Page 33 of Secret Origins
“We need to get out of here.” He was already on his feet, my upper arm clutched in his hand.
“Take the back door, Myst. I haven’t shifted in decades, but if you need help, I’ll do it.” The bartender shocked the shit out of me, rushing from behind the bar without looking to see if we followed.
Fenrir was already dragging me after the troll.
“Stop manhandling me.” Snapping at the male, I snatched my arm back, now fully alert. “Go on, lead the way.”
No one paid us attention as we bolted through a narrow hallway to the back entrance of the bar. The troll gripped the door handle and waited for us to reach him before he stuck his head out to look around. His body disappeared, snatched like he didn’t weigh a good three-hundred pounds in human form, leaving the now-open door swaying on the hinges. The fast-approaching night was waiting for us through that threshold, the grating laughter coming from it not helping at all.
“Come out or I’ll peel the skin of his bones.” It was the damn cow.
“Go ahead, I do need new boots.” Fenrir snapped his head my way and I shrugged. This is why I didn’t want to know names. No one could use them against me that way.
Then the damn troll had to screw it up for me. “Don’t do it, Myst. I’m not afraid to die, do mhòrachd.”
Fenrir was still watching me, probably expecting a reaction when the troll called me “your majesty.” My shoulder jerked in a shrug. “I told you, you should bow.”
“The heir to the throne is in Faerie,” The cow snarled. “This is a muddied bloodline that needs to be removed.”
Okay, now he was getting insulting and he needed a lesson in manners. Plus, we’d come to the pub to test the bullets, after all. Snatching one of the guns tucked at Fenrir’s lower back, I waved the barrel telling him to go first. I wanted to kill the cow, but I was not stupid. Fenrir could take more of a beating than me. With a shake of his head and a smirk, he pulled the other gun out and stepped in the ally. I followed right on his heels.
“History repeats itself.” The cow, now doubled in size from the last time I killed him, was staring daggers at us, the troll dangling from his hand. “Like mother, like daughter.”
“You know what cow?” Fenrir sounded like he was in pain with his groan, and the cow snarled with hatred burning in his eyes.
“I was going to kill you. Now, I’m still going to kill you, but I will do it so slowly you’ll be terrified to come to life again.” The minotaur roared, shaking the ground at my feet.
I grinned at him with no humor.
“Let’s dance bitch.”
21
“You really should stop calling him a cow.” Fenrir panted, dodging hooves and punches as they swung at his head, which were coming from dinner-plate-sized fists.
“Why?” Dancing around him, I avoided the kick aiming for my own head. “He looks like one.”
“He is a bull, so there is a difference.” Ducking low, Fenrir managed to tuck his shoulder under the minotaur’s arm and tackle him.
It was progress.
“Don’t be a sexist. Typical male, just because your horns are bigger, that doesn’t make you special, you know?” Taking a step back, I watched the huffing minotaur puff out clouds of air through his nostrils. The temperature dropped a few degrees when the bull attacked, and my own breath misted in front of my face.
“Cows give milk, which means they are human animals.” Fenrir rubbed his shoulder, his feet inching ever closer to the troll cowering at the side of the wall. “And I do not have horns.”
“Exactly. Which makes this cow right here useless.” All our efforts to move the Minotaur a safe distance away to test the bullets had failed so far. Like he was attached by Velcro to us, he kept coming, which was really starting to piss me off.
He charged, catching me in the side with a hard kick.
“Motherfucker.” Hissing in pain, I backed off and glared at the cow. “That will hurt for days.”
In a blur, Fenrir slammed into the minotaur, both their bodies crashing in the brick wall and breaking through it. Luckily the building next to the pub that the alley separated had a shared laundry room, which was where they landed in a tangle of limbs. At least I was able to get the troll out of sight.
“Move.” Yanking the bartender on his feet, I shoved him towards the still open back door of the pub. “Get inside and stay there.”
“I can help.” The idiot was struggling, digging his heels in when I tried to get him moving.
“Like you have helped so far?” Taking a firmer hold of his sweaty, hairy upper arm, I kept tugging him. “Get your ass inside and stay there.”
