ANNE
Remmen held me so tight I could barely breathe, but I didn’t back up.
His mouth was still on mine, or mine was on his, copper and dust and the salt of his skin all mixed together.
His hands covered half my back and every finger was pressing in hard.
My own hands were fisted in his shirt and I wasn’t letting go either, not yet, not until I had enough of him in my lungs to believe this was over.
Then someone coughed. Not a polite cough. The kind of cough that said we can all see you.
I opened my eyes. We were standing in the middle of the main street with half of New Knossos watching.
Brides in doorways, bulls on porches, Lorkin frozen mid-stride with a look on his face that would have been funny if I had any humor left in me.
Every single one of them had just watched their mayor kiss the Agency counselor in broad daylight with blood still wet on his shirt.
“Let go,” I said, quietly at first and then more insistent when Remmen didn’t. I slid my hand around to his chest and pressed firmly. Not a shove, not exactly, but a punctuation mark on my statement.
He took another moment, but stepped back. His hands came off me slow. When I looked up, his face hadn’t come back yet. His eyes were flat and scanning the street, his jaw locked, and the set of his shoulders was all arena.
Screw all the people around us. I reached up and cupped Remmen’s cheek. “You did it,” I said. “We’re safe.”
Mestyn was a meaty heap on the dirt, Otho rushing up to tend to his wounds. A part of me wished Otho would let him rot. That asshole had kidnapped me off the street! But everyone, even the biggest asshole among us, deserved medical care.
The crowd parted at the edge and Nezara stepped through to the front. It took only seconds for her to take in what she saw.
Well, there went my job.
I’d feel some sort of way about that later, I was sure. But right then I was a mix of numbness and relief that I was alive and that Remmen was still on his feet.
Remmen didn’t notice her. His whole body stiffened as he looked over my shoulder and saw Rauf standing beside the other minotaurs from the Butchers’ ranch.
“You!” he sneered and pointed.
He was across the street before I could grab him. Remmen shoved Rauf square in the chest with both hands and Rauf stumbled back a step but didn’t raise his arms. He just took it, jaw tight, eyes down, and let Remmen shove him again.
“You dare lay a hand on my mate! You let that piece of filth anywhere near her?” His voice cracked on the last word. I’d heard Remmen angry before — cold angry, controlled angry. This was raw and shaking and loud, and it scared me.
Rauf opened his mouth, but shut it before any words could come out.
I surged forward, but Remmen put his arm out to keep me from passing him. I huffed in annoyance.
“Mestyn and Hesk are no longer welcome in this town,” Remmen declared. “As soon as their wounds are closed and Otho decides they won’t die, they’re on the next transport out. Is that understood?” He wasn’t talking to Rauf now.
I glanced around and saw nods from the crowd. Nezara had a calculating look on her face but I couldn’t quite interpret it.
None of the Butchers objected.
“And you all will be on that transport with them,” Remmen finally added.
I ducked under my mate’s arm and got between him and Rauf’s men. “What? No!” I put my hands out like that could stop him.
Remmen was in a cold, killing rage. And I had to stop this.
“Rauf untied me, Remmen. He had no idea what Mestyn was doing.” I kept my hands up between us and Remmen stopped moving forward.
My hands were shaking against his chest. He was hurt and running on whatever fuel was left after fighting two men in the street, and that fuel was burning mean. He knew better than this. He just couldn’t get there right now.
I smoothed my palms against his chest and stepped closer to my furious minotaur. “Don’t let him win like this,” I said. “Mestyn did this. Hesk helped him. The others had no idea. They’re just men, Remmen. They deserve to live here just as much as you do.”
I kept my eyes on his face. His nostrils flared around the iron ring and his jaw was set so hard the muscles jumped. His fists were still balled at his sides. I didn’t look away.
Some of the anger cleared from my mate’s eyes. He still glared at Rauf. “Go back to your farm. Get out of my sight.”
It wasn’t hugs and rainbows, but the worst was over for the moment.
My legs were shaking and my wrists still ached from the rope and I wanted to sit down on the nearest flat surface and not move for a week. But nobody was leaving. I looked around at the crowd and they looked right back. Apparently we were today’s entertainment, and nobody had anywhere better to be.
Nezara approached us, careful to stay well within Remmen’s sight but out of his reach. This woman knew how to deal with angry minotaurs, while I was the fool standing within goring distance. I didn’t back away.
“I believe the three of us have something to discuss,” she said lightly.
Remmen reached out and grabbed my arm like he was planning on physically stopping Nezara from taking me. I leaned in to him for just a beat before stepping away. “It’s okay, Remmen, she’s not going to ship me out right this second.”
Nezara looked a bit apologetic.
But before she could say anything else, Otho elbowed by her. “There are already three bulls waiting for treatment and I’ll be tending to this one for hours. Whenever you’re done with… this… I expect you in the clinic.” He hurried off behind the two bulls rushing Mestyn to the clinic.
“He needs an apprentice,” I told Remmen. “He was supposed to ask you.”
Remmen was looking at me strangely. After a second, the expression cleared. He turned to Nezara. “You’re not sending her away.”
Nezara pursed her lips. “I don’t like it either, but she cannot remain a part of the counseling program if she is in a romantic relationship with a potential client.
We have these rules for a reason. I’m sorry, Anne, but I cannot allow you to keep working here.
” She thought for a moment. “If you’re willing to undergo a probationary period, I could find you another assignment on another planet in light of the… situation.”
“I’m not leaving New Knossos.” The words were out of my mouth before I had even a second to think about it.
“She’s not going anywhere,” Remmen said at the same time.
Nobody said anything for a long second. Nezara’s mouth thinned.
“I cannot make her go anywhere,” Nezara conceded. “I simply work for the Agency. Can you be out of your apartment by the end of the week?”
The ground was a bit unstable under me, but only for a moment. Remmen put a steadying hand on my back and I nodded.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” Nezara said, and left.
The crowd thinned after that, slow, in twos and threes.
A bride tugged her mate’s arm. Lorkin said something low to Korfas and they went.
The Butchers had already gone, quiet, back the way they came.
Eventually it was just us standing in the churned-up mud with Mestyn’s blood drying brown on the dirt and the morning getting on without us.
“You will come and live with me,” Remmen said solemnly.
A laugh burst out of me, inappropriate as shit but I couldn’t stop it. “That was definitely the plan.”
He stared at me for a second. Then the corner of his mouth twitched, and Remmen laughed. A real one, rough and startled out of him. I laughed harder just hearing it.
I reached for his hand and my fingers came away wet. Warm and slick. I turned his arm over and there was a gash running from his elbow halfway to his wrist, still bleeding sluggishly, his whole sleeve soaked dark with it.
“Why didn’t you say something?” I pulled his arm toward me and looked at the wound. “Is this the worst of it?”
“There’s nothing that will kill me.”
Ugh, men.
“Come on, I’m taking you to the clinic. Otho needs help and…” I hesitated, because saying it out loud made it real. “And I think I’m going to be his apprentice.”
“You’d be good at it,” Remmen agreed. He squeezed my hand once, careful, with the hand that wasn’t bleeding, and held on a beat longer than he needed to. “And there are bulls that will never talk to an Agency-approved therapist, but they’ll talk to you. Just look at the Butchers.”
“Don’t call them that. And you just tried to banish them.” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“But I didn’t because a very thoughtful human stopped me.” He meant it, too. I could hear that much.
I tucked myself under his good arm and steered him toward the clinic. “You’re clearly suffering from blood loss. Come on, let’s go talk to Otho.”