Chapter 21
Katie
Idon’t know how to feel, how to act, or any of it. He followed me over the edge of a fucking mountain. What insanity must someone possess for them to do that for a person they don’t even like? My thoughts flit to Greg. Greg would do that, only to ensure I was really dead.
“Once I’m back to a hundred percent, I’ll leave,” I assure him, nodding to myself.
“Did you not just hear me?” He growls, stalking back over to where I sit on his furs.
“I will follow you wherever you go. Even if you were to leave, we could not be far apart without it causing us both physical pain. If one of us were to die, it would feel as if one half of ourselves had been cut from our chests, the pain indescribable. Life would not feel worth living. I have seen it happen.”
We’re face to face, and my eyes flick between his, noting the sincerity of his statement. I scrunch my eyebrows together.
“But—you wanted me gone. That was the whole point of marching me up that mountain in the first place. Now you’re saying you want me to stay?”
He rubs his hand down his face, taking a seat in his chair by the bed.
“I thought you were a trick played by the Drakons. They have done it before, though not since the barrier has been placed around Aeolia. I just thought… I do not know what I thought.” He shakes his head.
“You must know, people—women, young girls—were often left in my labyrinth as sacrifices, with the expectation that I would either fuck them or eat them, or both.” He looks disgusted, and my stomach roils, still unsure if I can really believe him on the human meat front. I wait for him to continue.
“I did not eat anyone.” He looks at me pointedly, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“Instead, each one lived out their painfully short human lives here with me in peace. It is how I learned many of the skills I now have, since I was abandoned as a child with no one else to teach me. I was happy to have the companionship for a short time. When the barrier went up, no one else could be offered as a sacrifice. It was a blessing and a curse, as the last of the females died from old age or sickness, until it was just me here on my own once more.”
I feel tears pool in my eyes for him, having lived such a sad and lonely life. I quickly wipe the wetness away with a sniff.
“So, I thought the Drakons had placed you in my labyrinth to either fuck or eat. My anger insisted I seek them out so they could take you back to wherever you came from and punish them for it, too. In my haste, I did not bother to listen to you. That was my mistake. We could have avoided,” he waves his hand around the air at us, “all of this.”
“That is—a lot.” I whistle. “Just so you know, I have no intention of going back to where I came from, even if I could figure out how.”
“I have gathered, since you took every opportunity to escape me on that mountain.”
I can’t help but smirk at him.
“But now, we are mates, and we are stuck together for eternity.” He slaps his knee and gets back up to potter around in what I assume is his kitchen area.
Hang on a minute. “You can’t just say that like it’s nothing,” I exclaim, flabbergasted. “What if I did want to go home? What then?”
“But you do not. So, tell me, why?”
Ah, shit. I grimace. Where do I start? What do I tell him? What do I not tell him?
“I’m kind of wanted.” Good, get it all out in the open.
“By whom?” He growls, and I reflexively flinch back at the sudden aggression. If he notices, he does not mention it. “They cannot have you. You are my mate.”
“Uh, the cops. Law enforcement,” I clarify, not really knowing what terms he would know. The idea of the cops running into a giant Minotaur is amusing. I wouldn’t mind seeing how well that’d go down.
“You are a criminal?” He snorts. “That is not surprising.”
“Hey!”
He shrugs unapologetically. “What did you do?”
“I shot my ex.” He looks at me blankly. “I used a weapon and hurt my mate?” I grimace at the choice of words. A mate Greg was not. But I’m unsure how else to explain it in a way he’d understand.
“You hurt a mate?” He frowns, looking out the window.
“Yes, but um, he hurt me first. It was self-defense.” I wring my hands in my lap.
He hands me another bowl of clear broth, his brow cocked as if he knows I’m going to argue.
I do the opposite and take it, grateful to have something to do with my hands.
His other eyebrow goes up in surprise. I sip on the delicious broth in silence while he supervises, glad his line of questioning seems to be over with, but nervous that he hasn’t said anything.
What if he kicks me out? I was going to go anyway, but then he insisted I have to stay, and I don’t know what I’m going to do anymore.
“Are you going to say anything?”
“He hurt you often?”
I stare into the bowl in my hands, my reflection looking back at me in the broth. The girl staring back at me is not just a victim, she’s a survivor. I made it out, and not everyone does. I straighten my back.
“Often enough.”
“Then he is no true mate. He deserves whatever you did to him and more.” He retrieves something, walking over and dropping it in my lap. My pocketknife.
“I just told you how I hurt somebody, and now you’re giving this back to me?”
“It is unfortunately not the first time I have heard such stories. Thank you for telling me yours. I understand why this knife is never far from your hand now. It would comfort me to know that you have it, if that is what you need to feel safe.”
I’m stunned into silence, putting the bowl to the side to trace the small knife in my lap.
“I, uh, don’t want you to treat me any differently now that you know. I’m not fragile. I won’t break.”
He huffs a laugh. “You are fragile. But I understand.”
I grumble, but am otherwise satisfied that he’s not going to walk around on eggshells with me.
I’m still trying to figure out who I am and who I can be, and I like having someone around whom I can bully a little, that I can push boundaries with, and learn what I’m comfortable with and still feel safe.
“I will let you rest some more. I will be in the garden if you need me.”
I nod, watching him go with a strange aching in my chest. Why do I kind of want him to stay?