Page 119 of Dancing for the Minotaur

He had believed that if he moved slowly enough, if he showed Terra day after day that she was safe with him, then eventually she might look at him and see what he saw—a future, a family, a Bond. Instead, one careless confession had destroyed weeks of trust.

How could he possibly ask her to Bond with him now? The answer was brutally obvious—he couldn’t. A Bond required openness so complete that nothing could be hidden. Their minds would touch, their emotions would flow between them, and at the deepest level of Joining, they would know one another in a way no unBonded beings ever could.

Terra had been horrified merely hearing about it.

There was no universe in which a female who flinched at the sight of him would willingly open her mind to his. There was no universe in which a woman who begged him not to hurt her would place her soul in his hands.

Taurex bowed his head. He had found his fated mate, and he had lost her before she had ever truly been his.

The old Monstrum teachings said that finding one’s mate was the greatest blessing the Goddess could bestow. They spoke endlessly of joy, completion and the profound peace of finally encountering the soul meant to walk beside yours, but no one spoke much about what happened when that soul did not want you.

Perhaps it was because so few males survived it well.

Taurex understood why now. The pain wasn’t like heartbreak as humans described it. It was deeper, almost cellular—a sense that some essential part of him had been shown the place where it belonged and then was torn away.

And yet Terra was still only a few rooms away, which somehow made it worse. He could feel her presence in some instinctive way, like warmth just beyond his reach.

But he would not reach for her—not again.

Slowly, Taurex straightened.

“All right,” he whispered into the quiet kitchen. “It’s over.”

If releasing her was what she needed, he would release her. He would take her home in the morning and apologize without excuses. He would explain that the Bond was voluntary only if she wanted to hear it, and if she didn’t, he would say nothing more. He would make certain she and her family were financially secure regardless of whether she continued working for him, and then he would let Terra decide what happened next.

Even if her decision broke him.

The artificial dawn began gradually, a faint green-gold light appearing beyond the windows as the Mother Ship’s enormous interior sun prepared to rise over the forest. The glow-vines responded by brightening one blossom at a time, bringing soft light back into the domicile Terra had filled with laughter only the day before.

Taurex stood alone in the kitchen and watched the light grow, thinking of how differently he had imagined this morning.

He had imagined Terra waking in his arms. He had imagined preparing breakfast for her, teasing her about the ridiculous names she gave his household plants and perhaps later taking her to one of the restaurants she had wanted to see. He had imagined another day of showing her his world.

Instead, he would be taking her away from it…away from him.

Taurex swallowed around the ache in his throat and began preparing a small breakfast she probably wouldn’t eat. It was the last thing he could do for her before he took her home and, perhaps, the last thing he would ever do for his mate.

31

TERRA

Terra was completely dressed and packed by the time she finally worked up the nerve to leave the sleeping chamber the next morning. She stood for several minutes with one hand resting on the living bark of the door, her heart pounding, before she could make herself open it.

She hadn’t slept at all.

Every time she closed her eyes, she remembered Taurex standing in the doorway, his immense body filling the opening, and the terror that had seized her when she realized just how completely she had put herself in his power by coming all the way out here with him.

He hadn’t done anything to justify that fear—at least not physically. In fact, when she’d asked him to leave her alone, he had done exactly that. But if there was one thing stripping had taught Terra, it was that men could be unpredictable. A man could be smiling one minute and calling you beautiful, then grabbing your wrist hard enough to leave bruises the next, because you wouldn’t give him what he wanted.

Taurex hadn’t seemed angry when he left her room last night, but what if he’d spent the whole night getting angrier? What if he decided this morning that she owed him something because he had brought her here, fed her, paid her so generously and given her a job?

Terra hated herself a little for thinking that way about him, but fear wasn’t logical, and she was suddenly desperate to get home—to see her mother and hold Cody and Lisa so tightly they would complain she was squishing them.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open and made her way quietly down the curving hallway toward the kitchen, carrying her overnight bag in one hand and pulling her little rolling suitcase behind her.

The living house was beginning to wake around her, the glow-vines brightening one flower at a time as the artificial morning light filtered through the windows. But instead of seeming magical the way it had the day before, everything felt strange and alien now.

What was I thinking, coming millions of miles away from home with a man I’d barely known for a month? she asked herself.