Kim Harrison - Hotter Than Hell

The Minotaur walks for a long time. The oubliette is larger than I expected, or else we have left that place and his entire home is made of darkness. He finally stops, though, and lowers me to my feet. I stay within the circle of his arms and he says, “In front of you.”

I kneel. I reach out and touch water. Hot water. I lean closer and steam bathes my face.

“A natural spring,” says the Minotaur. “Take off your clothes. I will wash away the blood.”

“And you? It was your blood, after all. You’re hurt.”

“Then we will wash together.” There is tension in his voice. He shows no hesitation, though, when he helps undress me. He holds my hands with care as I step blind into the hot water. It feels good, though I cannot help but think of the harpies. I mention them again as the Minotaur slides into the water beside me.

“There are always risks,” he admits. “Risks for the unwary. It is the labyrinth, after all.”

“I’ve always thought of the library as a labyrinth,” I tell him, and the Minotaur makes a rumbling sound, splashing warm water over my arms and rubbing his wet thumbs across my cheeks.

“All places of paths and knowledge are part of the great maze,” he says. “Some more so than others. Your library is one of them. The veil between worlds is weak there. Weak enough even for one as untalented as I to reach through.”

“Why just reach? Why not step through entirely? Escape, if that is what you really want.”

The Minotaur’s hands still. “I am bound here.”

“No.” I think of all that has passed between us, what little he has told me. “No, not completely. You brought me here to save you. That’s what you said.”

The Minotaur remains silent for along time. Not until I press my fingertips against his cheek does he make a sound. His sigh is warm.

“I should not have brought you to this place,” he murmurs. “Not the first time, not the second, and not now. Selfishness begged it. Despair and loneliness. But I know better, and better means keeping you safe. You must not free me.”

“I must,” I whisper. “You know I must.”

Again, the Minotaur says nothing. He washes me and I do the same for him, discovering in the process a terrible slash across his shoulder.

“It is already healing,” he says quietly. “I cannot die here. The king forbade it.”

“He controls this place?”

The Minotaur’s laugh is bitter. “No one controls the labyrinth. It is beyond spells and magic, beyond anything that can be controlled by mere men, or their counterparts. But that does not mean that those who come here are so free. The flesh is weak.”

I kiss his shoulder. “Not so weak.”

“Against you, powerless,” he murmurs. “I never imagined such a thing. Not in any dream.”

“Why?” I kiss him again, at the base of his throat. My breasts rub against his chest and his hands snake down to cup me tight against him. He is hard, and I feel a moment of astonishment at how ready I am for him. I hook my leg around his hip and he takes me in one long slow movement. I groan.

“Because I am a monster,” whispers the Minotaur hoarsely, moving inside me with delicious strength. “I have always been so, since the beginning.”

“No,” I murmur, and cry out as he gently squeezes my breast.

“There is a legend native to your age and time,” he says, breathless as he thrusts hard—once, twice—then slows his pace, drawing me out. “The Minotaur in the labyrinth, a beast of sacrifice and blood. Child of a queen and a God.”

I have trouble speaking, thinking. The Minotaur leans against the edge of the hot spring; I move against him, riding his body, and manage with some difficulty to say, “I know that myth.”

The Minotaur grabs my hips, thrusting up, dragging me down. Again and again he does this. I lean into him, wrapping my arms around his neck as we bury ourselves in each other with such force I feel stolen by pleasure, near death with it, as though my heart surely cannot beat one more moment at such a frantic rhythm.

I break first, my body clutching around the Minotaur in such brutal waves that all I can do is writhe, breath rattling with pleasure. I expect the Minotaur to follow, but before my body is done he turns me and thrusts again, still hard, hot, only now I am bent at the waist with nothing to hold on to but his hands on my hips as he pounds into my body with quick sharp strokes, faster and faster, frantic. I come again and again, helpless to stop him, unwilling to stop him even though the pleasure is too much. His hands move; he touches me, stroking, and I am rocked into one final climax that the Minotaur finally joins, his voice rumbling into a bellow.

We drift in the hot water—spent, exhausted—until, finally, the Minotaur pulls me to shore and we lean against each other, breathing hard in the silence of the labyrinth. For the first time in my life I feel truly satisfied—comfortable and safe—though those feelings do not last long. I turn my head, brushing my lips against the Minotaur’s arm, and say, “You were telling me something.”

He kisses the top of my head. “I was.”

“And?”

“And you are not easily distracted,” he rumbles, sighing. “So. You know the myth. You know what else is part of it.”

“Death,” I say. “The deaths of young men and women.”

“That part, at least, is true.” The Minotaur drags in a deep ragged breath. “The king thought to use me as a weapon against his enemies. So he made me a monster. Fitted me with the helmet, took away my name by magic so that I would know myself as nothing else, and then enchanted me into the labyrinth. He wanted fear and so he made it. In me.”

“So you killed,” I say carefully, because to utter those words feels almost as terrible as the crime. The Minotaur, though, makes a low sound—frustration, maybe—and I feel him shake his head.

“I did not,” he says in a hard voice. “Or rather, I did not mean to. The young men who found me attacked with all their fear and fury, and I was forced to defend myself. The girls I did not touch, though I tried to help them. They ran from me. They ran into the darkness of the labyrinth and hurt themselves on the rocks, or were killed by the creatures who inhabit the maze.”

“How long did that go on?”

“Years. Until the king was murdered by his enemies. His death sealed the gate into the labyrinth. At least, that particular gate.”

“With you in it.”

“Forever. Though the king, in a fit of humor before his death, left me one chance of escape.”

“Ah,” I say. “And is that where I come in?”

“If you wish,” he says slowly. “But it will be dangerous.”

“Harpies?”

“Worse.” The Minotaur holds me close. “The king’s own magic.”

I close my eyes. I try to make sense of what he has told me, but it is no use; his words live like a fairy tale inside my head, indistinct, but full of simple truths—a prince, cursed, trapped in the heart of a tangle—and I, the poor woman lured to his aid. A golden goose will be next, I think; mice who talk, or a woman with hair as long as a river.

“Is there light here?” I ask the Minotaur. “Real light? Any at all?”

He hesitates. “There is. It is part of something I would have shown you later.”

I frown. “Show me now.”

The Minotaur sighs, and pulls himself from the water. I follow, stumbling in the dark. The air is cool on my wet skin. I shiver, and suddenly find myself draped in heavy furs, soft and warm. I hug the hides close to my body and listen to the Minotaur move through the darkness.

Then, light. A blue light, flickering and pure. It has been such a long time that I find myself momentarily blind, and I shield my eyes even as I try to see the Minotaur. He stands before me, so very still, and I cannot look away from the hard lines of his body, covered in scars, or higher yet, his face.