Page 19 of Bound to the Minotaur
“Minotaur?” I repeated, the word catching like a thorn in my throat. I stepped back, suddenly unsure if I was standing in a fairy tale or a fever dream. “Minotaur?” I said again, louder this time, my voice cracking. “As in… a bull-headed monster from Greek mythology?”
Gregory glanced at me, guilty as sin, still rubbing his neck. He gave me a helpless shrug, like that explained everything. “Are you kidding me?” I asked, throat dry. My mind flashed back—horns, hooves, tail—the dream-maze, the heat, the growling. “You’re not serious. Tell me you’re not serious.” I could so vividly picture Gregory standing in the cold that first night and literally picking up my car with one hand, like it weighed absolutely nothing. Two plumes of steam blasting from his nose, just like a bull.
Grandma Liz stepped between us—not unkindly—her many bangles chiming in the chilly air. “Oh, honey,” she said, her voice warm and rich like molasses, “you’ve landed yourself in Hillcrest Hollow now. And this place? This is where the strange things come to rest. We’re a sanctuary—for the supernatural, the outcast, the misfit, the myth. Your Gregory here is just one of many.”
I stared at her, open-mouthed. My brain scrambled to keep up with what had been said and what it wanted to believe, struggling to comprehend that maybe my dreams hadn’t simply been dreams after all—that maybe what I’d seen last night in the dark hadn’t been fantasy. “Wait,” I said. “Supernatural?” My mouth was dry as ashes, the words coming out strangled and high-pitched.
“Indeed.” She looked pleased, as if this were the part of the conversation she always enjoyed. “Shifters. Spirits. Old gods. Magic that forgot it had a name. We’re the safe place at the edge of the map. And you, sweetheart…” She reached out and patted my hand. “You couldn’t have run to a safer place.”
I should’ve laughed. Should’ve told her that she was nuts. But I thought of Gregory’s heat, pressed to mine; the beast in the trees; the way he growled like thunder right before he kissed me; the maze in my dream. Instead of laughing, I whispered, “But I’m not one of you.”
Grandma Liz’s smile turned sly, like she knew something I didn’t. “Maybe. Maybe not.” Beside me, Gregory’s shoulders hunched as if he were bracing for impact. That’s when I realized something cold and real and terrifying: there was so much more I didn’t know.
The clever old woman turned to me with a wink. “Well, I suppose it’s time you see the beast, proper-like. I can do the honors, if you like. My own beastie’s a touch friendlier-looking than this one here.” She waved a hand at Gregory, and her colorful bangles clattered cheerfully together. I tried to imagine what that meant—what she was—but couldn’t come up with anything. A poodle, perhaps, but that seemed ridiculous.
Beside me, my grumpy mechanic shifted forward on the balls of his feet, towering over the small older woman. “Don’t,” Gregory growled, voice low and sharp. “I’ve got it.”
The mayor only chuckled, utterly unbothered by his tone. She touched his arm lightly, affectionately, like she knew exactly what hid beneath all that scowling and muscle. “Still ascharming as ever, I see.” He didn’t answer, just jerked his head in a not-so-subtle dismissal.
“Alright, alright, I’m going,” she said with a grin, pivoting on the heel of her suede boots. Her bangles clinked like wind chimes with every step. “But don’t take too long, Gregory-boy. She deserves the truth before it blindsides her. You know better.”
She sauntered down the porch steps and crossed the yard toward the narrow dirt road. Parked there—absurdly small and low to the ground—was an olive-green Volkswagen Beetle that looked like it had driven out of a 1970s postcard. She climbed in with surprising grace for someone in so many flowing layers.
Gregory called after her, “Tell your wolves to watch those men!” Wolves? My mind whirred. Was he talking about werewolves? After what I’d just learned, that seemed less impossible than it had two days ago. Still utterly bizarre and fantastical, but…what if it was true? I eyed the older woman anew and still couldn’t see it. A wolf, hiding beneath that friendly exterior?
