Page 3 of Screwed by the Minotaur in Hallow’s Cove (Hallow’s Cove #6)

Chapter two

Rick

But this morning felt different.

As I rolled up the metal shutters at the front of the shop, my thoughts kept straying back to the tiny human I’d quite literally run into at Ted’s. She was new in town, that much was obvious. I’d never seen her before, and I made it a point to know every face that passed through Hallow’s Cove.

She’d looked up at me with those wide brown eyes, like she couldn’t decide if she’d just collided with a man or a myth.

Her skin was a rich, warm walnut, with an almost ethereal glow that seemed to radiate from within, casting a gentle light on her surroundings.

Her riot of dark curly hair framed her face in a way that made her features stand out—soft, open, and utterly human in a way that felt rare around here.

And those lips… full and lush, parted just slightly when she stared at me. It was innocent, uncalculated.

I wondered if she’d show up at Killy’s tonight like I’d hinted. I wasn’t usually that forward with strangers, especially humans. But something about her short-circuited my filter.

How long had it been since I’d been truly interested in someone?

Not since Angela, a harpy from a few towns over.

That had fizzled out six months ago. She was nice enough, smart, funny in a dry way, but our needs never lined up.

Literally. She had almost no sex drive, and while I respected that, it wasn’t something I could ignore.

A minotaur bull in his prime needed more.

Denying that part of myself felt like going hungry in my own house.

We weren’t a match, and we both knew it.

The break was clean, amicable. But since then? I hadn’t met anyone who sparked my interest. Until this morning.

As I flipped the open sign and fired up the register, my thoughts drifted back to the curly-haired stranger. She didn’t look like she belonged in a place like this, which made me wonder if she was trying to belong. That struck a chord in me. I had been there once. In Hallow’s Cove, no less.

The bell over the door jingled and I shook myself out of my head. A young faun approached the counter, balancing a pile of mismatched hardware in her arms. That was the norm around here—ambitious DIYers who barely knew the difference between a screw and a nail.

“Hi,” she said, tentative. “I’m trying to mount shelves in my house, but none of the screws are working. They just spin and spin and make a cloud of dust everywhere.”

I forced on a smile, my tail flicking the only tell I was irritated. “Sounds like you’ve got lath-and-plaster walls. You’ll need toggle bolts and anchors. Regular screws won’t hold.”

After a few minutes of back and forth, I got her sorted, but I had little faith she’d pull it off on her own.

Odds were good Randy would end up fixing whatever she tried.

The grumpy old ogre had a soft spot for anyone attempting to be self-sufficient.

That’s what I liked about Randy—he didn’t make a show of it. He just helped.

I stayed busy through the rest of the day, a steady stream of customers flowing in and out, but my mind wasn’t on drywall anchors or torque settings.

It kept circling back to the woman in the diner.

I found myself wondering what kind of books she liked.

If she had a favorite drink. If she’d wear that same curious look on her face if I kissed her.

Would she even be interested in someone like me?

It was barely six when I locked up shop early. I told myself I needed a break, but the truth was, I needed a shower and a clean shirt. If there was even a chance she’d be at Killy’s, I wanted to be ready.

I picked out my best button-down and a pair of dark jeans that hugged my thighs and made my ass look good.

I threaded my tail through the back hole and buttoned up, giving myself a once-over in the mirror.

My horns were polished, my hair combed back, and I’d even spritzed on the cologne I usually saved for dates.

I felt like a teenager before prom. Ridiculous.

But I hadn’t felt this kind of anticipation in a long time. Not the raw lust—that was easy. This was something else. The kind of interest that made me wonder what her laugh sounded like in a quiet room.

I gave the mirror one last glance. I looked good. I just hoped she was into monsters. I had been on dates with humans before, but nothing serious. Who was I kidding? I rarely committed to anything serious.

The moment I stepped into Killy’s, the comfort of the place wrapped around me like a worn leather jacket—familiar music, warm lighting, the scent of fried onions and spiced cider in the air.

Brooks waved from the corner. Gwen and Gabe were already deep in a game of darts, and Jake and Hayley were talking animatedly over shared pints.

Harley, polishing a glass behind the bar, gave me a grin. “The usual?”

“Yeah. And start a tab,” I said, sliding my card across the counter. “Might be here a while.”

She poured my snakebite without a word. I took a slow sip, eyes already scanning the crowd—and found her.

The woman was here, standing near Randy and Beth, her curls pinned up in a charming halo.

She wore a soft green dress that caught the light when she moved.

Not flashy. Just effortlessly radiant. She was laughing—genuine and bright—and something twisted in my chest. Randy and Beth don’t usually hang around newcomers.

For them to stick close meant they liked her.

Maybe she was more than a tourist passing through.

I forced myself to turn away, giving my attention to Gabe, a gargoyle, and Gwen, his human wife. They ran the town’s game store, Gargoyle’s Games. But Gwen noticed my distraction immediately.

“At it again?” she said, taking a sin of her gin and tonic. “Subtle, you are not.”

“Huh?”

She jabbed a thumb toward the new girl. “That’s the third time in ten seconds you’ve looked over there. Go.”

I smirked, caught red-handed. “Alright, alright.”

I crossed the floor slowly, wiping my hands on the back of my jeans. Must be condensation from the snakebite. My palms didn’t normally sweat this bad

“Hi there,” I said, stopping just behind her shoulder. “I seem to remember meeting you this morning.”

She turned, startled at first, then smiling with recognition. “Oh. Right. Sorry again.” She extended her hand. “Lea. Visiting for the weekend.”

Ah, so she was a tourist.

