Page 13 of The Minotaur's Valentine

“I’ll run interference with the rest of the pack of ferals and give them something to chase!” Ardy smirks, shivers, and before you know it, there’s a giant black hare speeding into the woods.

“And me? What can I do?” I look hopefully toward the old vet.

Peterson motions me to follow him. “I’ll follow Jakob and Jesse to look for the litter. The mother will lead me there. Milo, do you have time to winkle out the rejected kitten or kittens? They’ll probably be near the stalls, looking for scraps if they’re still strong enough to walk.” He gestures to the boundary between concrete and grass, indicating I should search there.

“What do I do if I find them?”

“Keep them warm and get a packet of milk replacer out of the trunk of my car. They must be old enough to eat some solid food, what little they can find. They’re weak. Very weak, but the mother won’t take them back now. Shame. It was a big litter.” Peterson cocks his head. “Eight, I think.”

“Dang.”

“I’ll take the mother and the kittens she’s guarding back to my office. We’ll have to keep the rejected littermates separated. It’ll be a little more work, but it won’t be an issue. Libby desperately wants to look after them, but she’s sick.”

“Libby’s sick?” My voice comes out higher and more wretched than I could have imagined.

Peterson notices. Of course he does. “You two know each other?”

“Eh. I see her around.” I give my best nonchalant shrug. “Hey, can I keep the kittens at my place after you check them out? The runts, I mean?”

Peterson’s gray eyebrows shoot up. “As long as you’re willing to share with Libby when she’s better.”

Share with Libby.

I picture a table for two, and two kittens on the foot of our bed, and his-and-hers towels, and matching Slayer tattoos and... everything. “Yes,” I promise. “I’ll share with Libby whenever she’s ready.”

Chapter Fourteen: Milo

Ifind two kittens licking out the remains of a takeout box that has blown out of the dumpster. I don't know how old the kittens are, but these ones are tiny and seem like they can barely move.

Duh, Milo. They are soaked to the bone and have their fur plastered down so they look even scrawnier. I'd be barely able to move if I was living on dumpster food and sleeping on piles of soaking wet pine needles or whatever these kittens are using to keep warm.

When I make soothing rumbles low in my chest and reach for them, they don't even try to run away. Instantly, my stomach plummets. That has to be a bad sign. Feral cats don't like people. They probably especially don't like minotaurs. We must seem like big predators. I clasp the soggy little bundles inside my sweatshirt, shivering as their wet fur soaks into the soft coating of brown hair on my torso.

Genesis swoops overhead and I bellow up to him. “I’ve got the outcasts!”

“Good!” the black shadow in the skies exclaims and loops back over the woods. That's Genesis for you. He doesn't waste words.

“Everything's going to be okay,” I whisper to the kittens. “We're going to get you warm and fed. By fed, I mean I’m going to feed you something much better than garbage food. You can take a cat nap, but don’t you go toward any pearly gates or bright lights, okay?”

I take them back to my stand before I head to the doc's car to get the milk replacer. I have all kinds of rags and cloths I use for polishing the metal I work with, not to mention the display cloths for showcasing the finished products. I grab the handful that’s least coated in soot and polish and make a nest in my insulated lunchbox. I have a thermos of hot soup that I didn’t finish, and I hope it’ll add a little warmth to their temporary bed.

As soon as I place the soft, boneless bundles among the rags, they still. Their tiny ribcages move, but everything else is dead still. “Please be okay.”

“They’re just too exhausted to keep their eyes open.”

Mr. Minegold is behind me, one hand wrapped in a crimson-streaked handkerchief. “We’re all heading to Peterson’s car. We’ve got the rest of the litter and the extremely irritated mother. Not even Peterson’s flute music could subdue her completely.” He holds up his bleeding hand with a wry smile.

“Ooh. Hey, Mr. Minegold... If the cat bit you, she won’t... I mean, an animal can’t...”

“There will be no vampire kittens, Milo, don’t fear. This is a mere scratch and will heal in an hour or two.”

“Vampires have all the perks.” My voice is light and teasing as I pack the stand, one eye still nervously hovering over the kittens. “Human girls find you sexy and forbidden, super strength and speed, you’ve got stamina, and the whole immortality thing...”

“Don’t forget never being able to go to a sunny beach or die a peaceful death when our loved ones age, and constantly having to hide who we are and worry about finding a blood supply. Not to mention having to consciously hold onto our souls lest the demons that give us immortality take our humanity as well.”

“Eesh. Sorry, Mr. Minegold. I wasn’t thinking.” With my bags packed and my stall shut down, I put everything into the old metal moving dolly and drag it behind me. Everything except the kittens, which I have cradled in front of me, the strap of the cooler barely fitting over my horns before it settles around my thick neck.

“No worries. I know there are ways in which the vampire life is superior when living among humans.” His eyes glint red for a second and I see his pale nostrils flare once. “You are... wishing you were more compatible with humans as well?”

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