Minotaur: Prayer: The Bestial Tribe Read online

  Mount me, female. The need burst like wildfire in his skull.

  He needed to mate her in the way of bulls. He needed her small human quim working itself upon his member, he needed to know she had chosen him despite the fact that he was going to take her anyway. The future be damned.

  He tore his mouth from hers with a growl and lowered them to the ground on her remaining wax. Within seconds, the thin layer softened beneath them, cradling Calavia’s body. It did not stick to her and when he touched it with his fingers, it did not stick to him. Astegur turned his attention from it and moved over Calavia hungrily, but only for a moment. He grasped her hips and spun them until she was atop him, straddling his stomach.

  “Mount me,” he ordered. He shoved aside his loincloth and caught up the thin folds of her dress, making sure not to rip the material.

  Her hair was a ghastly mess, haloing her shoulders, covering her chest, and sticking to her trembling, kiss-bruised lips. He bunched her dress in his hands and exposed her sex where it hovered above his.

  Her fingers curled on his chest. “I have not fully recovered from the last time.”

  “Then go slow, but mount me now, female.” Astegur growled. “And I vow to be your hero.”

  “Hero,” she said so softly he barely heard the word leaving her lips. “My mother spoke of heroes. They do not exist.”

  A desperation filled him. His eyes snapped from her face back to her cunt, so close to his cock. A hairsbreadth above his aching tip. Heroes did exist, he wanted to tell her, but they never existed long. It did not matter, because he needed her to mount him, to claim him as much as he had already claimed her. His body had primed itself, sensing a mate that was everything he wanted. His brothers would be envious. If she would just work herself down onto his member...

  Astegur gripped her hips and pressed her hard against his cock; his hungering, cum-covered tip slipped over her tight core.

  So close… His mouth watered with excitement.

  “You have made a hero out of me, hag. But if you do not lower yourself onto me soon and finish this, I will do it by force.”

  She frowned, tossed her messy hair back, and pushed her knuckles into his chest. Then, before he could stop her, she scooped up a handful of wax from the side and covered his cock with it. It hardened painfully, feverishly, bulging out in the middle as her magic flooded his appendage. It solidified over his aching flesh, igniting a singular sensation. Her hands brushed back over it when he thought his bull’s cock was about to explode; her wax peeled and fell off of him. His erection looked angry, red, and raw underneath.

  “What have you done to me?” he gritted.

  “Mine,” was all she said.

  Darkness clouded his vision as his cock thrummed with the need to be soothed.

  His hands came up to shove her off him and onto the floor. He ripped her legs apart and slammed his bespelled prick into her, roaring.

  Her scream filled his ears, blending with the guttural noises rising from his throat as he claimed her quim hard. He was too big, and she was too tight, but a primal ferocity filled his head. Her nails tore into his skin, into him, and he struggled to contain his need for her.

  He rammed into her hard, relentlessly, releasing all the frustration and fury that had built up inside him over the past week, and reclaimed the female who had caused it all. Smoke filled the room around them as it expelled from his mouth in waves.

  Then her legs gripped his sides, and she arched beneath him, her cunt strangling his shaft.

  The sensation caught him off guard as another scream tore from her throat, one filled with pleasure. Her quim began to milk his cock like it needed to feed, so thirsty from countless years alone. Her mouth fell open with a continuous whine, which heightened with every thrust of his hips, amplifying his need for her into a frenzy.

  Astegur grunted, banging his horns into the stone floor above her as his seed spilled forth, feeding her what her cunt so badly desired.

  Panting and clawing each other’s flesh, he found his bliss, having fought for it with her, from her. As his seed spurted deep inside her tight sheath, triumph flooded his mind. Another battle won. He lifted up on his forearms to look down upon his quivering human. Sweat dripped from his face onto hers. Her eyes were hooded as they found his.

  For minutes they shared breaths, catching the air together, used and tired from the elation. Astegur leaned down to lick the sweat from her face.

  “You have pleased me, female.” His tongue roamed her forehead. “You will not die at the hands of your enemies.” He cupped her face as she pressed her hands into his chest, her expression shifting from exhausted to nervous desperation in an instant.

  “They need to be stopped,” she said, dragging him back to their shared battle.

  Astegur grunted in agreement. “You will not die by their hands, nor will I allow them to take you captive. Whatever you have done to hide your pure nature, I understand why. But now that you are found out,” he growled again, “your lies have come to an end.”

  She was a rare creature, and with all rarities, they needed to be kept away from the world and made use of for those charged with their ownership.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  He lowered his head to her ear and slid his tongue over it, his voice no more than a dark whisper. She shivered, and her cunt clenched his cock, making him desperate to feed her his seed again.

  “Understand this, female—my vow has been made, but heroes are villains in another beast’s eyes. Your death no longer belongs under the hooves of a hundred centaurs, it belongs to me. This belongs to me.” He pulled his member out from between her legs, spilling his seed all over her and her wax as another small cry rose from her throat. “If I must fight for you here, instead of at the giant walls of the labyrinth, so be it.” Astegur rose up on his knees to look down upon her. “I will fight. But in return, I will take you. I will have you. And when this is all over, you will submit your will to me in front of the cursed mist and all its monsters, and you will become my mate forever more.” He stood up and breathed out the last of the heat filling his loins. His prick spurt cum all over her rumpled dress.

