gouges across his back had begun to fester and itch. There were more along his arms and legs, a bite mark above his ankle, and more still in random places upon his body. He looked at the sleeping female. She was in as much pain as him and he had prolonged it, knowingly, seeing how long her endurance would last.
Far longer than expected. He positioned several branches he had collected in a pile and breathed over them. They crackled and glowed like fading embers before igniting into fire, releasing tendrils of grey smoke to join the equally grey mist.
The air began to fill with the smell of fire. It would bring others to them, so he quickened his pace; there was nothing that made him more bloodthirsty than being interrupted.
Vedikus gave half his focus to the slumbering female on the ground, curious about her ability to sleep in such a dangerous place, while the other half listened for scouts. Humans are weak. A minotaur could go days without needing sleep.
I’ve convinced her she is safe with me. He snorted, straightened, and with his bone dagger now in hand, hacked a tangle of vines to bring back to the flames. Without a mortar and pestle, he crushed them with his hands until every last drop of dew was released. They filled his bone bowl almost halfway and he placed it atop the burning branches.
The smell that arose was cloying and rank.
He’d only been near one human in his life and his knowledge of them was limited. His mother had been cryptic and forgetful when telling her bull-sons her stories and his sire thought stories were for the weak. She’d had pale moonlight skin and wide glowing blue eyes, so unlike the female he captured.
It was unexpected.
This female was larger than his mother, with a frame that tightened under his fingers. She appeared strong, even in sleep, and it eased a little bit of the urgency within him.
Vedikus opened one of his pouches and added wetwort, blimbery, and cove to his bowl. The concoction bubbled and turned a dull green. He stirred it with his finger, adding his own essence into the mix.
He hadn’t been trying to capture a human when scouting the barrier paths, but he could not ignore a gift from the moon, not such a precious one, nor the opportunity she presented. She would breed with him and solidify the next generation of his clan, and having her among his brothers would tribalize them. No minotaur female had followed the Bathyr from the mother tribe.
Breed. His eyes trailed back to her prone figure. His body twitched. All human females caught and carried away were bred in some way in the mists. It was a better fate than being a blood bag for the feasters or a source of ingredients for liches and warlocks.
Vedikus stopped stirring and leaned forward, looking closer at her. My brothers will want her, might fight me for her. She was shapely and built and had that exotic skin coloring—that glow he was positive would taste like the sun. His tongue thickened and he swallowed a mouthful of thick saliva. Hungry. She was tied down and at his mercy. His bulbous member stiffened slowly under his leathers. He would not fight it or touch it, knowing the moment he did, it would distract him from all else. Even her.
I could fill her with my strength before the sky grows dark. The idea of watching her belly grow large, with her womb filled with bull, made his tail tap and slither across the backs of his thighs. He saw a glimpse of the future in his skull. Though to breed in such a dangerous place with both of them wounded would only get them killed.
But he considered it.
Her eyelids fluttered with dreams and Vedikus sat back. His taut stomach burned from leaning over the flames for too long. With a grunt, he scooped some of the paste from his bowl with his fingers and spread it over his skin. Within minutes the pain vanished.
First, he needed the tools to stop her corruption, then, he needed to deliver her to his brothers where she would have the extra protection to keep her safe.
Vedikus twisted his lips, feeling the pressure of his cock weaken. He hated that he needed the human to better the lives of the Bathyr with as much fervor as his member wanted to penetrate her. He grabbed the bone bowl and moved to her side.
She was a tool of the Bathyr now, and his personal burden.
What am I going to do with her? His wet fingers pressed into her exposed skin. If they survived the trek to the mountains, through Prayer, it would be a question he’d have to answer. If his mother were still alive...
He clenched his fists.
Vedikus released them and untied the rope at her waist. He grasped her hair and angled her head back. “Awaken.”
Her eyelids flickered but did not open.
He lifted her in his arms and set her before the fire. She did not fight his hold, did not do anything at all but slip to the ground when he let her go. Vedikus pressed his mouth above her own and inhaled her breaths.
Weak, shallow, and twinged with a bitterness he could not attribute to blood. Viler poisoning. He tore off her boots and clothes, leaving them in dirty heaps at his sides until she was bare except for her underthings. Hundreds of tiny red dots and pink scratches revealed themselves from her cheeks to her shins. Not once had she mentioned pain or faltered under her ailments.
A hiss escaped his lips as his eyes found a large black bruise encasing one of her upper arms and the raw flesh on her wrists. All hidden under the long shredded sleeves of her tunic and pants.
Infuriated, Vedikus stormed to the vines and ripped off an armload to bring to her side. He squeezed the liquid out of them, splashing the excess over the female’s bare skin. His tail lashed from side to side.
Her body startled upright like the newly undead and a shriek filled his ears. Vedikus placed his hand on the center of her chest and pressed her to the ground.
“Relax!” he rasped, her panic seeping into him. She only fought him more, clawing frantically under his weight. “Relax,” he repeated louder.
“What’s that feeling?” Her eyes widened, her nails dragging at her skin. Confusion. “There’s something inside me!”
