Page 30 of Hot Ghoul Summer (Pine Ridge Universe)

T here aren’t any other minotaur families in Pine Ridge. The only female minotaur in town is my mother. When we traveled to Greece for my brother’s wedding, there were gorgeous girls everywhere. Girl minotaurs, I mean.

I wasn’t into them.

After the reception, my dad sat me down on the back of the private yacht my new sister-in-law’s family had chartered. My father was a little tipsy. (It takes a LOT of ouzo and champagne to make a minotaur tipsy, in case you’re wondering.) He asked me if I was into bulls instead of cows, and I told him no. Then he asked if there was someone back in Pine Ridge that had my heart. I told him no. He asked if I was one of those aromantic types, only he was slurring so it sounded like he asked if I was aromatic. After I sniffed at my suit for a few minutes, I told him I didn’t smell like I’d bathed in anise, which is what drinking too much ouzo makes you smell like.

By that time, my mom came back on deck, looking for us. My father got this completely unhinged, lustful look in his eyes and started chasing her around the boat.

I was severely tempted to jump overboard and swim ashore.

The truth is, I’m probably one of the most romantic people I know—but no one else knows it.

Minotaurs have a thing for protecting and serving. Acts of service are our love language. I dream about having a wife I can protect and help. She’ll look up at me adoringly. She’ll be so small next to me that every time I’m around her I’ll feel like I’m her living shield, a proud warrior—not just the guy who makes poison rings and recalibrates weaponized watches.

Yes, I said she’d be small next to me. Small and possibly on the helpless side. I admit it. I have a damsel in distress thing, but I’m not some neanderthal brute.

I blame history.

Pull up a chair.

My people were not always called minotaurs. We existed before that whole King Minos crap. We have been around as long as anyone else, human or “monster.” Humans feared us, the same way they feared other half-man, half-animals. The peaceable taurosapiens pulled back into the shadows, forming secret rural communities. Every community had an underground lair equipped with escape tunnels and traps to prevent violent humans from attacking the clan.

And then King Minos found out that his wife had become friendly with a local blacksmith (taurosapiens like metal). The way my mother tells it, Pasiphae was nothing more than a friend to the smith, who she had commissioned to make armor for her oldest son, the Prince.

Minos, who was already two hammers short of a forge, decided she was having an affair and went on a murderous rampage, killing one of his own children. My ancestors of course then urged the queen and surviving royal children to take refuge with us.

Well, you know how it is when you’re thrown together with someone day after day...

Yeah. Eventually, Pasiphae and Aspro (the smith) were secretly married and had a bunch of little half-human, half-taurosapien babies. And we started being called minotaurs. (I think we should have been called Pasi taurs. Why give that murdering idiot any credit? But you can’t change two thousand years of history overnight.)

Ever since I saw the picture in mom’s old history book, I’ve been a hopeless romantic. The picture is an old ink illustration that shows Aspro blocking the labyrinth entrance. His eyes are glowing red, his horns are glinting, and his nostrils are flaring. One hand holds a huge broadsword. The other arm is pushing Queen Pasiphae behind him. She’s looking up at him with such utter love and adoration.

I want that. I want a woman I would die for and a woman who would be by my side, adoring me as much as I adore her.

That isn’t going to happen in Pine Ridge.

There are two kinds of people here. One, there are people who know about the magical energies and entities who live here. They play it cool. They know that everyone isn’t what they seem. They’re all (99% of them) nice, normal-ish folks. What about the second group?

They are incredibly, stubbornly blind. They walk around with witches, wolves, succubi, and whatever else we have on tap, thinking that everything is normal. According to those people (all human), some of their neighbors are just a bit “eccentric.”

The people in the second group would all be dead by dinner time if Pine Ridge weren’t such a safe place to live.

Either way, I’m not going to find a woman who needs me here. If she’s a vampire, a werewolf, or a witch, she’ll be able to take care of herself and probably won’t want me being my overprotective self. If she’s a normal, oblivious human, she won’t ever meet me. If she did, she’d run in terror, and that’s no way to start a relationship.