Page 22

Chapter 22

Argos

I wake to the taste of berries and some foul metallic thing. Sputtering, I open my eyes to see Tully glaring at me and holding a vial of purple potion. The stuff steams and bubbles like it’s alive.

“You must finish drinking it,” she says. “I thought you were brave. Let’s prove it, shall we?”

“For the draining defense, I guess?”

“That, and to heal you. I’m not actually sure it will keep the mirror and stones from sucking the life from you again. But I’m hopeful. We will do this dill oil thing with you too before we try anything.” She shakes her wrist and the bracelet I made for her clicks. The scent of the herb wafts across my face.

I take the vial from her cool fingers and drink it down fast.

“Ah, that’s very good.” She stands.

“It burns like fire. You could have just poisoned me, my scary, lovely rival.”

She crosses her arms and shrugs a shoulder. With the movement, her breasts lift deliciously at her neckline. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

“You’d be bored without me around to ruffle your feathers.”

The corner of her red lips quirk upward and she glares again. “Perhaps.”

I slide a hand up her skirts until my fingers are curled against the warmth at the back of her knee. She watches me as I do it, a strange glint in her eyes.

“Wait.” I pull my hand back, my heart tripping over a beat. “Did you actually poison me?”

She laughs loudly at that and leaves me on my cot. At her worktable, she has two large wooden frames filled with two dozen or so vials just like the one she made me drink. She corks one last vial and sets it into the far frame.

“How do you feel?” she asks. “Good enough to explore my skirts, so I’m guessing it’s working?”

The room comes into focus a bit more. I hadn’t realized my vision was blurred. “My eyes are clearing. My head doesn’t ache anymore.”

“Good. Now, get up, you lazy bull, and help me with this. We have some townsfolk to save.”

She hefts one of the wooden frames and starts out the door, her skirts swishing around her lovely backside.

“I’d follow you anywhere, Mistress Tully.”

I can’t see her face, but somehow I know she’s smiling.

We work our way around Rustion’s estate and the homes and shops nearby. Everyone who is given a vial manages to get it down. I love watching Tully interact with her fellow townsfolk. She knows them all by name, knows their lives.

“You know, Minotaur, you’re the only one who complained of the taste,” Tully whispers to me as a young wolf shifter downs his potion.

I give her a fake scowl. “I didn’t complain. I can’t help sleep-induced sputtering.”

We leave the home with a wave and hurry toward the next house.

“It burns,” she says, moaning and mimicking my deeper voice and making a face.

Keeping my stash of vials safely braced under my arm, I chuckle. I pull her close to speak into her ear. “I’ll make you moan in full tonight if you let me.”

A shudder rolls through her, jangling her load of vials, and her breath catches. Satisfaction dances through my blood and my cock starts to stiffen.

A human female with dark hair opens the home’s narrow door and comes out with arms wide. She looks about Tully’s age, likely in her late twenties since she is human.

“Hello!” the female says. “I’m so happy to see you, Mistress Tully.”

Tully makes a shooing motion and the woman leads us inside.

“Good to see you, Rychell. How is Nate doing?” Tully asks.

“Not well, I’m afraid.” The hitch of a swallowed sob breaks her words into pieces.

Rychell takes us into a room off the main sitting area. A large bed with a multitude of pillows and blankets sits near the far wall. A small, male blue pixie appears to drown in the swathes of comfortable items.

Tully wastes no time in dosing the youngling with her potion.

“How old is he now?” Tully asks her. “Did the birth mother ever contact you?”

“Nate’s just turned seven. Yes, she did. We arranged visits. She’s on her way here now, actually. She’s too young to see her child suffer like this.”

Tully places the cork back into the empty vial and tucks it into the frame sitting on the bed beside her. “I don’t think such a thing gets easier with age.”

I keep my mouth shut because this is a conversation between close friends and I really don’t belong here. Tully may say she’s not a good person, but she’s wrong. Every word from her mouth is either the honest truth someone needs to hear or the good advice they require. She might not hug and grin like most, but her words and her deeds speak loudly to her heart.

She turns toward me like she somehow knows I’m thinking deeply about her. Those bright green eyes shoot lightning through my chest.

Gods, she is so gorgeous. Inside and out.

Rychell is saying something and then the little pixie is sitting up and reaching for her.

“Thank you so much, Tully,” Rychell says through her tears. The youngling is nearly strangling her with his hug.

“Send a note to Rustion’s place if he shows any symptoms of draining again. We will be there for a while.”

We leave the home and finish handing out all the vials. By the time we finish, the sun is setting. We’ve talked about herb lore, Lady Owl, my home back in Mytilene, and how she messaged everyone now involved in building the room of ditchite. Turns out, Rustion had a pile of the stuff in the back forty acres of his estate holdings.

“We work well together when we choose to, don’t we?” I take her empty wooden frame as she unlocks her front door.

“I suppose.”

“Just admit it.”

Her front room is attached to a small kitchen where copper pots and a large black wood stove take up most of the space. Beyond that are two doors, one of which leads to her workshop. It’s strange that I have already been there, sleeping on a cot. That feels like a dream.

