Page 25 of Minding the Minotaur

But now, none of it feels good anymore.

Because outside, Len, the odd-job lizard man, is erecting bars on the windows. Locks on the doors.

I bellow mournfully, curling into the silk eiderdown, my horns catching on the fine material.

I feel so fucking dejected. Humiliated. Alone.

Otis left me here early this morning, and locked the door. Said he was going to meet the applicant for the job of my minder. He still hasn’t confirmed where they’re coming from, but I’m not fucking stupid. I know it can only be a peripheral, a freaking lowlife human. No self-respecting monster—not even an ogre—would do this to a fellow monster.

Holy gods of the Labyrinth, save me.

And to think I fooled myself that I was upwardly mobile. As if my buckets of gism were somehow going to project me out of the Labyrinth.

I’ve done everything right. Paid my taxes, supported my parents—even my sister, Clarisse, with her proclivity for breeding with every red-blooded minotaur that crosses her path. Eight younglings now, with no financial support from the bulls who sired them. Nope, it’s me who pays for their freaking education.

Me. Golden boy, Arlo Ungula.

But now, with my stupid escapades, I’ve landed myself in a pile of shit. I can only hope that Otis keeps it quiet. I rack my brains, trying to work out how to explain to my friends, my family, why I won’t be around. Why I’m not going to Digger’s Diner and hanging out with Brody and Kazmo and Silas, my three shifter best mates, every Friday playing poker. They’re bound to find out, and that will be embarrassing. Shameful.

How do you hold your head up, look other monsters in the eye, after incarceration? I have no answers, because since the Covenant, it’s never happened. We don’t lock up our own.

Until now, that is.

My ears prick to the sound of a jeep drawing up outside, voices floating through the window from the street.

I hear the deep rumble of a baritone, unmistakably Otis, the tunneled-out street magnifying the sound. My ears twitch to a higher frequency sound. A melodic voice. Female.

Female?

Human?

A tingle spreads down my spine.

Otis speaks again, and the female lets out a sweet, slightly nervous giggle. I flick back my ears and listen harder.

Gods—yes. That intonation, higher and softer than any monster. Ithasto be a human.

I bound off the bed, stride over to the window and, craning my neck, peer sideways at the front porch. I catch a glimpse of Otis’s broad shoulder and next to him, a much smaller figure, with a long blonde ponytail down her back and a curvy butt in navy blue pants.

I nearly swallow my tongue trying not to bellow with excitement.

It’s her, I’m certain.

Shit. What are the odds?

I pace up and down the room, ears flicking, tail swishing.

Maybe she found me telepathically. Maybe the bond between us was so strong that it’s transcended her world and mine… My thoughts bounce around inside my skull like ping-pong balls.

I even start biting my nails, something I haven’t done since I was a youngling.

I hear the front door close with a thud.

“Put your bag down and I’ll introduce you. He’s in the room to your left.” Otis’s voice echoes. “He’s not aggressive, just foolish.”

Foolish.Thanks a lot, Otis.

A muffled response follows, and even though I can’t make out the words, that voice does weird and wonderful things to my insides.