Page 82 of Dancing for the Minotaur

The noise of the departing wole seemed to fade around them until all she could hear was her own heartbeat–which was banging against her ribs.

Was he going to kiss her? Did she want him to?

The answer to the second question came to her at once–yes. Yes, she did want him to kiss her.

But Taurex only looked at her for another long moment before slowly releasing her.

“Come,” he rumbled. “We must get going.”

Terra tried not to feel disappointed.

Professional, she reminded herself. Keep it professional–this isn’t a date–remember?

Right. Even if they were currently standing hand-in-hand inside a magical forest while he carried groceries home to cook her dinner, it still wasn’t officially a date.

Taurex shifted the living baskets more securely onto one arm and offered his free hand again.

“Come,” he rumbled. “Now I will show you my domicile.”

Terra slipped her hand into his and smiled up at him.

“I can’t wait to see it.”

And as he led her away through the glowing forest, she realized that was absolutely true.

22

TERRA

Taurex’s domicile was even more alien than the Market.

Terra had expected that after everything she had already seen on the Monstrum Mother Ship—the glowing flowers, the enormous wole creatures that served as public transportation, the market stalls grown directly out of living trees and the produce that literally sang when it was ripe—she would be prepared for just about anything. But when Taurex led her down a softly curving path bordered on both sides by feathery blue ferns and stopped in front of what was apparently his home, she could only stare.

The domicile seemed to have grown directly out of the surrounding forest. There were no straight walls or sharp corners anywhere that she could see. Instead, enormous pale-barked trees had twisted together to form the sides and roof of the structure, their trunks curving gracefully upward before joining in a dense canopy of overlapping branches covered in dark green leaves.

Wide windows had somehow been grown between the trunks—smooth oval openings covered in a transparent substance that looked like glass but shimmered faintly with a pearly iridescence when the light struck it. Long vines trailed over the roof and down the sides of the house, heavy with clusters of glowing lavender flowers, and the front door appeared to be made of some kind of thick living bark polished until it had a satiny sheen.

Terra stood at the end of the path with her mouth slightly open.

“You live in a tree house,” she said at last.

Taurex frowned.

“This is not a tree house. It is not a house in a tree.”

“It is literally a house made out of trees,” Terra pointed out. “Same thing.”

Taurex shook his head.

“It is a domicile grown from several different species of structural flora,” he corrected her.

Terra raised an eyebrow.

“So…a tree house.”

The corners of his mouth twitched.

“If you wish to call it that.”