I look at the Minotaur. “Where is the labyrinth? How did we escape?”
“The labyrinth is where it always is,” he says gravely. “It is everywhere and nowhere. But we were able to leave because you freed me. And as you know, I have…some skills of my own.”
I shiver. The Minotaur helps me stand. “Come. There are clothes nearby.”
“How do you know?”
“Because this is home.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Home has been empty a long time. There won’t be anything left to find.”
The Minotaur smiles. “We shall see.”
But before we begin walking, I lean in for a kiss. A soft kiss that becomes urgent, fierce. I remember fear, desperation, my decision to die, and such memories will never leave me. They are another darkness, another labyrinth, and I want the Minotaur to steal me away. To save me.
And he does, his own calm face breaking into a mask of grief and desperation. He pushes me up against a pillar, his breathing unsteady, tears shadowing his eyes. He kisses me so deeply I feel him in my soul.
The Minotaur takes me. He is hard and I am ready and he slides so easily into my body I wonder how two people could fit so well and still be separate hearts.
I say as much, later. Later, when my legs are still wrapped around him and we lie on the cold stone floor. The Minotaur smiles. I can still see the outline of the mask, the mighty horns resting like a crown. Fit for a prince, I think. A prince of the labyrinth.
“We are two pieces of a puzzle,” says the Minotaur. “You and I.”
“So where do we go now? What do we do?”
The Minotaur points. I narrow my eyes; a moment later I see the silver mirror resting close by on the stones. Set there earlier, no doubt, when I was ill.
“Anywhere,” he says simply. “We go anywhere.”
I think of my library, my home in the darkness, my routine. My old life, safe and quiet. I am not naïve; anywhere will not be easy. But I look at the Minotaur, curled around my body, staring at me with his shining eyes, and I know that he is not naïve, either.
And I would rather face a life with him, no matter the danger or difficulty, than rest easy by myself.
I take his hand. “Have we really left the labyrinth?”
“I think we are making our own,” says the Minotaur. “It will be an adventure.”
“I hope so,” I reply.
And it is.
DEMON LOVER
Cheyenne McCray
CHAPTER 1
HE VANISHED IN A WHIRL OF MIST, LEAVING BEHIND scents of sandalwood and sex on a hot summer’s night.
Ericka Roberts cried out and clenched her bedcovers in both fists as she woke. Perspiration coated her body and the sheets clung to her damp skin. Her breathing was harsh, her heart beating so hard it pounded inside her ears.
These dreams are killing me.
For the past week, since she’d arrived at the oceanside condo in San Diego, she’d woken sweating, body aching with need and frustration. In her dreams, her demon lover teased her with his tongue and tasted her until she was on the edge of a climax so powerful she knew it would rock her to her core.
The moment she reached that pinnacle, he would stop. He’d rise, spread her legs with his hips, a sensual expression on his strong features. He’d nudge his cock against her folds and she’d hold her breath in anticipation.
And he would vanish.
Goddamnit. He just disappears!
The dreams were so intense that each morning she woke up pleasantly sore from his rough attention.
How’s that for a vivid imagination? She groaned and flung her arm over her eyes. “I’ve entered another dimension, where sane people don’t exist.”
Ericka moved her arm from her eyes and turned onto her side, facing the window. Shadows from palm trees and the first hint of morning sunlight winked through the glass as she faced reality.
Not too far away, the rush and pound of the surf matched the rush of blood in her ears and the pounding of her heart. The scent of sandalwood shifted into salt and brine mixed with the vanilla of candles she’d placed on every available surface of the room.
She attempted to grasp the power of the dream, but it faded through her fingers like tendrils of mist.
Yet he was there, never leaving her thoughts.
Ericka blew a strand of red hair out of her eyes and chewed on one of her nails. She slumped in the deck chair, her shorts hiking up her thighs. Her mind was anywhere but on the page on her laptop. Another planet, maybe.
It was nearing sunset. For most of the day she’d been sitting on the porch, trying to work on her nonficfion book that included people describing visits by beings from Otherworldly realms.