Page 52 of Rauf: Minotaur Mates

I shrugged. “I’m not going to marry Korfas.”

Rauf came to stand beside me. His hand settled on the rail, brushing mine, and a tingle ran all the way up my arm. I didn’t pull away.

“You might meet someone else,” he suggested.

I didn’t know you could feel your heart break in real time. You! I wanted to yell. I met you! What I said instead was, “That’s not going to happen.”

His fingers closed around mine. I looked up at him, waiting for something better than that.

He lifted our joined hands and pressed his mouth to my knuckles. The tenderness of it hurt. I put my free hand against his chest, and when he bent toward me, I reached up to meet him.

This kiss was slower. His lips lingered against mine, and I held his shirt as if I could keep him with me just by refusing to let go. I wanted him to ask me to stay. Not because of Jason, not until someone fixed the dorm. I wanted him to want me here when there was nothing left to protect me from.

I pulled away. Again. Damn it.

“I can’t keep doing this, Rauf. I get that you don’t want me. That’s fine. I’m a big girl. I can take it. But I’m not doing this back-and-forth.”

“You think I don’t want you?” His voice was rough. He reached for me, then stopped when I took a step back. His hand stayed between us for a moment before he let it fall.

I swallowed. He looked so hurt that I wanted to touch him. “I know you want me. But you don’t want to keep me.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

I unlatched the gate and stepped out, closing it behind me. Rauf was still standing by the rail when I turned toward the barn door.

I kept walking toward it, even when I heard him say my name.

17

TERESA

Dinner was quiet, in part because Rauf wasn’t there. I wanted to give myself an award for not asking where he was or if he was eating. There wasn’t anything between us and he was a grown minotaur; he was responsible for his own damn meals.

Julia looked ready to crumble into dust. The red welt on her face was fading, so at least she wouldn’t have a black eye, but I didn’t envy her the nightmares that were sure to come from being attacked like she’d been. Robin kept shooting her sympathetic looks, but Julia ignored them.

Our food was stew and bread. Nakhil offered it with a proud smile and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was a little on the salty side. Whoever baked the bread, though, deserved every compliment.

After eating I considered going back to the barn, but Goataro was fine and the only other things that were there were the memories of my last conversation with Rauf.

No, thank you.

I went back to Rauf’s room instead. My room, for now. I’d changed into my pajamas and climbed onto the bed before realizing I hadn’t brought a book. I’d packed clothes and toiletries while three minotaurs waited outside a ransacked building. Entertainment hadn’t made the list.

So I sat in the middle of the enormous mattress with my back against the wall and nothing to do but contemplate every decision that had brought me here. Wonderful.

Going home was the obvious path. Earth was familiar. I could find another job where I spent most of my days up to my elbows in spays and neuters, working for someone who owned the practice and had no intention of letting me become more than an employee.

I’d left a job that looked promising from the outside. It had been good work. Necessary work. But the years ahead of me had all looked exactly the same, and opening my own practice might as well have been a fantasy when I could barely afford the life I already had.

I didn’t want to go back to that.

I’d been excited when I first saw the notice about Ceres-9. There were animals here no human veterinarian had ever treated, and a town full of people who were starting over too. I still wanted to open a practice here.

Then Rauf had happened.

If I went away, I could get over Rauf.

I hoped.