Chapter 15 Prove it
Prove it
Taur
The disrespect Gorok showed me at the council meeting wouldn’t go unchecked.
Trying my patience and making a fool out of me in front of the others was a clear sign of treason.
It took everything not to pull his tongue from his caniving mouth.
The kings would have expected it. It wasn’t normal for a show of force at a gathering.
At the last one, Ryder and Darius ate the previous human speaker.
He’d been stupid enough to claim their mate as his own.
But I was not like them.
The rage did not rule me.
I was in control, not my instincts.
I didn’t need to kill Gorok in front of an audience. I could dole out his punishment on my own time, like right now. The walls rattled and dust fell as his back hit the stone. Hand on his horns, I kicked him in the chest. His ribs cracked as he took one blow after the other.
The way he watched her, the blatant disrespect of coveting my Mát while he fucked another, was enough to sign his death warrant.
My Mát would not feel threatened by another male in my realm.
“You dare covet what’s mine, Gorok?” I snarled as his head hit the ground.
“Never,” he choked out the lie before he spat out blood.
I had one goal: to claim his soul. Gorok wouldn’t live to see another day.
But as a pain so severe it churned my gut and a blinding migraine split my skull, I wavered.
The severed bond shrieked, tearing through the granite walls of my fortress.
Confusion swam. I’d just left her in the safety of the Herd’s women. My knees nearly buckled.
My rage was cold and propelled toward one thing: finding her.
I turned from the mass on the floor and headed back.
I ran the distance back to the harem quarters.
A new scent chased behind me: fear. Thoughts raced through my mind.
I’d just found her. I’d done nothing to get to know her. I didn’t even know her fucking name.
The sea of women parted as I entered. I knew where she was.
The psychic cord, now severed and screaming, dragged me forward, the gaping hole in my chest pointed straight to her.
She disappeared beneath the waters, the K’onn wrestled at the edge, over a knife.
I shoved them out of the way as I dived in.
Warmth surrounded me as I cut through the waters.
Mát hit the bottom just as I reached her.
I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her in before I drove us toward the surface.
When I pulled us from the waters, I moved her into my lap. She was slack, pale, and drenched against my chest. Blood seeped from her nose. I pressed my muzzle against her cheek, but she didn’t move. I lapped at her neck—nothing.
She wasn’t breathing deeply enough. I slapped her cheek to rouse her, but she didn’t move.
A sharp scream tore through the silence, and I found one of the guards pinning one of the K’onn against the wall.
The female was struggling; she was laughing—a thin, brittle sound of ecstatic victory. It sent a bolt of fear through me.
“She committed the forbidden,” the bull reported, his voice tight as I turned to focus on my Mát.
Breaking a bond was illegal. Máts were revered. To find your mate was a blessing, it was the stars aligning, it was the heavens smiling upon you.
I didn’t waste my breath asking how. In the guard’s grasp was a stone humming with dark energy—witchcraft. This was calculated. Not just a jealous concubine, but a trained saboteur, a witch, who had planned this. I ripped my gaze from the laughing K’onn and focused on what mattered.
I wouldn’t lose her.
I pressed my lips against hers and forced air into her lungs, repeating the process until her chest finally hitched and a ragged, shallow breath entered her body.
She still wouldn’t open her eyes, but she was breathing. She lived. A weight lifted from my shoulders. In this moment, it wasn’t the future of the Herd that worried me, it wasn’t my lineage… it was her. Everything had almost ended before it even began.
You aren’t allowed to die.
I lifted my chin, my focus on the bitch.
This was the second person who dared. Her existence was a vile offense.
She was the second creature to test me today, and as much as I wanted to rip her existence apart with my bare hands, she wasn’t the priority.
Not right now. I carefully picked up my little Mát.
Droplets of water fell from her limp form as I walked past the guard, past the scattering concubines.
I stopped directly in front of the K’onn. The laughter died in her throat.
“She’s a threat to the Herd. Lock her up. No food, no water, no visitors,” I stated, my voice low and flat.
“Yes, Taur,” the Herder said.
The bond was still screaming, a high-pitched whine only I could hear. It was damaged, and I needed to repair it. Fast.
“I wanted her. You got in the way, Taur. I know what the Herd doesn’t. You need two working hearts, not just one. She was mine back in Florida, and she’s mine here. She always will be,” she hissed.