  And before she could say otherwise, before she could fight him and his possession as he knew she would, he strode to her altar and found her ritual knife and bowl, placing them on the wax beside where she now knelt in beautiful disarray.

  “Release me, Calavia, and let us begin.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Release him?

  She sat up and smoothed out the wrinkles of her dress, her fingers slipping through his thick cum. Her muscles quivered, the clenching of her sex had yet to stop from her orgasm, and his seed continued to slip out from between her thighs.

  Astegur moved to her side and handed her the bowl and knife. She took them from him and stared down into it.

  He settled his hand over her thigh, sharing the warmth she had come to know was his. She liked his heat, his unflinching strength, but what she liked most of all was that in his lust for her she found her own power. It wasn’t one-sided. They shared it mutually. She had never shared anything so physical, so emotional, with another being. But to release him?

  I don’t know if I can.

  The shock of spears being thrown at her, of her mother tearing at her skin, and the purity of her blood being discovered… It made her stomach sick. Not even the sharp pain and wild pleasure of sex could make it go away for more than a few blissful moments. And that’s what Astegur gave her—distraction. She had never had something to divert her from her problems in the past.

  Her vision wavered on the bowl. Her hands tightened around the edges. What if I release him and he leaves? The thought of suddenly being alone again tore her heart in half. Calavia swallowed thickly, trying not to let the thought disturb her, but it did. When had she begun to care for him as much as she cared about Prayer and her people? I don’t want to care. I don’t want to lose what I have.

  That idea alone inst
illed fear in her, but the thought that there was more to the world than she’d ever dreamed convinced her to relinquish some of her power.

  I don’t want to be alone again. Even with an army coming to destroy all she held dear, suddenly it all seemed for nothing now that she had a taste of what life was truly like outside the protective barriers of the temple.

  Perhaps annihilation is better than loneliness.

  Astegur’s hand left her leg and he tugged on a strand of her hair when she didn’t respond. She looked his way, but only after she was certain her face did not betray her thoughts.

  “Calavia,” his voice darkened, reminding her that he still waited for an answer from her.

  She licked her lips and nodded, pushing her hair out of her face as she gripped the knife in her other hand. In one sure move, she sliced her palm and bled into the bowl.

  Astegur rumbled beside her, and saw his member grow fully erect once more. She pressed her legs together, her sex still raw.

  She lifted her palm for him to lick her blood while she grabbed some wax from beside her and placed it into the bowl. His tongue lapped at her hand until all the blood was gone, making her belly jump. She rose up, ignoring it, and moved to her altar to light the few candles still positioned atop it. He followed her like a demon trying to possess a source. He was her shadow.

  I can’t keep him here against his will. I can’t make him suffer for my mistakes.

  Now his life actually meant something more to her than a means to an end. She cared for him, even though she knew she shouldn’t, and that knowledge changed her goals. An attachment had formed, one that she didn’t want to vanish. Didn’t want to die.

  If he fought and died for her—against his will—she would never be able to forgive herself. Astegur was hers now, and she was his. At least until the threat they faced passed or ended in their demise.

  Calavia pressed her wounded hand to her chest. Her heart beat hard within. She was on the verge of losing everything and all her thoughts kept coming back to her champion. The emotions revolving in her head confused her.

  If she had to choose between him and her life...

  She steadied herself and with one last press of her palm against her heart, she set the bowl over a flame with her other hand. The wax and her blood swirled together.

  I would choose him.

  Calavia exhaled and reached under her dress and took some of Astegur’s seed from where it traveled down her thighs, and added it to the mixture.

  “Give me your hand,” she ordered, without looking his way.

  Instead of sliding it into her view, he cupped her cheek and turned her head. It took more than she would ever admit to keep her face stone. His black eyes pinned hers momentarily. She looked up his long, sharp horns, only to drop her gaze back to lock with his.

  He pressed the pad of his thumb into her bruised lips and rubbed them, making her ache further. But he released her, and she turned back to the bowl she still held over the candle. She set it down on the altar, picked up her knife, took his offered hand, and sliced his palm until he bled into the mixture as well.

  “Blood guard us, blood sustain, until the day that only blood remains,” she said softly, using the tip of the knife to mix it. When it was done, she offered him the bowl. “Drink it.”

  Astegur watched her as he lifted the bowl to his lips, stopping right before it touched his mouth. Calavia bit down on her tongue hard, fisting her hands into the folds of her dress to keep herself from slapping the bowl out of his hands.

  “Blood guard us, blood sustain, until the day that only blood remains,” he said slowly, his eyes remaining on hers. In warning. In brutal hope. Possibly in distrust.

  She whispered, “Everything I have taken from you and yours, I give back now.”

  He knocked his head back and swallowed it. Pain ripped through her briefly, the exact same pain from when she’d compelled and bound him to her before. It faded quickly.

  His throat bobbed with each gulp, in sync with her quickening heartbeat.

