Page 50 of Moody as a Minotaur

I scowled at the women across the table. I had not wanted to have this conversation. Not yet.

“Levi?”

I turned to him and took his hand in mine. “Do you promise not to panic?”

“Have I panicked yet?”

“Well…”

“Okay. I was a bit surprised right there at the beginning, but I’ve been good since, right?”

“That was only a couple of hours ago,” I said.

“Please?”

“Fine.” I sighed and rubbed my face with my free hand. I thought about lying, but I’d already lied to him somuch. “I was born shortly after the Romans conquered my home.”

“The Romans…” Parker said slowly. “As in Caesar and Antonius and Nero? Those Romans?”

“Uh, yes. I was born in Crete. My mother is a minotaur.”

Davina whistled in surprise. “You come from Crete? Are you part of the dynastic line?”

I ignored her. Whether my family had once ruled Crete was irrelevant now.

“And your father?” Parker asked.

“I don’t know who my father was.” I grimaced. “He was one of the centurions who led the attacks on my homeland. From what I know, he was a brutal, cruel man.”

Parker blanched as he figured out what I was saying about my conception. Some women had thrived under the rule of the Romans. My mother wasn’t one of them. His fingers squeezed mine. “Is your mother still… around?”

I nodded. “She lives in Spain now, in a tiny home in a community full of British ex-pats.” I didn’t know how she did it, living in such a place without a maze, but she swore that her neighbors’ little houses and the twisty streets provided enough of a maze to satisfy her minotaur’s needs. She’d lived through being conquered by Romans, though, so she had what I considered a false sense of security in today’s world.

“So, she’s okay?”

“The last time I talked to her, she was dating a guywho used to own a fish and chip shop in Scotland. He’s retired now. They seem happy.”

Parker nodded. When he didn’t ask any more, despite Davina’s inappropriate questions, I decided to get us back on topic.

Teaching Parker about supes was all well and good, but I needed to know more about those hunters. I glanced around to find that most of the restaurant had cleared out while we were talking. They’d probably left to tell the rest of town about me kissing Parker. That was the way it was in Willow Lake. Gossiping was a competitive sport. I didn’t even want to know how many times the videos of us kissing had been shown around town.

The dinner crowd wouldn’t show up until after five, so we had a bit of time. The few people still here were supes. They were listening avidly to our conversation, not bothering to pretend otherwise.

“Should we go upstairs where we can speak privately?” I asked.

Davina shook her head. “It’s fine. The local supes need to know the risks anyway.”

Parker glanced at his other patrons. “Wait… are all these people supes?”

Edith rolled her eyes, looking exactly like her grandson when he’d done the same thing a moment ago.

“Huh,” Parker said, crossing his arms again. He was doing that a lot today, and I wished I could make him feel safe and comfortable again.

“Can we talk about the situation with the hunters? Why do you suspect something now?” I asked Edith. “What’s changed?”

“I met a couple of other kids the last time I called on Finley for some help,” Edith said. “They’d been in his class, occult for dummies or something like that. Apparently, there’s a parent group that sponsors the class and that YouTube channel. My guess is that the professor identifies potential new recruits and instructs other students to bring them in.”

“So you think Tammy and Kyle are higher in the organization?”