Will I still be in this minotaur form? The bull is strong enough to defeat her enemies, so I hope so. But whatever form I am in, I will defeat her enemies, then take her deep into the basement.
Make her a nest.
Keep her safe.
My beast wants to claim her, to fill her until she smells only of me. But she is small. Precious. I must always be careful. I push away the urge to rut, rut, rut until she is so filled with me I’m bursting out of her every pore.
My horn almost catches on a low-hanging part of the roof again. Careless.
The cartographer part of my minotaur wants to bury the lust that's trying to take us over. My minotaur is correct.
I pull my focus back to the journey.
It was a Sunday, October 24th, when we left my basements. Will years have passed when we return? Or only seconds?
It doesn't matter to me either way, but it might to my nymph.
Other men's wants and needs do not concern me.
Theo tugs on my hand. “One minute, Lu.”
I stay still, while she turns to the cavern wall, easily creating a fresh water spring from a crevasse.
She is incredible.
“Water break,” she says.
The centaur-boy comes over, whipping his ragged shirt off and putting it under the stream. When he begins to wipe his face, the scent of myrtle is released.
It hits me like a physical blow, stripping away the labyrinth's calm. It catches me unawares; there is no time to readdress my mental defenses.
“You need to stop crying, kid.” An older boy tosses me some bread.
Even though I’m so hungry, I don’t get off the floor to retrieve it. “The crying makes it worse. You gotta pretend it doesn’t hurt.”
It’s winter and the room is so cold. I haven’t been in the circus very long. I had a mattress on the floor. There were other boys and girls. Many mattresses. The circus employed many children.
Another new kid, a girl, was sobbing so hard she’d puked up her bread. “Seriously, don’t be like her,” the older boy says. “Keep silent. And eat your food.”
Days and nights blur. Almost every day, I’d be taken to another place. That place is a blank spot in my memory, even now. Except it smelled like a specific bitter herb.
The children came and went. I learned to be silent. The older boy disappeared.
I became him, telling the new kids to eat their bread and bite their tongues. Be silent.
It wasn’t until I came to Validus Vale that I learned the name of the bitter herb smell.
Myrtle.
I read about it in one of Mr. Quinlin's botanical tomes. A herb blessed by Aphrodite, Goddess of Love. For protection and beauty. Myrtle; an aphrodisiac that promotes youth and vigour.
Myrtle, used by old men for virility and stamina to achieve their desires.
What would Aphrodite think of its use at the circus?
That place was not one of beauty.
There has been no beauty in my life.
