Page 22 of Minding the Minotaur (Monsters of the Labyrinth #1)

S AMMY

As I scurry toward the study, I’m still busily tucking my shirt into my pants and tugging my ponytail tight. It was like a game of peekaboo as Arlo tiptoed out of his bedroom to get my uniform from the snug, sneaking straight past the door of the study.

I needn’t have worried. Jax is sprawled in a chair, his green eyes hooded, while Tippy sits on the edge of the sofa opposite.

She’s talking animatedly, her pretty hands gesticulating.

“What you need, Jax, is a vitamin B complex, plus a mega dose of vitamin C. Have you thought of vaping as an in-between measure?—”

Jax is looking more and more like a cornered animal, but his eyes light up when he spots me in the doorway. “Ah, Blondie, there you are.” He looks pointedly at Tippy. “Can you give us a minute, Tip?”

“Sure.” Tippy smiles at me rather too knowingly. I do my best to ignore it .

“And back off on the vaping shit, will you?” Jax adds, as she gets up. “That’s for wimps.”

Tippy shrugs. “Okay, I’ll mix you up my Quit Fast elixir instead.”

“Sure, why not?” Jax drawls. “Now go.”

She trots out of the room, her tail swishing and her pretty little nose in the air. Jax’s eyes follow her with vague amusement.

“Do you two know each other?” I ask.

“Everyone knows Tippy. Self-appointed health guru for the Labyrinth. I just use the excuse that none of her hippy shit works on humans.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Don’t know. Never tried it and never will. “

“You said you’d take her elixir,” I say accusingly.

“It’ll give the nearest drain a drink. Though maybe I won’t roll a ciggy here, or she’ll be onto me like a crazed whippet.” He straightens in his chair and eyes me shrewdly. “So, how’s things, Blondie? It’s been two weeks, so I thought I should check in on you.”

“It’s been… interesting,” I say guardedly.

“Not what you expected?”

“I had no idea what to expect. It’s not as if you gave me a lot to go on.”

“Better that way.” He grins wickedly. “Throw you in at the deep end, see if you sink or swim.”

“What if I’d sunk?”

“I’d have dragged your ass out of here quicker than you could blink.”

I let out a little snort. “Really, you would have?”

“Sure I would. Takes a certain kind to be able to cope with the Labyrinth. I must say, I wasn’t sure at first. But Clem was right about you, you’re a tough little cookie.”

For some reason I feel unduly chuffed at Jax’s praise. I have no idea why I should care what this skinny green-eyed guy with the constantly haunted look about him thinks of me, but I do somehow.

“Aw, thanks Jax.”

He passes my gratitude off with a wave of his hand. Takes a packet of gum from his jeans pocket, places a piece in his mouth and starts chewing.

“So…?” He raises a laconic brow.

“So?”

“Anything to report?”

“Nope.”

“Minotaur being nice to you?”

I cough slightly at that, remembering just how nice he’d been only fifteen minutes earlier.

“He’s polite. Friendly. Good-natured.”

“Hasn’t mauled you with those horns, then?”

I laugh nervously, recalling the many times I’ve gripped those horns over the last couple of weeks as I rode his mouth to orgasm. “No, of course not.”

Jax’s lips quirk. “Otis been to see you?”

“Yes, at first he came daily, but that’s tapered off a bit. I think he trusts me with Arlo now.”

“So you haven’t been out and about?”

“Nope, not really,” I fib, keeping my cards close to my chest. I don’t even know if Jax knows about Arlo’s clinic job.

In fact, I’m struggling to work out Jax’s relationship with monsters, especially now I know more about the Labyrinth.

I decide to do some of my own digging. “How long have you known Otis?”

He shrugs. “Been dealing with him for a few years now.”

“In your role as head of exports?”

He eyes me, chewing slowly, his expression inscrutable. “Yeah, that’s my official title.”

“I didn’t know that you headed up the whole of exports.”

“Because I didn’t tell you.” His mouth twists into a grin. “Didn’t think I looked the boss-type, right? ”

“Bingo.”

He snorts. “Bosses don’t always wear suits.”

I have to smother a smile. Jax couldn’t look scruffier if he tried.

“So are you and Otis friends?” I continue.

Jax crosses the ankle of one leg over his other thigh, then pulls at the heel of his boot. I notice it has sharp silver buckles all up the side that look like blades.

“I do what’s needed to keep things running smoothly on both sides of the portal. That’s my job, making sure everyone’s happy—the dome authorities up top, the monsters down here. I know everyone, but I’m not friends with anyone.”

I frown, feeling like I’m getting nowhere. Suddenly he says, “You don’t entirely trust me, do you?”

I let out a huff. “I trust you in that you’re Clem’s brother, and I trust her, but?—”

I stop mid-sentence. It suddenly strikes me in a way it never really has before that Clem has a brother. When barely anybody else of our generation has a sibling.

“But what?” Jax cocks his head.

A cloud of unease gathers within me.

Before I can stop myself, I blurt, “Have you ever heard of malefics?”

Jax’s jaw ticks. Something blazes in the depths of his eyes for an infinitesimal second. Then it’s gone.

“Never heard that term. Should I have?”

Already I’m kicking myself, but his laser gaze is boring into me, and my brain suddenly scrambles.

I gulp out, “Apparently they were witches, warlocks, and the like, w-who, erm, practiced evil magic to help humans keep the monsters underground and—” My brain says to shut up, but my mouth says, “And maybe they still exist… in Sparkle.”

“Who told you that?”

I open my mouth and shut it. I can’t admit I’ve been in the back room of Digger’s Diner, drinking grappa and socializing with Arlo’s friends, can I? I shrug. “Oh, you know, heard it on the grapevine…” He’s still staring at me hard, brows drawn. “The er, lizard man got chatting one day, that’s all.”

Jax’s lips twist. “Nothing but monster ramblings. They’re a superstitious bunch.

Little green faeries did it, or behemoths from the Pit.

Some of them even think they could survive out there on Earth.

” He barks a laugh. “They have secret squirrel clubs that meet to discuss it: life beyond the Labyrinth . As if. They like to believe that shit. It gives them hope that there’s some kind of divine reason they’re stuck down here and we’re up there. But you know what?”

“What?”

“There is no rhyme or reason to it, Blondie. Sparkle City, the domes, the Labyrinth. It’s all just random, it could just as easily not exist at all.”

Jax uncoils his long legs and stands up. “Nothing has any meaning.” He takes out the pouch of tobacco from his jeans pocket and waves it at me. “Except this.” He ambles over to the door and turns around just before he exits. “Clem sends her love, by the way. Says she’s missing you.”

“Tell her I miss her too.”

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. I don’t know why, but my gaze strays to the collar of his black shirt. There are two raised welts, just visible on the pale skin skirting his left collarbone.

Not one, but two scars, quite close together.

They make me think of bite marks.