Vedikus grasped her wrists with one hand and pinned her legs down with the other. The force of his actions was more violent than he intended but a couple more bruises were better than opening her wounds deeper.
“Female, do you remember the thorns?” he asked slowly, waiting for her struggles to subside. She stared at him for a time without blinking before she answered.
“Yes.”
“They pricked you everywhere.” He indicated her body and she raised her head to look.
“Yes.” A barely-there breath.
“Some of them took root inside you.”
She dropped her head back to the ground and silently cried. A black cloud of possession filled his gut and bloomed throughout his body. He wanted to lick over every prick on her flesh and reclaim it for his own, but he knew that doing so would not cure her.
It was still better than the alternative.
“This will hurt... What’s your name?” he asked, voice hoarse.
“Aldora,” she said between sobs, her limbs shaking under his. She’s under my grip, he reminded himself. Not tangled in rapist vines.
“Aldora,” Vedikus repeated, “hold still.” He didn’t wait for her response as he emptied out one of his pouches and stuffed it in her mouth. Her tear-filled eyes followed his every movement. He grasped the bone bowl and its boiling contents and poured the mixture across her skin, watching her flesh redden with heat. Her body spasmed, fighting it, her eyes squeezed shut as tears flowed freely down her face.
It wasn’t until her body relaxed and he unpinned her legs that he realized he hadn’t breathed since she’d given her name. He pulled the pouch from her mouth and brought the same bowl to her lips, tilting it for her to swallow its contents, knowing the slight euphoria of the cove would offset the scalding liquid.
It was still better than the alternative. Vedikus sighed and picked up his tools. That black cloud remained.
***
Her skin was inflamed, sopping wet, and exposed. Aldora arched and cringed from the pain that stabbed at her from beneath her flesh and found only a weak sense of comfort when a new pain distracted her from the other. Nausea coiled in her belly and she rolled to her side and hacked. Nothing but raw air and spittle came forth.
Then, suddenly, the pressure eased and the burning liquid pooling over her flesh sank into her wounds and flooded her insides. In a matter of moments, she went from agony to high bliss. Her tears dried up and she dropped back onto the sodden ground.
Nothing. She felt nothing but a crystalline daze that lightened her head. It was bliss. Even the damp ground that threatened to suck her into the earth was soothing.
Calloused, rough hands probed and pulled at her skin and she opened her eyes to watch. He didn’t look at her, this beast, but concentrated on the places his hands touched. Although she knew he did something to her skin, and she could feel it being pinched and poked, it wasn’t painful. There was only the sensation of pressure.
He slowly made his way up her body, leaving nothing behind but her disturbed undergarments. Steamy exhales warmed her skin as his fingers trailed hurriedly upon her. Aldora blinked slowly as he raised her elbow and brought her wrist to his nose. The rent flesh had reopened under the boiling mixture and what had stiffened over with dried blood was now exposed and fresh.
A snarling hiss left his mouth, bringing her attention back to him. “This happened on the other side.” His tone was deep, threatening.
Her tongue felt heavy but she managed to speak. “When I ran...and was caught. It was a Las—Laslite patroller that discovered me. I should’ve run faster.”
“No.” He met her eyes. “If you had run faster
you wouldn’t be here now. I’ve heard of these Laslites. Are they warriors?”
Aldora tugged her hand but he held strong, ignoring her attempt, and scooped up the extra mixture from the bowl, slathering her wrist with it. “Yes,” she said, upset, her world spinning. “F-fierce warriors, the best of Savadon, and they travel with the king’s warrant. They would destroy you.” She loathed the Laslites now as much as she distrusted him but she kept that to herself.
He dropped her wrist and picked up her other arm, showing her a massive bruise on her upper arm. “The same kind of men who would grip a soft female so hard to leave a mark such as this? Aldora, your Laslite did this intentionally,” he spat as his fingers softly trailed her mottled flesh.
“And you haven’t inflicted pain on me intentionally?” Aldora tried to sit up. On her third attempt, he hoisted her to a sitting position.
“I’m no Laslite man-scum,” he sneered.
“You’re no man at all!”
Aldora gripped the bone bowl and slowly tried to maneuver away, but was hauled roughly into a wall of muscle. She stiffened as the bowl slipped from her hand to spill over the top of her thighs. Her back was up against his naked chest and a thick arm banded hard around her belly, trapping both her arms to her sides.
A voice breezed into her ear. “What am I? Do you even know?”
She licked her lips and held still. Whatever answer she gave him, it wouldn’t be the right one. That much she knew. He. Thing. It. Horned heretical beast. She was in a dangerous position, deep within a dangerously forbidden place, breathing in poison and losing her sense of self. Her mother’s apples came to mind and how she would dig her nails deep into their skin until their juices burst to coat her fingertips, until nothing was left but sticky sweet mush.
Aldora focused on the image until she relaxed in his arms.
“I don’t know what you are.” She relaxed further.
His chest pressed into her, lungs expanding to move her body with each of his inhales. The rhythm and his heat accented the chilling voice in her ear. She wanted to hang onto the cold parts of him because his heat was consuming her.
