Chapter Five
What the fuck was she doing here?
Anger coursed through Deacon, not at her, but at the two men he put on bouncer duty.
Marion was proving to be a force to be reckoned with.
He leaned down to one of his men and ordered to get her.
She must have figured out his intention because she backed away from sight, disappearing into the crowd. She wouldn’t go far.
Now, what the hell was he going to do with her?
****
Marion knew she had to get the fuck out of there. As she pushed through people to descend the stairs, she started to notice more and more that the crowd wasn’t human. A lot of them seemed to sniff her. Faces morphing. Tongues. Eyes. Fur. Scales.
What the hell was happening?
Everything she knew about the world was obviously wrong.
Monsters were real. Down was up. Hot was cold.
And life was never going to be the same.
Had Peter come here to fight, only to end up like the boar?
If all these people weren’t just people, did Deacon just commit murder?
If he did kill Peter, it would be almost impossible to go to the police and tell them a fricking mythological creature was the suspect.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, a man dressed in black stepped in her way, blocking her escape route.
The pupils of his eyes were horizontally elongated.
She moved to the other side, and he followed.
Self-preservation kicked into overdrive.
When he jerked his head to indicate, follow me, panic filled every cell in her body, triggering her fight-or-flight response.
When she tried to dart away, the man grabbed her arm and started hauling her to Deacon.
She strained against him, desperately trying to pull her arm free, but the man had such a tight grip on her she knew there would be bruising.
He pushed people out of the way, yanking her along.
Then a loud growl-snort sound roared over the noise, and Deacon headed their way, fists closed and anger furrowing between his forehead ridges.
Was this the moment she died?
“Release her,” he snapped to the man who held her. His voice was deep and guttural. “Bruise her again and I’ll break your face.”
She was let go but immediately seized as Deacon grabbed her hand.
Marion couldn’t help but stare at the thick fingers and sharpened nails.
Slowly looking up his arm, like way up, as he loomed over her like a tall tree.
This close she could see all the intricate details of his face.
The long snout that ended with a very bovine-like nose with nares pushed flat and textured skin.
Marion tried to yank her hand free, with no success.
If this was how she died, then she would face it head-on.
She lifted her chin because she refused to be intimidated by this man. Animal. Beast. Whatever.
He escorted her through a side door that led to a private area away from the screaming crowd. Along the hallway, open rooms held other men and women readying themselves to enter the arena. Were they all some type of monster as well? How many species were there?
As they walked, Deacon’s hooves struck the dirt-packed floor with a resounding clop.
Completely different from her own step. They came to a closed door, and he opened it, dragging her inside.
It was an office of some type. It had a desk, a computer, chairs, and lots of paperwork everywhere.
Then the shimmer appeared and before her eyes the fur retreated, giving way to skin.
His bones cracked and popped as he went from a minotaur to human.
The horns disappeared back into wherever plane of existence they had appeared from.
Blood still stained his chest and fingers, but at least the spandex remained in place, thank goodness.
“What are you?” she asked, deciding to go with the obvious.
He raised an eyebrow, not answering as he walked over to an old-fashioned washstand. Dipping a washcloth into the water, he quickly cleansed his body.
“How much do you know your Greek mythology?”
“Apparently not enough to know it’s not mythology.”
He gave a ghost of a smile. Looking directly at her, he shucked his spandex shorts and stood there in all his naked glory.
A very mouthwatering man, only he wasn’t exactly a man.
With a smirk, he turned to a stack of clean clothes.
She admired his very nice, tight ass, not embarrassed in the least she stared.
“How did you fit all of this under Central Park, and no one knows about it?” she asked. Just one of the many questions flying through her brain.
He twirled his index finger. “All of this was here long before it was a park.”
Another thing that blew her mind.
“Tell me how you got in here, because I know I never gave you a red card.”
“Red card?”
“An invitation to the fight.”
“Ah,” she replied, lifting her chin. “Snuck in. Did you kill Peter?”
“I did not.” His voice rang with truth.
“But you know what happened to him.”
