Page 24 of Bound to the Minotaur (Hillcrest Hollow Shifters #2)

Kess

Luca changed his charging path, swerving around me to head for the window, gun already in his hand.

Others were doing the same; the Sunworld man was ducking to the floor, rolling out of the way.

Avis used the confusion to raise a paw—claws flashing—and cut straight through the ties that bound my hands behind my back.

“No, you don’t!” my father shouted amid all that noise, his foot launching and catching the big gray feline in the side. Avis hissed, rolling—fur raised, tail shivering in outrage—but my father moved faster. His arm snatched out and grabbed mine, yanking me to my feet and dragging me with him.

With a free hand, I snatched the tape from my face, a pained scream escaping me as the adhesive burned and tugged.

“Let go!” I yanked at my father’s grip, but he was stronger than I was.

He’d never let his body go soft with age; he demanded the best from his men, and from himself too.

That grip was a steel trap, and though I kicked and screamed, digging my heels into the carpet and then the partially rotten floorboards, it was inevitable that he dragged me out the back door and into a chaotic, barren backyard with several parked vehicles.

He halted then, and Avis managed to catch up to us, hissing as he clawed at my father’s ankles with a vengeance, dodging another kick at the last moment. My father’s distraction was obvious; it took me by surprise, too.

The wolves, I’d almost come to expect them after the incident at the maze.

I hoped one of them was the wolf that had tried to come to my aid there, but I wasn’t sure.

It was the large, blueish shape that caught me by surprise: muscled like the Hulk, bigger than Gregory, with coarse black hair and a pair of sharp tusks.

A troll, or maybe an orc. Strong enough to pick up a car and flip it like it was nothing.

“What the…” my father said, shocked. It was possibly the first time in his life that he’d ever been caught completely by surprise.

He stared a moment longer, and Avis got in a few more licks before he shook off his shock and began moving again.

The green monster was fighting one of his guards, grabbing a gun and bending it like a twig.

The wolves were harrying another, dodging gunfire, tails waving, maws pulled into fearsome snarls.

I saw no sign of Gregory, and my heart pounded in fear.

What did that mean? Was he behind me? Was he hurt, after all?

We tumbled down the rotten porch steps before I got myself together and began struggling.

Our path took us to the truck that had brought me here, its door open and the keys still in the ignition.

We were almost there, and if my dad got me inside, he’d drive off, and then what?

I wasn’t going to play hostage. I wasn’t going to take this lying down.

My free hand slipped beneath his jacket, for the gun at his hip.

He didn’t notice until it was too late, my fingers slipping around the cool, textured grip.

I had the weapon in my hands, my mouth babbling words, as if those would distract him, and me—from what I was about to do.

“You won’t get away with this. You don’t know what you’re up against. For once, you’re outmatched. You lose. I win.”

He twisted his head, cold eyes wide in surprise, as I brought the gun up to his chest, the barrel shaking in my trembling hand.

My finger hovered uselessly on the trigger, trembling like it had a mind of its own.

All I had to do was pull. Just squeeze. But my arms were jelly, my stomach a pit of acid, and the man in front of me—the man who’d raised me with iron fists and colder words—was still my father.

He saw it, something sharp and calculating moving behind his keen eyes.

He saw the hesitation, the weakness I loathed in myself.

With a bark of laughter, he lunged and wrenched the gun from my grip as if it were a toy.

His strength hadn’t diminished one bit, squeezing around my fingers until I screamed.

“You think you can threaten me?” His voice oozed venom, his lips curled in disdain.

“You forget who made you, girl.” His eyes bored into mine, and I felt like I was sixteen again, standing in his study after defying an order—the smell of cigar smoke and leather thick in the air, waiting for the backhand.

That same helpless fire flickered in my chest, a painful reminder that I had never truly escaped him.

Made me? Did he truly think he’d had any hand in making me who I was?

In creating the good parts of me? No way.

All he’d taught me was to hide, to run, to obey.

And I was done with that. Before I could spit out a reply, one filled with all the venom that had been building over the years, a roar shattered the air.

Not just any roar; this one shook the ground, ripped through the fog of my panic, and tore something open in my chest.

Gregory.

He rounded the far corner of the building like a freight train, horns lowered, body massive and rippling with fury.

His hooves dug trenches in the dirt with every thunderous step, breath steaming in the chilled air.

His black pelt shimmering with a glossy, beautiful sheen over each thick, ropy muscle.

My father froze just long enough for the shock to register on his face.

Then his training kicked in, and the gun snapped up to aim.

“No!” I screamed, grabbing his arm and yanking downward with every ounce of desperation I had left.

The shot went wide, the gun cracked like thunder, but Gregory kept charging; an unstoppable force, all power and rage.

My father cursed and tried to backpedal, but it was too late. Gregory was closing fast.

I dug my heels into the dirt again, struggling to twist out of his grip so I could escape. Maybe even push him straight into the path of that oncoming bull.

Glass exploded behind us in a spray of shards that clattered to the earth and struck the roofs of the parked cars. It struck my hair, too, cutting a sharp line of fire into my cheek.

Luca.

He landed with a thud onto the derelict back porch, feet sinking into the rotten planks.