  A long, rumbling noise sounded in her ears, coming from a distance, but ended up in Astegur’s throat. The bowl fell from his hands as the sound strengthened. He reached out to clasp the edge of her altar as he bent over, closing his eyes.

  “Are you all right?” she asked and reached out to touch him, but the moment her fingers met his flesh, he jerked away. “Astegur?”

  His head remained down, his chin touching his collarbone, poisoned horns pointed outward like a pair of daggers brandished by an assassin. She wanted to reach out and touch him again, but unease filled her heart. His back moved up and down, his chest expanding, heaving, the veins along his muscles rose with tension. She turned away, unable to watch her magic work on him. She knew what he felt inside: acidic pain.

  It was her fault he felt the same sacrifice she had made to the mist.

  Calavia rushed to the side of the room and shoved the vines on the wall aside to expose the stone shelves behind them. Inside, she found one of her wax vials filled with cove and blimwort and uncorked the top. She returned to his side. “Take this. It will help.”

  A growl was his answer as he jerked away from her again, slapping his hand on the wall nearest him. Smoke poured out from his face to gather above his head.

  “Astegur, please,” she whispered, moving slowly, nervously closer to him. “It’s cove and blimwort and a little bit of my—”

  He shoved her aside and stormed to the entrance. She fell back but caught herself at the edge of her altar, wild, worried eyes landing on his retreating back.

  He’s leaving.

  Calavia felt fear like she had never known before. She pushed away from her altar and went after him. “Astegur, wait! Please!” She hated the whine in her voice.

  He tore through her thralls and stepped off the stairs and into the swamp.

  “I can help you, don’t go.” Her voice hitched. “I can help you.”

  He continued to flee her presence without a word, and she stumbled down into the swamp herself, lifting her skirts to hurry her movements.

  “Please don’t leave me!” she yelled after his retreating back, uncaring who or what heard. The mist flooded in between them, making him harder to see. “Please don’t leave me!” she screamed when he vanished from view.

  Calavia stumbled forward a few more steps, searching frantically for him, but there was no sign of him. Nothing but thick, horrid mist. The same cursed substance that protected her, the same she worshipped because it had been the only constant, living thing in her life. Tears formed on the edges of her eyes, blurring the foggy brume to a swirl. “Astegur!” she screamed again, but there was no answer. Nothing.

  She was alone again.

  With the mist.

  With the living dead.

  With an army on the way to take everything she had left. She fell to her knees and wept. Calavia wiped them off her face, but they continued to fall, and she sank further into the mud. Horrible, wrenching pain squeezed her heart.

  I can’t… I can’t be alone again. I don’t want to die alone.

  She curled her arms into her chest and sobbed out her final defeat when something touched her shoulder.

  Calavia looked up slowly, rubbing her eyes as a woman appeared standing next to her, a woman who looked like herself. Around her, and on all sides, stood the old townsfolk, her thralls, each with a crude stake in their hands. They had followed her. They had come for her. They relied on her, and she could not fail them. “Mother,” she cried.

  She turned her head to the side and pressed her brow against her mother’s legs, seeking comfort where she knew there was none. There was nothing left of her mother, not since the day she became a thrall herself when Calavia was a child. It hurt to see her now, as if her mother had waited until this moment to come back.

  During all these long, countless years, Calavia had done everything she could think of, everything in her power to bring her mother’s humanity back, but nothing had ever worked. A
nd now Astegur was gone as surely as her mother was, and she no longer had the will to bring him back.

  A roar filled her ears, and her head snapped up. Calavia wiped the tears from her cheeks and stared in the direction of the sound, her eyes going wide. He was still close enough for her to hear. She sat on her knees and listened.

  More noises met her ears. Battle noises. The centaurs.

  The air left her lungs, and her gaze searched the brume. She stood, shoved her hands in her pockets, and searched for wax within her skirts, but there was none. The time it would take her to get some may cost Astegur his life. The movement of her thralls caught her attention. Their creeping faces. Their pallid, white eyes. The stakes they all held with strength.

  Calavia swallowed hard and straightened, her sadness rushing out of her. “Protect him. Protect Prayer.”

  The thralls surged forward like spindly bugs, with a speed they rarely showed, and disappeared with their weapons held high before she could even finish the order.

  Chapter Fourteen

  He needed to get away.

  Astegur clawed at his belly, feeling the mixture cook him from the inside out. The pain was intense, and unlike what he expected. There was always pain when enchantments, mysticism, and magic were involved. It was why he left his brothers to do the dirty work themselves—his affinity for it was nothing compared to theirs. And he hated everything intangible.

  Something was happening inside his soul that he could not explain, but it felt like his connection to Calavia had been burned out of him. Like her spell had solidified and become a part of him, and now it was being torn away.

  The pain from her compulsion had been terrible, but this was far worse. It was like something was rending him apart from deep within. The remembered bliss of his cock being inside her couldn't alleviate the agony—not even his desire to take her again, right now, despite his pain, helped.

  He did not like it. He clutched his stomach and left her presence. She called after him, his ears filled with her pleas for him to stay, but he did not want to hear it.