Page 2 of Minding the Minotaur (Monsters of the Labyrinth #1)

A RLO

The problem with the portal cape is you never know where the fuck you’ll end up.

On my first trip, I was slam-dunked into a dumpster right behind a food outlet, and found myself knee-deep in chicken carcasses and take-out containers.

The second time, I landed in the women’s toilet of a beauty salon.

Nearly got busted by a scary-looking human with white stuff all over her face and a towel wrapped around her head.

Third time lucky: a pharmacy drug cupboard.

Could have gotten me quite a few substances there—except human drugs don’t work on monsters.

That’d be right. We monsters do all the work and get no perks in return. It’s fucking unfair, but you try telling Otis that. All he does is pull his fucking green forelock and follow orders. Whatever the humans tell him to.

Otis reckons we should be grateful that we’re left alone in the Labyrinth .

Our sheriff may be a big burly orc, but he hates to break the rules.

Guess that’s why I feel the need to; why I take these illicit trips to the human world. To case out the joint, maybe even work out ways to get back at the bastards.

My body has finally stopped juddering from the impact of landing, so I sneak my snout out from under the cloak and look around.

I’m in what looks like an underground parking lot, judging by the rows of stationary vehicles between big concrete pillars.

I’ve seen something like this in the human movies we pirate—these are often the places where a human gets shot or whatever.

You’d think they’d have had enough violence after the apocalypse that nearly extinguished the lot of them, but it seems the idiots have forgotten about that minor event that took place four hundred years ago.

And since then, they’ve relied on us monsters to keep them alive.

My nostrils flare with outrage. We just put up with their crap and keep complying, supplying. Enabling.

My thoughts are interrupted by a sudden sound.

Footsteps. I pull the cloak around myself and shrink back into the shadows, making sure my hooves don’t scrape on the concrete.

After a moment I dare to sneak a look. If someone were to glance my way, they might see a minotaur snout and two dark eyes floating in mid-air, but hopefully the shadows will conceal me.

A figure is approaching. Shit. They’re headed for the car next to where I’m huddled. It’s a battered looking little hatchback with scrapes on the side and a smashed-up bumper bar. I squat down lower as they approach the driver’s door and fumble with their keys.

It’s a female human, young, probably early twenties.

My snout twitches at her delectable scent. Being minotaur means I have a defined olfactory sense, and there’s no denying it, this human smells divine. Sweet and musky and… and… distressed .

I scent her again. Yep, she’s definitely unhappy.

I poke my head out a smidge more to get a better look.

A curtain of straight golden hair frames a pretty face with round cheeks and puffy eyes.

She’s been crying. I’ve seen that in human movies too, water squeezing out of their eyes and running down their cheeks.

It’s not something we minotaurs do… We express sadness by lowing deep in our throats, and bowing our horns toward the ground.

My gaze pans down her body. Two beautiful big tits strain at the thin material of her t-shirt. I feel an unmistakable stirring in my cock.

For fuck’s sake, cut it out, Arlo.

I beg the damn thing to shrink, but it bucks defiantly against the zipper of my pants.

I have no idea why, but something about this human is sending my hormones into overdrive.

Sympathy and lust vie for my attention. I want to take her in my arms and kiss away the tears… but I also want to plunge my mouth between those beautiful tits, slide off those ugly tracksuit pants…

Before I can stop myself, I’ve let out a grunt. Her head kicks in my direction, her hand suspended with the car keys in her grip.

Her brows pleat as she peers into the shadows.

Quickly, I yank the cloak over my head. At the same time, I somehow lose my footing and fall onto my ass with a thud.

The problem for us minotaurs is we’re just not that nimble. Sure, when I’m galloping along the Labyrinth’s tunnels, I can get up a good pace, but crouched on my haunches in a confined space? Nah, not good.

Clumsy as fuck, to be honest.

I fling out an arm and grab onto the bumper of her car to right myself. But now the cape has fallen off completely, exposing me in all my fucking glory: a massive bull of a guy, with horns and fur and a tail. All I can do is raise myself up to my full seven feet and try for a cheesy smile.

Clearly it doesn’t impress her, because her mouth stretches wide in what I know for sure is going to be a very loud scream.

I can’t let that happen.

In a panic, I grab her and place a hand over her mouth.

As she struggles, I see the whites of her eyes, her pupils blotting out the cornflower blue of her irises. I shove my snout close to her ear, taking in the scent of her glorious hair. She smells like I’ve always imagined fields of flowers would: sweet, intoxicating.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I rumble. “Just don’t scream. Okay?”

She jerks a nod, and I loosen my big hand from around her lips.

A tiny mewling sound escapes her, and now that the risk of screaming has dissipated, I’m suddenly aware of her soft breasts crushed against my torso, her thighs straining against mine, and I realize that somehow, my arm is wrapped around her and one of my hands is splayed on her butt.

I’m not sure how that happened, but the feel of her warm ass cheek under my palm is fucking amazing.

