“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before, either. It appears to have started out as a minotaur, but then something went wrong with its design.”
“Who made it?”
“Probably Ira. He has a creative streak in him, and making all these creatures provides an outlet for his anger. He populates the maze with all possible kinds of nightmares.” He glanced up the stream, making sure the beast indeed was gone. “He might’ve thrown this one in here on purpose, to slow Gul and me down and allow him to win.”
If it wasn’t for Invi’s quick thinking in the river, there’d be no prize to win. I would’ve suffocated in the tunnel. Just in the past few hours, Invi had saved my life more than once. But he wasn’t safe either, and I worried for him even more than for myself.
“The mortal sins are worse than men to each other,” I said. “Siblings' rivalry between you is out of control. Ira could’ve killed you with his beasts—your own brother.”
“I can’t die, Nic.”
But I wouldn’t have it. Thinking about Invi getting hurt made me sick to my stomach. Even if the maze couldn’t kill him, he didn’t deserve to suffer.
“You could’ve been hurt, trapped, or sent down to the actual hell.” I took a step closer, needing to touch him if just to reassure myself that he was indeed safe and sound after literally shaking a few monsters off his tail.
He ran a hand down my back and over my soaked skirts. “You’re cold. We have to get you out of these clothes.”
“Do we now?” I smiled, which would’ve been flirtatious if my teeth didn’t chatter so much.
He chuckled at my clumsy attempt at sexy teasing. “Let me wring out your dress before you catch a cold.”
I lifted my arms for him to slide my dress off over my head, leaving me only in my bra and panties.
Acting quickly and efficiently, he wrung the water out of the delicate fabric, then laid it out on the nearby rock.
“It won’t fully dry.” He straightened out the skirts over the rock. “But it’ll get a little bit drier by the time we’ll figure out where to go next.”
“How are we going to figure it out?”
He turned back to me and paused, taking in my half-naked, shivering figure.
“Come here. Let me keep you warm.” He took me in his arms.
His tail coiled around my legs, sharing his shimmering warmth with me.
“It’s nice.” I leaned into his chest, savoring his closeness. “How do you stay so warm?”
He shrugged. “It’s a sin thing, I guess. Isn’t there a saying in your world 'Hot like sin?’”
I laughed. “I don’t think that saying refers to the body temperature. But if it does…” I snuggled closer, “lucky me.”
He kissed my hair. “It’s me who’s lucky. Lucky to have found you.”
Was it luck or fate that led me to him? Still a little while ago, I would’ve called meeting him a misfortune.
“We may have to stay here for some time, Nic,” he said.
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“The river is flowing away from the exit from the maze. If we keep following it, we’ll keep descending when we need to goup. If we swim back up the stream, we’d return into that bull-octopus-spider abomination’s territory again.”
“Oh please, no.” I cringed. “Anything but that.”
“I whole-heartedly agree with you. But there is no other exit from here right now. I think we should wait until the maze moves again and hopefully opens another passage for us.”
“How big is the chance of that happening?”
“The maze is built to be used. The isolated pockets of space like this one are rare and happen only temporarily. It’s safe to assume one passage or more will open up with the next move.”