I took her hand, warm and small in mine. “Rick.”

She held my gaze a beat longer than polite, then looked away. “Sorry, I’m not usually this... flustered.”

“I’m not usually this intrigued,” I replied before I could stop myself.

We both blinked.

I cleared my throat. “So, what brings you to Hallow’s Cove?”

“Needed to get away. The city’s... a lot. Work, noise, people. I thought I’d come someplace quiet to breathe.”

I nodded. “You picked the right spot. Cell coverage is terrible, and the Wi-Fi’s a joke. Great for vanishing.”

“Exactly what I wanted.”

Beth and Randy drifted away somewhere mid-conversation, and we didn’t even notice. The two of us sat down at a high-top, and she asked about the town, how I ended up here, what it was like to live among monsters.

“I didn’t grow up here,” I explained. “But my grandparents did. After my parents died, they raised me. Gave me everything, even when I didn’t know how to ask for it. I guess I came back to Hallow’s Cove because I wanted a quiet life. Something I could build on my own.”

She looked at me differently then—not with pity or fascination, but with understanding. Like she knew what it meant to lose something and start over.

“That’s really beautiful,” she said softly. “I think that’s kind of what I’m doing too. Starting over.”

When her drink was nearly gone, I offered to get another. Her order caught me off guard.

“A snakebite?” I echoed, raising a brow.

She shrugged with a smile. “I dated a Brit in college. Picked up the habit.”

I went to the bar, half-smiling to myself. A woman who drinks snakebites and doesn’t blink at a seven-foot minotaur? Dangerous combination.

When I returned, she accepted the pint with a grateful nod, our fingers brushing for a second too long.

Lea’s eyes floated over the crowd, then back to me. “So if you grew up somewhere else, what did little Rick want to be before he ran a hardware store?”

I snorted. “Little Rick wanted to be a professional wrestler. My grandpa had all these old tapes—guys in leotards and masks jumping off ropes. I’d practice suplexes on bags of mulch out back until I split them open.

He’d make me sweep it up. Said if I was gonna make a mess, I’d better learn how to clean it.

” I shrugged. “Didn’t pan out. Turns out I hate spandex. ”

Lea grinned, leaning in. “But you still get to lift heavy things all day and boss people around. Living the dream.”

“Exactly. And the dress code’s more forgiving.”

She rolled the glass between her palms. “I always wanted to be an artist. My mom said I started drawing before I could walk. Family legend says I accidentally customized our living room walls with permanent marker at age three.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, picturing her as a curly-haired toddler, joyfully vandalizing her home. “Bet your mom was thrilled.”

“Oh, she was delighted,” Lea said, deadpan. “Said it added character. She framed a chunk of the wallpaper, actually. She was sentimental like that.”

“Sounds like a good mom.”

“She was.” The words came out soft, wistful, and she glanced away, clutching her glass. “Sorry. I keep doing that thing where I talk about her like she’s still around. She passed last year”

“I get it.” Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I reached across the table, covering her hand with mine. Her skin was warm, her pulse thumping steady beneath my thumb. “Sometimes I still talk about my parents in the present tense. Feels less weird than saying ‘were’ all the time.”

Lea’s lips curved, slow and grateful, like the compliment wasn’t about her but about something she used to belong to. Her hand stayed where it was, under mine, and I realized I didn’t want to pull away. In a room full of people, we’d managed to make our own quiet corner. I liked that.

She cleared her throat. “So, what do minotaurs do for fun in a place like this, other than wrestle and terrorize new girls at the diner?”

“Oh, the usual,” I replied, straight-faced. “We stampede through the farmers market, devour hay bales, and challenge tourists to feats of strength. Sometimes, if we’re feeling really wild, we reenact famous labyrinth scenes for the elementary school.”

She snorted, nearly losing her beer. “I’d bet money you were in marching band, not football.”

“Wrong on both counts,” I said with a wink. “Debate club. National champion, two years running. I even went to State. Turns out, when you’re the loudest kid in the room and half the judges are terrified of you, you rack up trophies quick.”

Lea actually clapped, the sound ringing out above the low hum of the crowd. “I can see it. You’ve got a definite, like… ‘Order in the court!’ vibe.”

“And you?” I asked. “Let me guess: theater kid.”

She looked affronted. “Excuse me, I was a proud member of the—drum roll, please—poetry club.”

I grinned. “So, you sat in cafés and judged everyone’s metaphors?”

“Only the bad ones,” she said with mock seriousness. “But we also hosted open mics. I once read a poem about a dying houseplant that made someone cry. At least that’s what she claimed—it might have been my outfit.”

I leaned in, elbows on the table, feeling that pull—the magnetic force that happened when two people landed in the right conversation at the right time, and neither was quite ready to let the moment go.

Not only was she was funny and quick-witted, our shared loss made it easy to connect immediately.

We kept talking, falling into that easy rhythm people chase their whole lives and rarely find. She told me about losing her mom and learning to stay afloat without her.

As the bar thinned out, her hand grazed my arm again, casual but deliberate. Her fingers lingered. My skin buzzed.

“So,” she said, tilting her head coyly, “do you have somewhere to be in the morning?”

“Nope,” I said, holding her gaze. “Just me and my morning off.”

She bit her lip, then let it go slowly. “Well, would you like to head back to the inn with me—for the night?”

Her voice danced with laughter, yet her eyes spoke of something more—something hungry, something hopeful. I didn’t know where this night would lead, but I felt a fierce pull I didn’t want to let slip.

“You’re right. It’s too early to end the night here,” I murmured, my hand slipping over hers.