Page 42 of The Alien Minotaur's Bride

It came off its hinges.

Keth stood in the frame, breathing hard, his horns lowered and his eyes wild. His fur was matted with what might have been sweat or might have been something else. There was a gash across his shoulder, dark with blood, and he held one arm at an angle that suggested pain.

He didn't seem to notice any of it.

His eyes found me, and everything else fell away.

"Mara."

I was off the pallet before I knew I was moving.

The space between us closed in heartbeats – my bare feet slapping against the floor, my body covering the distance at a dead run. He dropped to his knees just as I reached him, and I threw myself against his chest, wrapping my arms around as much of him as I could reach.

Which wasn't much. He was enormous, and I was small, and my arms barely spanned the width of his ribs. But I held on with everything I had.

His arms closed around me.

Not gently. Not carefully. He pulled me against him and folded around me entirely – his chest curving over my head, his arms wrapped tight around my back, one hand cradling my skull. I could feel his heartbeat hammering against my cheek, could feel the shudder running through his whole body.

He was shaking.

"I couldn’t…” His voice broke. "They wouldn't let me – I tried to find evidence, tried to prove – but they wouldn't let me see you...”

"I know." My face was pressed into his fur, my voice muffled. "I know. It's okay."

"It's not okay." His arms tightened, almost painfully. "Three days. I could smell your distress through the walls. I could feel you – fragmenting, falling apart – and I couldn't reach you."

I pulled back just enough to look at his face. His eyes were wet. His jaw was clenched so hard I could see the muscles jumping.

"You're here now," I said.

"I broke through the facility perimeter." He said it flatly, as if reporting the weather. "There will be consequences. I don't care. I couldn't – I couldn't–"

"Keth." I reached up, cupping his face in my hands. My palms barely covered his cheekbones, but he went still at the touch, those dark eyes fixed on mine. "You're here. I'm here. That's what matters."

His forehead dropped to rest against mine. His breath was warm on my face, his scent flooding over me – earth and musk and that sharp protective note that meant he was still on edge, still ready to fight.

We stayed like that for a long time. Just breathing together. Just holding on.

"There's something I need to tell you."

We'd moved to the pallet, sitting side by side. His arm was wrapped around me, his injured shoulder apparently forgotten, his tail curled around my hip like an anchor. The door was still on the floor where he'd left it. No one had come to investigate.

They were probably all too afraid to try.

"The guard sent word," I continued. "About my scent changing. But I don't know if anyone told you what happened."

"They told me something shifted." His eyes searched my face. "That's why I came. I felt it – through the bond, I felt something change. And then the message arrived, and I couldn't wait anymore."

"Vorreth visited me."

His whole body went rigid. The protective note in his scent spiked, sharp and metallic.

"He described what my life would be like in his household." I kept my voice steady. "Shared resource. Commercial production. Multiple alphas tending to me on a schedule."

A growl built in his chest, low and dangerous.

"And I made a decision." I turned to face him fully, my hand finding his chest, feeling his heartbeat under my palm. "I chose you. Not because the serum made me. Not because I didn't have other options. Because I looked at what he was offering and I knew – knew, Keth – that I wanted something else."