Inside, she returns the wooden frames and empty vials to their shelves. She uncorks another vial of her purple potion, a dose she seems to have kept here.

“Bottoms up,” she says.

“You’ll see how awful it tastes now and you’ll stop insulting my malehood for griping.”

“I doubt it.” She grins, then swallows the potion down like a shot. A grimace bunches her face. “Oh, that is horrid.”

I laugh and start to help her with the stuff on the higher shelves. Once most everything is tidied, I pick up the broom beside the dark hearth to sweep a few of Lady Owl’s fallen feathers.

“Stop.” Tully’s voice surprises me into freezing. “That’s not for cleaning.” She sounds panicked, and her arms are spread wide as if I’ve just lit a fuse and something is going to go off.

I hand her the broom. “Apologies.”

She lifts a brow and looks me up and down. “Want to fly to Rustion’s?”

A thrill beams through me. We planned to go back as soon as possible to help with the building. “Definitely.”

I hurry out of the house on her heels. She straddles the broom and gestures toward the open spot behind her.

Shaking my head at how wild this is, I throw a leg over the rowan wood broom.

“Hold on tight, Minotaur.”

Before I can give a smart-mouthed retort, we are flying. Fast. The broom somehow feels all right on my arse—a magic force cushions my seat like an invisible pillow. Wind tears through my hair and my horn chains. I keep one hand around Tully’s waist and one on the broom just behind me. My tail wraps around the broom as well, keeping me in place as Tully takes a dive toward Rustion’s open courtyard.

When we disembark, I can’t seem to keep from laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Tully holds her broom aloft and narrows her eyes at me.

“Don’t wallop me. It was amazing. I’m just happy.”

A smile curves those lips I want crush them with mine. “Oh. Well, then, I’ll allow it.”

The building of ditchite is nearly complete. Eight people—two pixies, a fairy, three orcs, two goblins, and Cyrus—are working on stacking the stones that Halvard is cutting neatly just beside the structure.

“I don’t think I’m as strong as Halvard.”

Tully eyes the orc, obviously enjoying his build. I can’t blame her. He is impressive.

“No one is as strong as Halvard,” she says. “Don’t let it tamp down your ego too much. That’s my job.” She snickers as she sways off toward Rustion.

I stop to just admire the view before catching up.

Rustion is talking to her. “…it’ll be finished in an hour. Will you be ready?”

She digs into the satchel hanging across her body. “I’m prepared.” Turning, she faces me again. “Eh, I forgot to give you these.” She pulls out two lava stone bracelets and a necklace. “Kaya, Romulus, and Laini finished them and left them at the smith’s forge.”

I had missed most of the visit to the blacksmith because I had been checking up on a possible draining from a townsperson we hadn’t had on our list. Turned out to be a simple ague though.

“Thanks.” I put them on, smiling. The people of Leafshire Cove made these for me under this gorgeous witch’s advice.

“What’s that face for?” Tully asks me in a whisper while Rustion instructs the builders on the final keystone at the top of the structure.

“It’s silly.”

“Tell me,” she orders. “I saved your life. You owe me.”

“It’s just… I didn’t realize the folks here would welcome me so easily.”

“You didn’t? You certainly acted like you were welcome from day one.”

I drop a quick kiss on her forehead, which sends a thrill through me. She rests her head on my chest and takes a deep breath. I envelop her in my arms.

“You must be exhausted. I wish I could do this next magical task for you, but of course, as you never fail to remind me, I’m no witch.”

She sets her lips against the base of my throat and flicks out her tongue as if she is a snake tasting the air. “I can do this. I don’t want you in there, but I know better by now that your arrogant arse won’t listen.”

“Correct.”

I kiss her hair. I’m no longer truly worried about another minotaur seeing us kiss and deeming her as mine forever, but I was trained to believe that so it’s tough not to feel like I’m claiming her. I would love to claim her. I wonder what she would think of that. Would she ever commit to being one person’s mate? And if she did, could we ever have proper sex? I don’t even know for sure if we’re physically compatible. I mean, we are, but we might not be in every way.

“The only reason I’m not fighting you more is because if I pass out,” she says, “I’ll need someone to drag my arse out of there, so I can heal and try again.”

“I will always be up for dragging your arse.”

She shakes with a laugh, and I adore the feeling of her happy in the circle of my arms.

If I could persuade her to be my mate, what could I offer? I have nothing. I have less than nothing—I have a multitude of problems. I don’t want to pull her into all of that. She said she wanted to help me with raising the money, but it’s not her problem and I don’t want it to be.

“Tully, now is the worst time to bring this up, but how much are you enjoying this thing we have going on?”

She stills in my arms. “Too much.”

I huff a laugh. “All right. Why isn’t it exactly the right amount?”

“Because I’m a witch. You’re too good for me.”

I take her arms and hold her so that I can look into her face. Her chin is sharp and her eyes sharper even in the gloam of the day’s last veil of light.

“You are good, Tully. You can act snippy and fiery all you want, but you have a heart of gold. If I had any money, I’d bet it all on that fact.”

A slow, reluctant smile ghosts over her mouth and she sets her hands on my chest. I lift one and kiss her fingers.

“But you do smell like pickles.”

“I’m not the only one.”