Page 5 of Rauf: Minotaur Mates

“You know, I was just stopping back here to, uh, pick this up.” My eyes darted around until I picked up the book I had sitting out on my nightstand. “I’ll let you get unpacked. See you for dinner?”

I fled before she could talk or cry any more.

2

RAUF

“Her name is Teresa,” Drev called over his shoulder as I hauled a bale of hay from one pile to another.

He was leaning against the fence, legs hooked together like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Who?” For a moment, I even meant the question. There were a lot of hers in town these days and I didn’t bother to learn their names. Well, other than Anne, but she was a friend, despite her poor taste in bulls.

Drev pushed off the fence and swaggered toward me. He’d been a showman in the arena and had never lost his flair for the dramatic. He was nearly as tall as I was, with a chest broad enough to block the barn door. He took the long way around the water trough so I could watch him arrive, then hooked his thumbs into his belt. He’d have waited for a crowd to settle if we’d had one. “The woman Korfas is courting.”

I stamped my hoof, but kept my face perfectly blank. “Of course Korfas is courting. Remmen found a wife, so now Korfas must too. Isn’t that how it works?” This place pretended to be civilized; it pretended that we weren’t beasts made for bloodsport.

I often wondered if we might be better off somewhere else. New Knossos had no room for Butchers.

Drev seemed to have found room. He had planted beans beside the kitchen wall and spent half of yesterday arguing with Nakhil about whether the first shoots were weeds. He’d gone into town twice this week and come back with a new shirt and a bag of sweets he claimed were for everyone. There were still males there who wouldn’t speak to him, but he kept finding reasons to go. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d bought anything in town without keeping one eye on my truck.

“She’s still staying in those new bride barracks,” Drev continued, like it mattered. “Apparently our brave deputy hasn’t convinced her to yoke herself to him just yet.”

I set the bale down with the others and went to the rack for a fork. Drev followed me into the barn. I lifted the loose hay that had fallen into the walkway and threw it into the nearest stall while he leaned on the door and waited for me to ask what else he’d heard.

“The west trough needs filling,” I told him.

“I’ll get to it.” He watched me turn a second forkful.

I pushed the fork into the hay harder than I needed to. It struck the boards underneath. Drev’s mouth twitched, but he finally took the hint and went to see to the trough. I waited until his footsteps had faded before I pulled the fork free.

Teresa—no, the woman—could yoke herself to whoever she pleased.

With my duties in the barn done, I considered going back inside. I could have a cold drink and kick my feet up somewhere… and pretend there wasn’t work always waiting to get done. In the arena, it had been easy: wait, fight, bleed, and do it all over again, every day until you died.

On the farm the work was even more demanding.

I almost missed the blood.

But that was the old world talking. I would have been dead by now if we were still in our chains. I had choices now. I could say what food I wanted to eat and sleep where I wanted to sleep. If I wanted to let the barn fall into disrepair, no one would stop me.

And no one could tell me what to do.

Which meant I had to do it myself.

The fence was a mess that seemed to be built of wood that dissolved like candy in the rain.

I was pounding away at the post, putting my full weight into each slam of my hammer when an ancient sensation drilled into me from years in the sand had me slowly lowering the giant hammer to my side. I didn’t put it down, though. The town liked to pretend otherwise, but there were threats on Ceres-9. Wild animals, like the one Mestyn had captured and nearly gotten killed by. And worse, strange sounds in the distance that didn’t sound natural. Foul smells from deep in the caves. This place wasn’t paradise.

But it was home. And I’d fight to keep it.

It wasn’t a threat walking up the road, at least not one that I could fight.

Her scent hit me, carried by a gentle gust of wind.

Rosemary. Under it was the warmth of her skin, the same scent that had stopped me in the middle of the street. My fingers tightened around the hammer handle. I took a breath through my mouth, which didn’t help because I wanted to draw her in again. My heart beat harder than it had when there was a street between us.

She came around the bend with a pack on her back. A loose strand of dark hair had stuck to her cheek. She pushed it away without slowing down and looked toward the fields, then the house, then at me. I should have gone back to the barn. Instead I watched her pick her way around a ditch and cross to the sound part of the road.