Page 3 of Rauf: Minotaur Mates

I was on Ceres-9 to find a husband. I’d crossed the entire galaxy on a slightly rickety ship with only one suitcase; I’d left a promising job behind. I couldn’t expect sparks from a first kiss. This was a decidedly practical arrangement.

But I wasn’t even getting a tingle.

Korfas pulled back, and he was grinning. He looked so pleased with himself that I smiled, but it was an empty thing. He couldn’t seem to tell.

Was he nervous about this arrangement? I had a whole flutter of butterflies swarming around in my stomach, threatening to reintroduce me to the stew I’d eaten for lunch.

Korfas wanted a bride. I was here to find a husband. It was awkward, but there was no reason to get all emotional about it.

It was only marriage.

“Is something funny?” Korfas asked.

My lips had twitched. “This whole thing is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it? The bride program, I mean.”

“Are you having second thoughts?” Now he looked concerned. He bent a bit closer to me, the hulking form of his casting me in shadows.

Yes.

“Of course not. I’m just not sure what I expected.” The brochure had made it clear that New Knossos was a frontier town full of minotaurs. That hadn’t been hidden from me. But it was one thing to see a hologram of the place and another entirely to see it in person.

I was suffering from high expectations, or something like that. I had to get over myself.

Korfas was a good man. Or, er, monster. He was kind. He had a good job. There was a house somewhere and probably a big bed with just enough space for me. So what if his kiss didn’t send chills down my spine in a good way? I could get used to it.

I could make this work.

“Do you want to get dinner tomorrow?” I asked.

“I’m always hungry.” His words were almost a growl, but I couldn’t tell if he had another meaning he was trying to insinuate.

I forced myself to smile brightly. “It’s a date, then.” No matter what, I had to eat.

Behind us, on the street, someone snarled and I heard a crash. I whipped my head around to see what was going on, but Korfas was already shoving me behind him, as if he had to shield me from something happening a hundred feet away. I shimmied to the side and saw one minotaur hunched forward and breathing hard, his nostrils flaring and horns pointed like he was a bull facing down a bullfighter.

Except this bullfighter was another bull.

They charged at each other and met with a slap of beef on beef that had to hurt. But all I heard were grunts and snarls. And a curse from Korfas who stomped across the street, already yelling and cursing the fact that Remmen, the mayor, was out of town and had left Korfas in charge of all these uncivil ruffians. He got between the fighters and shoved the nearer one back by the shoulder. The other tried to go around him, but Korfas stepped into his path and the male pulled up short.

I bit back a smile. All afternoon, Korfas had been so careful around me, like he was afraid I’d run and demand passage on a ship back home if he showed the slightest hard edge. His surliness was the most intriguing thing I’d seen from him yet.

There could be hope for something there. Maybe.

I turned around to head back to the bride barracks, but the hair on the back of my neck rose up and I slowly turned my head to see a bull at the edge of the fray. But he wasn’t watching the fight.

He was staring directly at me.

Heat seared through me, from the tips of my ears all the way down to more… intimate places and I sucked in a harsh breath. Whoever he was, he wasn’t playing at being civilized. His neck was scarred and his horns were battered, with a crack going down one of them that made him look more like a scary monster than a regular one.

I wouldn’t be shocked to see him in a haunted house.

But I wouldn’t be screaming in fear.

There was heat in his eyes, something that made me want to take a step closer and find out more. Who was he? What was his name? Why hadn’t I seen him in town before?

There had been no flurry of questions when I met Korfas, just a polite hello and the mildest kiss this side of Alpha Centauri.

That minotaur across the street looked like his kisses would leave me breathless. And more. The scar on his neck disappeared beneath his shirt, and I wanted to follow it with my fingers.