Chapter Seven
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Noon light played uponthe 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.