Her face is so close, I’d just have to lower my head and—involuntarily, my tongue rims my lips, wanting to flick across the lush fullness of hers.

Finally, she squeaks, “W-what are you?”

That brings me back with a start. What am I indeed? A beast who should not be in the human world. An interloper, a fucking alien, in many senses of the word.

How could I even begin to explain this whole fucking debacle?

Maybe I should pretend I’m a human in fancy dress.

I dismiss the idea at once. There’s no pretending that these horns and thick pelt and tail are fake.

Nor is there anything fake about my cock, rock hard in my pants.

If I don’t draw away quick smart, she’s going to feel the big bastard sticking right into her delectable human flesh.

If she hasn’t already.

Reluctantly, I peel my hand from her butt and slide it over the crest of her hip, my other hand hovering in case she screams again. To her credit, she seems calmer now, but it must be a freaking shock being accosted by a monster like me.

Fuck, now what? Guess an introduction is in order.

“Erm… Arlo, at your service,” I rumble in my deep baritone.

“Y- you’re a—a—” she stutters, her brows once again pleating as those baby blues rove over my face.

I blush as she stares up at me, which means my face goes a darker shade of brown above the ring of fur around my neck. I’m hoping that what she sees isn’t all bad. My eyes are deep brown and fringed with long lashes. I have a quality nose ring. Great horns. A nice smile, so I’ve been told.

“Minotaur,” I supply gruffly. Clearing my throat, I repeat, “I’m a minotaur.”

“R-right.” Her brows pleat. “I thought they were a myth.”

“That’s a bit of a misconception.”

“I see.” She sounds like she doesn’t see at all. How can I blame her? Other than the highest authorities, no-one in Sparkle City knows we exist.

My hand is still resting lightly on her hip. “I should let go of you.”

“You should.”

But still, we stay exactly where we are. A bubble of happiness rises up my throat—she isn’t pulling away, she doesn’t seem scared of me. “You won’t scream again?”

“I’ll try not to. It’s just, I’ve had a pretty shitty day and seeing you was?— ”

“A shock,” I supply sympathetically.

She nods. I take a step back, reluctantly letting my palms slide to my sides. I feel the loss of her, like a physical tug in my chest… and in my nether regions too, to be honest, which are still twitching with excitement at her nearness.

“So… bad day, huh?” It’s such a mundane thing to say, but somehow it feels right. After seeing those tears and all.

She nods again and her lower lip wobbles. Another tear squeezes out of her left eye, and I suppress the urge to wipe it away with a thick digit. Or better still, lick it away with my tongue.

The protective urge I feel toward this human is overwhelming.

“I just got sacked,” she bursts out.

“Hell, you’re kidding.” I rub at my snout with a finger. “Where from?”

“DeVines department store.”

Ah.” I nod sagely. The Labyrinth supplies DeVines with all sorts of trinkets. The coin from those sales brings in a good slice of our yearly income. “The posh shop.”

“You know about it?”

“Heard of it in my… part of the world, yeah.”

“Where is your part of the world?”

I hesitate. Even the simplest of explanations seems an impossible task.

“I’ve never seen anyone like you around Sparkle before,” she muses, and I can’t help a snort.

“You wouldn’t. The authorities keep our sort well hidden from your sort.”

“Oh.” Her chin retracts. “That’s kind of—weird.”

“Yeah, it is,” I agree. “There’s more, but I think it would blow your mind.”

“You’ve already blown my mind.”

I glance at her, searching for a deeper meaning in her softly spoken words. As her eyes meet mine, she finally smiles, her pretty cheeks bunching. Her smile makes my heart bloom with joy.

“You’ve blown mine, too,” I mumble, looking down at my hooves, heat spreading right up to the tips of my ears.

It’s probably foolhardy, but I have this overpowering urge to tell her more. I’m searching for the words to explain about the strange, intertwined history of humans and monsters above and below ground, when I detect voices.

Shit. I really can’t risk being seen. Not by anyone else.

I grab the cape and dive under it, then poke my head out.

“Oh my,” she squeaks. “What is that thing?”

“A portal cape,” I hiss-whisper. “Let me know when they’ve gone, and we’ll talk some more.” I pull the cloak over my head and darkness envelops me.

And then I do a really stupid thing. As I tug the cloak around me, my little finger crooks on one of the runes stitched into the lining. The one that sends me straight back to the Labyrinth.

I feel the whoosh in my ears, the channeling of air from warm to cold, the G-force flattening the skin against my skull.

When everything goes still and I can finally draw breath, I curse out loud.

There’s no way I can reverse this. I’m going to have to pay Brody to let me borrow the cape again. And even then, there’s no guarantee I will ever find her.

I’ve lost the girl with the long golden hair, and the ass and tits a bull could bury himself in.

The feeling of loss and dejection is overpowering.

As I throw off the damn cape and stand up on wobbly hooves, I know I’ve got to find her again.

But how, when I don’t even know her name?