Page 39 of Tangled Threads Of Fate

I frowned at him, because while I agreed, I was more than capable of speaking for myself. “What he means to say is no,thank you. We’re staying in a resort down in Heraklion. We’llcome back and visit before we go home, though, just in case you’ve found something.”

Teron looked back over his shoulders at his friends, and they seemed to have some kind of silent conversation, before he nodded. “If that’s what you wish. Though I would strongly suggest you stop and get a quick check-up at the hospital, on your way back to the resort. Just to be on the safe side.”

Erus leaned over and whispered something to Tryp, but I couldn’t hear the words.

I climbed to my feet under the scrutiny of five sets of eyes. “Okay, I will. Just to be on the safe side,” I promised.

Nate maneuvered me out of the room, and with an innate sense of direction that I sorely lacked, back through the fortress and right out to the front gate. Milo, the Minotaur, followed behind us. He unbarred the heavy wooden door at the base of the stairs and stood aside. He was frowning, but didn’t stop us from leaving.

Despite the ominous noise Nate made, Milo reached out and grabbed my arm. The feel of his hand on my skin was like being electrocuted. I felt it down in mysoul, which was really fucking weird. His lips parted as he stared at the point where our bodies touched, his eyes flying up to meet mine. I guess I wasn’t the only one having a bizarre physiological response to innocuous contact.

He let out a shaky breath, and I watched the golden cords whipping around his body, slightly brighter than normal, tangling around my fingers. Looking back up into his face, I was kind of relieved to see he was in his human form still.

“Promise you’ll come back if you run into any trouble. Crete… Well, it’s ours, but I can’t guarantee it’s completely safe. If you need us, call us.” Sliding his hand down my forearm, he wrapped my fingers in his own, slipping me a piece of paper with a number written on it.

I wasn’t sure if the streaks were finally getting to me, or if I’d just lost all self-preservation, but the words were out before I even thought through the consequences. “Can you show me once more, so I know I’m not insane?”

He frowned harder. “Show you what?”

“Your real form.”

His eyebrows rose high, like they were trying to escape into his hairline. “This is as much my real form as the bull.”

He sucked in a deep breath, his barrel chest pushing out impressive pectorals. The streaks brightened, then faded slightly, and before me was the same man, except bigger somehow, broader if that was possible, with the head of a bull. His neck was thick and muscular, which made sense considering his head was fucking huge. Covered in short, soft fur only slightly darker than his golden skin, the very end of his nose was shiny and black, a golden hoop looped through his septum. Horns as long as my arms shone in the late afternoon sun, and I desperately wanted to run my hands along them.

Unable to help myself, I lifted my hand and ran my fingers beneath the underside of his head, only able to just brush his jaw with my fingertips. He stooped lower so I had better access, and I didn’t breathe as Milo watched me intently with eyes that had doubled in size—no longer vivid blue, but darkening almost to hazel, like the color had been diluted.

I traced up over the side of his blocky head and wrapped my fingers around the base of his left horn. He hissed, reaching up to grab my wrist. “Easy there.” The sound of Milo’s voice was deeper coming from the bull mouth. How fucking insane was that?

I flushed red, horrified. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize they might be painful.”

He snorted, quite literally, like a bull. “Painful isn’t how I’d describe the sensation.”

At that, Nate snatched me back toward his body, basically picking me up and marching me to the car before I could so much as collect my thoughts. Or realize that I’d basically given the Minotaur a horn job.

When I looked back over my shoulder, Milo was still standing outside the wall, watching me. He had a soft smile on his face as I climbed into the SUV.

A few yards away, I noticed the dog from the cafe sitting at the base of the wall. Another smaller dog was beside him, this one looking far more scraggly and very obviously a stray. I waved at them. “Bye, Cy!”

I lifted my hand in Milo’s direction too as Nate roared away, making pale dust fly up in a cloud behind us.

I’d keptmy promise to Teron, sitting in the waiting room of the hospital in Heraklion until my ass went numb, just for the doctor to take my blood pressure, do a fetal heartbeat scan, and declare me fit and healthy. He prescribed lying on the beach and plenty of water, and to avoid caffeine, which I was already doing.

It was dark and late when we made it back to the resort, but the kitchen was still open. Nate ordered an entire banquet of food while I had a shower. He’d been quiet on the way home and while we sat in the waiting room of the hospital. He didn’t seem mad—more pensive, I guess.

I wondered what he thought of everything, but I was too nervous to ask. I was a little scared to confess the pull of the men in Amourgeles. I was a little worried that he’d drop me on their doorstep and wash his hands of me and the drama I represented.

As warm water ran over my body, I tried to come to terms with everything that I’d discovered today. I tried to slot the puzzle pieces beside each other, but kept coming up with an abstract collection of nothing. Even now, I felt my body leaningtoward Amourgeles, like I was trying to be closer to the town, to those men, like even just a couple of inches was a relief. It was starting to scare me, feeling out of control of my body once more.

I also thought about Nate, and the fact he was the God of War. I could vividly remember his hands gripping my thighs as he ate me out this morning, while whispering things in Gaelic I couldn’t understand, but which my heart clung to desperately.

I was breaking my number one rule when it came to Nate—I was getting attached. But when he held me so gently his arms, fucked me like my pleasure was the only thing he’d ever desired in his whole life, it did something to my heart that there was no chance of resisting.

“Wren, the food is here!” he called from outside the bathroom door.

I rested my head against the cool tiles of the shower, trying to pull myself together. Turning off the water, I slipped on one of Nate’s shirts and a pair of boyleg underwear. It was getting hard to drag them up my thighs now. I was going to have to start going commando if I got much bigger. Which I would. It was so hard to conceptualize the fact that I was only half way through my pregnancy when I was already this huge. That I’d get even bigger.

The bathroom door opened, and the worried face of Nate was in front of me. “Are you okay?”

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