TAUREX
He moved quickly down the hallway, holstering the blaster beneath his jacket before he reached the bedroom door. He didn’t want the younglings to see the weapon, and he certainly didn’t want them to see what was behind him.
He opened the door and both children looked up. Lisa’s tear-streaked face went utterly still. For a heartbeat, she simply stared at him, then her eyes widened.
“Bull-man!” she gasped.
The boy scrambled toward the edge of the bed, dragging Lisa with him because their wrists were still tied together.
Taurex crossed the room in two strides and dropped to one knee beside them.
“You came!” Lisa sobbed.
“I came,” Taurex told her.
Her lower lip trembled.
“I was scared. So scared!”
“I know, little one.” He reached carefully for the ropes. “But you are safe now.”
Cody tried to hold himself together, but a moment later, the boy’s face crumpled.
“Are…are the bad men gone?” he asked in a husky voice that meant he was trying not to cry.
“Yes,” Taurex assured him.
“All of them?”
Taurex met his eyes.
“Yes. They will not hurt you again.”
“Good!” Cody nodded fiercely, clearly trying not to cry again.
Taurex pulled a small cutting blade from his belt and sliced through the ropes binding their wrists. The moment Lisa’s hands were free, she threw both arms around his neck.
Taurex froze—surprised at her reaction. Then Cody joined her. Suddenly both younglings were clinging to him as though their lives depended on it.
Taurex closed his eyes. He put his arms around them carefully, one hand spanning almost the entire width of Lisa’s small back while the other held Cody close.
“It is all right,” he murmured. “I have you and I won’t let you go.”
Lisa buried her face against his chest.
“I knew you’d come.”
Taurex’s throat tightened. “How did you know?”
She sniffed.
“I dreamed it. The Goddess lady told me in a dream.”
“She did?” Taurex asked.
“Uh-huh.” Lisa pulled back enough to look up at him with wet eyes. “She told me the Bull-man was coming to save us.”
Something inside Taurex suddenly seemed to break. He lowered his head and pressed his cheek carefully against the top of hers, mindful of his horns.
“Well,” he said, though his voice had gone rough, “the ‘Goddess Lady’ was right—the Bull-man is here.”
Cody gave a watery laugh and Taurex held them both tighter.
The Goddess had sent him to protect Terra’s younglings, but as he knelt there with both children clinging to him, Taurex realized that he no longer thought of them merely as hers.
Somewhere along the way, without permission or ceremony, they had become his too.
Not because Terra had given them to him and not because a Bond had made them his responsibility.
No, they were his simply because he loved them.
And whether Terra ever chose to be part of his life again or not, Taurex knew one thing with absolute certainty.
No one would ever hurt her children while he still drew breath.