Astegur got to his hooves and exhaled the rest of the steam in his belly.
He spat out the blood that had filled his mouth at the corpse. When he was sure both centaurs were dead, he dropped his hands into the marsh water and rinsed them clean of horse filth.
He hurried through the bloodrites for his kills and retrieved his weapons, sheathing them as he went. It wasn’t until he moved away that another noise sounded the air.
His ears pricked. He slowed his breathing. His hand flexed on his weapon again.
To his right, a figure moved toward him, growing steadily closer with deliberate, slurpy footsteps. It was significantly smaller than a centaur, and as the figure fell away from the mist and into his line of sight, he recognized the female who had visited his cave.
Astegur took a step forward but halted as the numbing effect of the blood vial began to wear off, and the itch under his skin returned.
The female moved closer.
He narrowed his eyes to search her person for a weapon he might have to dodge, but as he did so, he realized shewasn’tthe same female from the cave. The scent of old, dead, human flesh filled his nose.
A thrall.
She stopped beside the final green orb and stared at him, as if she could not move closer, could not clear the distance to him because something held her back. Her long, black, stringy hair and features were similar to his phantom visitor...but not quite.
Her mouth parted slightly as he closed the distance between them. His fingers tensed at his sides when a harrowing scream tore from her throat at his approach.
Astegur dropped to his knees in excruciating agony, his bloody hands cupping his ears.Mists!Pain in the form of screams ripped through him from tendon to bone, rending his body apart. Gritting his teeth, gathering his strength, he released a bellow of rage and reached for his axe again when a familiar voice shattered the torturous sound.
“Begone, Mother! He is mine.”
Chapter Three
Calavia rushed to the minotaur’s side as he fell to his knees, shoving past her mother as she went. She caught him, pressing her palms to his shoulders as he fell forward, stopping him from landing face first in the water. His weight rocked her back, making her legs slip and her knees sink into the muck, but her strength was enough to stop him from crushing her.
With as much power as she could muster, she pushed him, her feet and knees sinking further into the marsh, and was able to topple him onto his back. He landed with a splash as she inhaled from the exertion.
Calavia swiped her hair from her face and crawled to his side, atop the reeds that were now all broken around them. When she was sure he wouldn’t sink, she glanced up to fight off her mother, but she was nowhere to be seen.
She exhaled and returned her attention to the minotaur.
Cuts, some deep, some shallow and jagged, lined his chest and arms. Several stab wounds accompanied them. She reached into the pockets of her now sodden dress and pulled out a clump of cove and, setting it upon the minotaur’s lean, hard stomach, crushed it between her fingers. She added a healthy dose of slumber moss to it to help sedate him. Within minutes she filled all of the open wounds she had access to with the herbs, chanting under her breath.
The wrinkles of pain on his brow soon vanished, and much of the tension left his body in the minutes following.
She waited, hoping he would remain awake enough to enter Prayer and her domain, but sedate enough to get him there without harm befalling her. As time passed without movement on his part, her gaze left his wounds to travel the length of his body.
An uncomfortable feeling settled in the pit of her belly.
He’s so large, so heavy.Her fingers, which had been touching his heated flesh, jerked away. She squeezed them into her palm. His warmth stayed with them.
The minotaur was completely different up close. That foreboding ache in her gut grew worse.
He looked more like a man and less like a beast than she realized. Her gaze slipped over his hard, scarred face in curiosity.
Unlike Vedikus, the bullish look was not pronounced, his nose, forehead, and jawline less blunt.
Her eyes trailed to his jutting horns, which protruded thickly from his temples and just above his ears. They were covered in blood and bits of flesh, and their tips looked as sharp as a dagger’s point. They were embedded like bone and had the appearance of such… At least she assumed they did from what she could see under the gore upon them.
Sharpened bone makes for good weapons.This beast of the labyrinth was born with such a weapon straight from the womb, even if they hadn’t grown in yet.
Calavia swallowed. She dropped her gaze downward, over his thick neck that blended into his huge shoulders and farther down still, over his dirty chest covered in a macabre of scars, and to where his pelvis tapered to his legs. A heavy looking, animal pelt loincloth shielded his sexual organs from view but not his heavily furred legs and hooves. It was all caked in mud but she still touched it with her fingertips.
The fur was as thick and rough as the rest of his body, and just as wet.