“Actually, I don’t,” he said. There was a noise outside the door that grabbed their attention. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
As soon as he left, she hurried around to the desk. The place was a disaster. As she shuffled through papers, she found everything and nothing, mostly invoices and memos. A shuffle had her hurrying back around to sit in a chair.
“Trouble?” she asked dryly.
“Do you care?”
“No,” she replied.
He sat down on the chair behind the desk. “Did you manage to go through everything?”
“You’re terrible at organization.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like I can just advertise for employment.” Any levity disappeared when he leaned back in his chair to study her. “You should’ve never been able to recreate your steps to find this place.”
“Why?”
“It’s part of the labyrinth’s enchantment,” he explained.
“You see, when Daedalus built the first labyrinth for my ancestor, Asterius, it had to keep changing to confuse the minotaur side of him. It wasn’t just that he was imprisoned by it, it also trapped him in his monster form.
And if any of us get trapped like that, then our human side slowly, painfully dies, until all we’re left with is the husk of a beast.”
His words painted a very different picture from what had been going through her head. Demonized in a world where it was wrong to be different.
“So, you use the labyrinth to make a living?”
He shrugged. “Might as well use the curse I’d been given to my advantage. I wasn’t the first minotaur, and I’m not the only. But I damn sure will be the richest.”
Marion thought about her own life. Stuck in a small-town job she hated. Do one thing wrong and everyone knows about it by suppertime. She couldn’t fault him for finding a lucrative way to use his unique situation.
“You said you snuck in,” he continued. “How?”
“A large group of people came through the pipe, and I blended with them. Although, the woman trying to sniff me now makes a lot more sense.”
“You’re turning out to be very resourceful.” He frowned. “The outside guards got complacent. I’ll have to switch them out.”
“Are you going to kill them?”
“You’re very fixated on me killing something.”
“Maybe because I just watched you kill an animal.” Horror filled her. “Or was that boar like you? Did you murder someone?”
“You care about a boar?”
“I care about the person he or she was.”
“Interesting,” he murmured. “No, it wasn’t a shifter. It was just a boar that was destined to go to a wolf pack. Every part of the animal will be used to feed them.”
“Is that what you are? A shifter?”
“Yes.”
“So, wolves are ... werewolves?”
“Some people call them that. The pack I deal with doesn’t use that word. Too much bad connotation from Hollywood.”
“How many species are there?”
“More than you think. Wolves. Bears. Lions. Dragons. Even trolls.”
“Trolls,” she repeated. “Billy Goat Gruff or Lord of the Rings?”
“Seriously?” He shook his head.
“What? It’s a valid question.”
She saw that he tried hard not to smile.
“What the hell am I going to do with you?” he mused.
“Hey, I know the first rule of fight club is that you don’t talk about fight club.”
Deacon gave a little chuckle. “So it is.”
“Did Peter fight?”
“Humans aren’t allowed to fight.”
“But you said you knew him.”
Deacon hesitated. “Not directly. He used to come into The Gin Room on the arm of a woman named Shiel.”
“He never once mentioned a woman named Shiel in his emails.”
“Maybe you don’t know him like you think you do.”
Marion looked away for a moment, not wanting to admit that maybe Deacon was right. “How do I contact Shiel?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Why?” she demanded. “She might know where Peter is.”
“Shiel is dangerous.”
“Dangerous how?”
“Ever heard of varanus komodoensis?” She shook her head. “Komodo dragons.”
“There are Komodo dragon shifters?”
“Like I said, lots you don’t know.”
“Okay.” Marion blinked, trying to quickly absorb all the information. “Is Peter her plaything or something?”
“Yeah,” he answered.
Although she knew the answer was coming, it still stunned her. “How do I find her?”
“You don’t,” he said. He grabbed a duffle bag on the floor and proceeded to put socks and shoes on. “I’ll talk to her.”
“If you talk to her, I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
She stood and glared at him. “Yes, I am!”
He stood and walked over until he was in front of her. “What is your relationship with Peter?”
“He’s my best friend.”
“Lover?”
“No. He’s like my brother.”
“Good.”
Before she could blink, he curled his hand around the nape of her neck and pulled her in close, slamming his lips onto hers.