The Beetle's engine sputtered to life. Grandma Liz leaned out the window, grinning like a loon. “What do you think they’re doing already, city boy? Playing poker?” And then she was gone with a wave, the rattling song of her bracelets trailing behind.
The silence she left behind felt suddenly heavy. The trees no longer swayed quite as playfully, and the wind had a bite that hadn’t been there earlier. Gregory stood, facing away from me, arms braced on the porch railing. His whole frame was tight, shoulders hunched, like he’d been carved from stone.
And me? My brain was buzzing, whirring; a cacophony of everything I’d just heard. A sanctuary. Supernaturals. A minotaur. My dream. The maze. The way his skin heated like fire and his voice made my spine melt. It was all connected, and I didn’t know how to piece it together.
Avis brushed against my ankle, tail flicking, gaze fixed on me with more awareness than any cat had a right to possess. “Oh, fine,” I muttered, glaring down at the feline as if he’d put me up to this mess. But I took a breath and marched right over to that big, silent man, jabbing him in the side with my finger—harder than necessary. He jerked, more in surprise than pain, and turned to glance at me, his brow drawn low.
“You owe me a hell of a conversation,” I said. “And you don’t get to grunt or growl your way out of it this time.” He blinked at me, and, of course, he still didn’t speak. So I poked him again, just to be sure. “Say something. Tell me I’m crazy. Or dreaming. Or… or that there’s a perfectly rational explanation for all of this.”
His mouth opened, then shut. He looked at me like I’d grown horns myself. Which, considering everything, maybe wasn’t such a stretch anymore. “Please,” I added, quieter now. “Don’t leave me in the dark.”
He inhaled deeply, his chest rising and heaving like bellows. Then he looked at me fully, his eyes flickering with that odd amber light I’d only ever seen in shadow—or in my dreams. “You’re not crazy,” he said at last. “And no… you’re not dreaming.”
Chapter 13
Gregory
I watched Liz drive off, her ridiculous little Beetle rattling down the gravel road like a tin toy with a temper. Bangles clattered with her wave. She always left chaos in her wake, no matter how brief the visit. Now, I was left standing on the porch, tension coiled tight in my shoulders and the sharp scent of uncertainty lingering in the air like ozone before a storm.
This wasn’t how I wanted things to go.
Telling Kess what I was—what Iam—was supposed to come later, after she’d settled and trusted me more. After she was safe. After I was sure she’d stay. But Liz, in her usual meddling way, had shoved the whole conversation to the edge of a cliff.
And Kess? Of course she didn’t back away. She poked me in the damn ribs like I was just a man, not something with horns and a buried instinct to run toward trouble. She looked at me like she expected the truth, like she deserved it. And hell, she did.
I almost smiled. Then Avis meowed—sharp, expectant. That damn cat. Like the Mayor, he wasn’t going to let me wriggle out of this. The truth was, they were right. Better to get this over with. I sighed and turned toward the side of the cabin. “Come with me.”
The layer of dead leaves I hadn’t bothered to shovel into a pile yet crunched beneath our boots as we stepped off the porch and around the A-frame’s steep slope of roof, the cedar walls weathered gray by wind and time. My fingers wrapped aroundhers without asking, just needing to touch her, to tether her to me while I still could. Her hand was smaller but gripped back with this quiet certainty that somehow made my gut twist.
Then we were at the back edge of the cabin, where the woods began—thick and tangled—and the Maze loomed. The hedges looked dormant in the cold, dark green with a dusting of snow, but they pulsed faintly with old magic. The path beyond the wrought-iron gate twisted into shadows too deep for sunlight to reach. It wasn’t just labyrinthine by shape; it was alive, protective, ancient. Shaped by my magic, by my beast, and there to protect me and no one else. I’d told her not to go in there.
Gods, help me, seeing her near it now made my blood roar.