I changed my mind. My massive clawed fist wrapped around her thin neck. With one movement, I felt the snap of her windpipe beneath my grip. There was no rage, no satisfaction, just duty. She had attacked my Mát. She had attacked me.
I tossed her body aside. The limp thud and a gasped cry from the other K’onn.
“And the other K’onn?” the Herder asked.
“Confine and watch her closely,” I growled.
I carried her out, holding her close to my chest, ignoring the Herd’s women.
She was too cold, and the unwelcome panic multiplied.
I ignored the deep instinct to rut her, to fill her up and drown out the whining distress signal in my head.
The link itself had been attacked and in doing so I now needed to rely on the human inside the bond.
I wiped the dark blood from her face and neck with the side of my hand, then laid her gently on the furs. The crescent mark looked bruised, but intact. The link wasn’t broken. It had been bent.
I let out a breath of relief as her eyes fluttered open, glazed and confused.
“Are you going to talk to me now? I deserve answers,” she rasped.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Jania?” she asked.
“Gone,” I murmured as I sat back on my haunches. The first pang of defeat filled me. This was the first time in my existence that I’d felt it. Instead of an attack, she just stared up at me.
“She said things that didn’t make sense. She knew me and she’d been tracking the Minotaurs,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “She… wanted me.”
“She was a fool. She thought the bond was something that could be altered. It is not.”
“But she did something. You felt it, didn’t you?” Her voice was stronger now, a challenge. Her question poked at the high walls I maintained, but she was right.
“I did. Didn’t you?”
She refused to meet my eye.
“Didn’t you?” I repeated. She nibbled on her bottom lip.
“It wasn’t the greatest, no. I passed out,” she answered.
“It was pain. It was survival, Mát. Our souls are a sliver away from being one. She tried to cut you from me.”
She didn’t flinch.
“So if we’re split, I’m dead,” she repeated aloud. I nodded. “What happened to Jania?” she asked as she searched my face for the truth.
“Dead,” I growled.
“Why?” she asked. We were at the edge of a cliff. This was the moment things would shift. The life I’ve lived didn’t call for words of love, for tender touches, and sweet kisses. I fought the urge to stand up and walk away.
“She attacked the future of the Herd, my crown, and the one things that connects me to a greater fate. She attacked our bond, but none of that mattered when I felt that pain. I don’t want to lose you. The magic is blocked, Mát. We must release it, or you’ll lose the life force I gave you.”
“I don’t… I don’t understand. You’re not making sense,” she whispered as she grabbed her temple.
“We will be one, or you will die.”
Her eyes widened with fear and understanding. Her hand lowered to her stomach.
“How do you seal it?” she murmured, but her eyes shone with the truth. She knew, but there was something she didn’t. I moved my hand to hers, covering the hook mark.
“We must flood the trapped magic and provide a fresh binding energy.”
“Sex. You mean you have to fuck me again,” she murmured. The nervousness bled into fear.
I nodded. “You need the energy, and I need the anchor.” I moved my hand to her breast. “To seal it, I need the energy to flow into you for you to produce the essence the bond requires.”
“Essence? What does the bond require?” she asked, her brows furrowing.
I pushed against her chest. “When I claimed you last night, I gave you life. It has been compromised and it’s now blocked. We must draw it out and immediately flood the wound. This forces your body to produce the purest binding agent. It leaks from here. I won’t stop until I’ve milked you.”
I paused, leaning down until my snout almost touched her ear.
“And I will ensure that nothing, human or Minotaur, ever threatens you again. Your safety is my survival. Our defiance of the bond ends here. We are partners in this realm now. You will stop fighting me and I will… be better. There cannot be me with no you. Do you understand?” I growled.
She turned to look me in the eyes. She was tired and weak, but there was fight there.
“Yes.” The one word she spoke was a surrender built from strength. “I don’t know if you know this, but women can’t produce milk from fucking.”
“In this realm, they can,” I confirmed.
I watched her for a long moment, fighting the urge to move first, fighting my instincts that told me to claim her. She sighed, giving in to the powerful thrum of arousal that sparked between us.
“No more talking. I’ll submit today, but I need something from you.”
“Name it,” I breathed.
“Prove you can be different. Show me it can be. Will you… make love to me, Mát?”