His gun had been discarded, his suit disheveled and torn, and his body was beginning to shimmer in a most unnatural fashion.

Light poured from his skin, and in the span of a breath, he was something else entirely; long, scaled, monstrous.

A green serpent, thick as a tree trunk, eyes glittering with hunger.

He launched toward Gregory, fangs bared, the two supernatural titans colliding in a cacophony of scale and muscle.

The sheer force of their impact knocked the breath from my lungs. They fought like beasts, elemental and feral. Dirt churned beneath them, a car groaned and creaked as they struck it, and cries and snarls rose like a terrible symphony.

I staggered back, my father’s grip finally growing slack enough for me to pull free in his shock. Of course, my father was only frozen in place for a short moment, his surprise over the sudden transformation of his second-in-command lasting no more than a second. He spun, chasing after me.

I nearly tripped over Avis, who hissed and darted toward Romano’s legs, slashing with sharp claws, biting with gleaming ivory fangs, and buying me precious seconds. But it wasn’t enough. My father grabbed me by the hair and jerked me around.

“We’re leaving,” he snarled, dragging me backward toward the woods. “To hell with this cursed place.” He adjusted his grip but didn’t let go and waved the gun in my face to warn me who had the upper hand.

My scalp burned with each tug. I clawed at his hand, heart thundering in panic.

“Let go of me! You can’t run from this. You can’t keep running from the truth!

” My feet could barely keep up with the pace he set, around the last car(which was locked), past the giant, blue-skinned, tusked monster harrying two men with guns barricaded behind an overturned car, dented and damaged.

He didn’t answer, but his grip grew even tighter.

His feet carried us out of the backyard and across a dirt road.

The trees loomed closer, and then shadows swallowed us.

We were in the woods now, where it was even cooler, and their bare branches reached down to us like greedy fingers, evergreens beginning to block the view of the fight—but not its sounds.

“Did you see that? Did you see that snake thing?” he panted.

“That’s not real. None of this is real.” I had never seen my dad as shaken up as he was now, shaken enough that when I pulled on his hand, he shifted his grip to grab my wrist rather than my hair.

His dirty blond hair was out of place, eyes wide and fearful, and his always-so-arrogant mouth hung half open in shock.

I laughed, a broken, bitter sound that surprised even me.

“It’s real, old man. It’s all real. The monsters.

The myths. They’re walking among us, and you’re too blind, too full of yourself to see it.

” Not that I’d seen it before I got here, but I wasn’t in the least surprised that Luca could turn into a snake, it fit him to a tee.

What surprised me was that my father hadn’t known.

If he had, it would have been a weapon he’d wield with great satisfaction.

I guess I—and all of New York—was lucky that he’d had no clue.

“Shut up,” he snapped, his voice cracking.

I could feel how he was on the edge of his control, it was fraying, ready to snap.

He yanked harder, and the two of us ducked around a fallen tree.

Our pace was as close to a run as my dad ever got, his expensive loafers squishing against the debris of leaves and twigs that carpeted the forest.

“You’re weak,” I spat, my voice shaking with fury.

“You always have been. All your power, all your men, all your guns, and you’re still just a scared, bitter little man who can’t accept the world is bigger than him.

” I saw the truth now, he was a man who couldn’t control anything unless he resorted to violence or blackmail.

That was the only reason he still pulled me with him, still let me breathe, because he thought he could use me to his advantage somehow. I wasn’t going to let him.

Behind us, the battle was a thunderstorm of howls and crashes.

It felt like the earth itself was trying to swallow our sins.

He shoved me forward. I stumbled, fell hard, cold leaves and dirt biting into my palms. I turned just in time to see the gun in his hands, pointed at me.

“If I’ve lost,” he growled, “then I’ll damn well make sure you go with me. ”

So that was his final play? He was well and truly backed into a corner if he thought killing me now was his only option.

He was an idiot, and he didn’t know what Gregory would do to keep me safe.

Was doing. “You’ve already lost,” I whispered, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes.

“It’s over. You’re done.” I rolled to my knees, sat up straight, chin raised, defiance in every line of my body.

Let him see it, let him know he had lost me, that he’d never had me.

A shaft of cool, late-fall sunlight lit up his face, the lines etched deep into his skin, the silver at his temples, the madness in his eyes. My father. The man who taught me to fear first, ask questions later. I had never noticed how old he’d gotten, but he looked old to me now.

Avis screamed—yes, screamed—and leapt for the gun.

“No!” I shouted, trying to block him with my body, my arms raised instinctively.

Despite the threat, I still didn’t believe my father would shoot.

The cat collided with my side as the gun cracked again.

The sound was deafening, final. Avis yowled in pain and collapsed beside me, unmoving.

“AVIS!” I scrambled to reach him, to touch him, tears blurring my vision, but my father was looming, the barrel inches from my face now. I could smell the gunpowder, see the pitiless decision in his eyes.

Gregory’s roar echoed, closer now, but still too far away. Too far. I twisted my head and saw his beautiful, mystical shape coming through the trees. He wasn’t going to make it. The gun fired. Everything went white.

Was I hit? Was I—