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Asterion hummed. "So use a little more. If it were enough, your fingers wouldn't be glued together."
But he took the dough from me, rolling it in the flour, using the heels of his large hands and the backs of his knuckles to smooth and mix, rather than digging his fingers in as I had.
"What made you learn to make bread?" I asked him, slowly picking off the mess on my hands, watching the steady motion of his, the strength he used as the dough became elastic. His dark shirt cuffs were now coated in white, but he didn't seem to notice. I wished he would roll them back over his forearms, offer me a glimpse of the snarls of muscle I knew he must have.
"Hunger," Asterion said. "Same as you, I'd imagine."
"Years of feast, years of famine," I said, thinking of times long ago, times when whoring became too dangerous, or disease too widespread and food hard to find.
"Yes," Asterion agreed. "For the first half of my life, I was exactly the sort of creature Birsha believes monsters to be—a captive beast, and then a scavenger in hiding after I escaped the labyrinth."
"In the story, Theseus killed you."
"He nearly did," Asterion said, nodding. "But my half-sister, Ariadne, gave him false information about my body. It's easy to convince a man that the monster he faces in battle is wildly different than him. He missed my heart by a few inches, and he was far too eager to leave the labyrinth to wait until I finished bleeding out. He dropped his spool at my feet and followed the string out. Days later, when I was strong enough, I did too."
Asterion's motions were mesmerizing, a hypnotic rhythm in the rolling and stretching and shaping of the dough, the ragged edges smoothing to a silky finish. I entertained a whimsical fantasy of him transforming in the same way with those touches.
"I tried to give into the bull's blood for a long time, be the animal King Minos saw me as, the nightmare Zeus had fashioned as a joke, but…eventually, my mother's blood won out. I watched. I learned. I studied the hunters I hid from, and then the farmers whose land I circled. One night, I watched a pack of travelers turn into wolves. They sniffed me out immediately, but they had no qualms about my company, wild and untamed as I was. They taught me to cook, to speak, to survive with dignity. And they introduced me to the wider world of our kind, halflings and beasts and monsters."
He stopped, standing straight and rolling his broad shoulders. A rounded loaf of dough rested at the center of the table.
"There," he said.
"Hmph."
"Are Hywel's dreamers not cooking today? Laszlo and I can manage, you needn't—"
"I needed something to do with myself," I said, cutting Asterion off with a wave of my hand.
I'd needed to not fall back asleep. I almost had on the couch with Conall, drowsy and relaxed after his generous lovemaking, but then he'd kissed me goodbye, already dressed and heading for the door, and I'd roused myself, too afraid of what thoughts might claw their way up from my subconscious if I were left alone.
I pulled a clean square of linen out of the loop of my belt and draped it over the loaf to let it rest, debating over asking Asterion to let me follow him around the castle, asking him to tell me more stories or let me pore over maps with him. He was hovering too, neither of us speaking. We'd made hardly any conversation up until last night and just now, but I liked his mind, his low voice.
"I told him to stay," Asterion murmured.
"I don't care," I said, shaking my head. He hummed, as if to refuse my answer, and I snapped. My hands grabbed onto the broad collar of his coat, tugging him to face me. "Asterion, I amusingConall, the same way I used you in the carriage, the same way—That night, when you—"
Asterion's nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed. "I remember that night perfectly,théa. You did notuseme. I touched you while you slept. It was I who took advantage."
"I wish you would again," I spat out, a graceless invitation.
Asterion rumbled, his head turning to the door, and I huffed out a sigh, giving up on snaring this minotaur's attention. My hands loosened at the same moment that his grabbed my hips, clutching tightly and pulling me up to my toes. I gasped as Asterion bowed, my face already lifted to his, ready to accept the rough and slightly clumsy kiss.Néktarrushed over my tongue and down my throat, Asterion's delight in the kiss so incredibly potent, as strong as the fury with which his tongue took my mouth.
I moaned, an eager and languid form giving into his hands as one slid up my spine to hold the back of my neck. He groaned and the sound shook me down to my core, a pulse and throb of willing interest answering the sound.
And then, as quickly as he'd claimed me, I was released, set aside. I stumbled, unbalanced, and found Laszlo standing at the top of the short stairs that let into the kitchen.
"Excuse me," Asterion said, bowing to me and heading for the door.
Laszlo's eyebrows rose behind his glasses, but he stepped aside to let Asterion pass. I gaped at the broad back as it fled the room, leaned my hip against the table to hold myself up, and tried to catch my bearings once more. Laszlo's wings flexed absently as he approached me.
"I'm sorry for interrupting."
"It's fine. It certainly didn't take much for him to scurry off," I muttered. Laszlo neared, and I remained still as he bent, sniffing briefly at my hair.
"You smell fine to me," he said, adding after a pause, "A bit like wolf."
I snorted and shook my head. "Perhaps you appreciate Conall's scent more than Asterion does," I suggested, thinking of the obvious and antagonistic flirting Conall pressed upon Laszlo.
