Page 117 of Dancing for the Minotaur

The domicile seemed unnaturally quiet as he walked through it. The glow-vines along the walls had already dimmed themselves for the night, their golden and blue blossoms giving off only enough illumination to guide him. The great structural trees that made up his home creaked softly as they shifted and breathed around him.

Normally Taurex found the sounds soothing, but tonight they only emphasized the absence of Terra’s laughter. Only hours earlier, she had wandered through these same rooms with her eyes wide and full of delight, touching everything, asking questions, and giving ridiculous Earth names to every living appliance she saw. “Refrigerator plant.” “Oven plant.” “Dishwasher plant.” He had pretended to be exasperated by it, but secretly he had loved every moment.

He had loved having her here. Loved seeing her sitting on his living couch as it shaped itself around her soft curves…loved standing beside her in the kitchen while she chopped vegetables and teased him about the color of the marnak meat…loved watching her eat the meal he had prepared and seeing the surprise on her face when she discovered she liked it. Most of all, he had loved hearing her voice and her laughter filling a domicile that had been silent for so long.

For a few precious hours, Taurex had allowed himself to imagine that this might someday become normal—Terra in his home, Terra beside him, Terra laughing at his table and sleeping in his bed and perhaps, one day, bringing her younglings and mother to live on the Mother Ship if they wished.

He had allowed himself to imagine having a family.

And then he had destroyed everything by speaking too soon.

“Fool,” Taurex growled aloud. His voice sounded harsh in the quiet room as he shook his head. “Gods, what a fucking fool I am.”

He reached the main living area and sank heavily onto the broad living couch. The vegetation immediately shifted beneath his weight, thick branches strengthening themselves to support his massive body while layers of soft moss molded around him, but Taurex barely noticed. He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees and buried his face in his hands.

Why had he told her? Why in the Goddess’s name had he chosen that moment?

Terra had just endured an attack by the pleasure blooms. She had been frightened and vulnerable, her body reacting to alien chemicals she did not understand, and although she had eventually allowed him to heal her, that should have been all he did. Just heal her…comfort her…hold her if she asked to be held and leave her alone if she didn’t.

Instead, he had tasted her sweetness, felt her body trembling beneath his mouth, heard her cries as she came for him and lost whatever good sense the Goddess had given him.

You are my fated mate.

He could hear himself saying the words again and he wanted to go back in time and clamp his own mouth shut. He had been so overwhelmed by the joy of pleasuring her, so intoxicated by the knowledge that she trusted him enough to open herself to him, that he had forgotten everything he knew about Terra.

He had forgotten what she had endured, forgotten how suspicious she was of any male who tried to control her, forgotten Viktor Orlov and the way the human male had called her “my Bunny” as though saying the words gave him some right to possess her. He had forgotten Jackson, the male who had spent years diminishing her and making decisions about what Terra should be, how Terra should look and what Terra should want.

Then Taurex had looked into her eyes and told her that she was his—as though he owned her. Of course she had been frightened!

To a Monstrum, the words “my mate” were an expression of devotion so profound that no other vow could equal them. They did not mean “you are my possession.” They meant “my life is bound to yours.” They meant “your happiness is my happiness, your pain is my pain, your younglings are my younglings, and your family becomes my family.” They meant that a male would put himself between his mate and death without hesitation and consider it an honor to give his life for hers.

But Terra did not know any of that. She heard his language through the wounds other males had given her, and Taurex had been too blinded by his own happiness to understand how his words would sound.

Worse, when she had recoiled from the idea of being his fated mate, he had kept talking. Taurex groaned and rubbed both hands over his face as he remembered telling her about the Bond. He had told a woman who was already frightened by the psychic flashes between them that eventually they might hear one another’s thoughts. What in all the Seven Hells had he been thinking?

“Once we’re Bonded and can hear each other’s thoughts, you’ll see that I never meant you any harm.”

Taurex felt physically ill remembering the words. He had meant them as reassurance, but instead he must have made the Bond sound like a prison—something that would invade her mind and strip away the privacy she valued…something inevitable…something he intended to do to her whether she wanted it or not.

“No,” Taurex muttered, shaking his head. “No, lovely one. Never. Never.”

A Bond could not be forced—not a true one. A Joining required consent from both parties. The Goddess might place two souls in one another’s paths, but She did not compel them to walk together.

Terra could refuse him. She could choose never to Join with him, never to share his bed, never even to see him again. Unless they Bonded, she was not bound to him in any way, and she could leave him forever.

The thought made his heart fist in his chest because now that possibility seemed terribly real.

Taurex looked toward the hallway that led to her room. Only a few hours earlier, Terra had curled against him willingly. She had placed her small hand over his heart and asked him to hold her. She had kissed him. She had trusted him enough to lie naked beneath him and allow his mouth on the most intimate places of her body.

Now she was probably lying awake behind a closed door, wondering whether he was going to come charging through it to hurt her or to take what she wasn’t willing to give.

The thought was unbearable.

Taurex had spent weeks trying to make her feel safe with him. From the moment he first saw her at the club, he had known Terra was accustomed to males who took—males who demanded—who believed that currency entitled them to touch her body whether she wanted their hands on her or not.

So he had done the opposite. When she told him not to touch her, he hadn’t. When she became frightened by the connection between them, he left immediately. When she needed work, he gave her work and made damned certain she understood that her body had nothing to do with her employment. He had kept his hands to himself every day they worked together even when every instinct inside him urged him to reach for her.

He had been patient…or he had thought he was.