Page 38 of Moody as a Minotaur

Van shook his head and held up his hands in a placating manner. “No hunters. Just me.”

“You… You broke my door and my window. Why?” Levi accused. I was more than a little confused by Van’s actions myself.

Van glanced at the damage and rubbed the back of his neck. “Clive and Warren called in. Something about Parker seeing under the glamour and there being a problem. I didn’t mean to break the window, but when I rammed the door, the wall shook and…” He shrugged.

“Clive and Warren.” Levi huffed and shook his head. “I’m surprised they said anything.”

Van winced. “Yeah, well, I think Daphne might have had something to do with that.”

Daphne was their mother, and although most of her kids were a little wild, she was the ruler of the family, and everyone listened to her. A bit like my grandmother.

“They’re the ones who let the cat out of the bag, so to speak,” Levi grumbled.

Cat out of the bag! I snorted. Levi glanced over his shoulder at me. His big, beautiful, bovine-like eyes held my gaze for a moment. Fuck. He really was a minotaur.

He’d changed right in front of me. And those cats from earlier? They’d talked.

God only knew what was going to happen next.

Would a troop of fairies blast through the cat flap and perform aerial maneuvers as they dumped pixie dust on me? Would my mother’s garden gnomes do a jig in her garden patch the next time I saw them? I didn’t know anymore. Apparently, anything was possible.

“Parker?” Levi sounded worried. His lips, which Istillhadn’t kissed, damn it, wiggled and stretched toward me, like he was trying to taste me, as if they could help him figure out what I was thinking. He still sounded like Levi. He didn’t moo or anything. “You okay?”

“Yep…” I squeaked, even though I was barely hanging on.

Then I snickered again. I tried to hold it back. I swear I did. But when Levi spun around on his… his…hooves,they clomped with his steps. I snorted, but that wasn’t enough. Laughter burst out of me. I was well pastsnickering now; I was at guffawing-level hysteria. Tears ran down my face.

Oh my fucking God. I couldn’t stop.

Levi recoiled. That sobered me up quickly.

“No.” I shook my head and grabbed for his arm so he couldn’t leave. “Not laughing at you. Fuck… But… Just fuck. You really are a minotaur. Clive and Warren are really cats. Jesus. I don’t…” I wiped my eyes. “It’s just… fuck. It’s a lot. Okay?”

Levi eyed me warily.

“Seriously. I wasn’t laughing at you. My brain broke for a minute there, but it’s better now.” I squeezed his arm, hoping he’d understand.

Van nodded, like my reaction didn’t surprise him. “Hey, Parker.”

“Hi, Van.” I waved at him.

Jasmine poked her head through the opening where the one-way mirror had once been. Jagged bits of glass littered the floor.

“I’m not cleaning this up,” she said.

“That’s fine.” Levi turned away from me, and I wanted to yank him back and talk to him until I was sure he believed me.

“And you might want to drop the horns before someone comes in the door,” Jasmine said.

Levi pulled out of my grasp as he glanced over his shoulder at me. He had the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen framing his dark brown irises. Was that part of the eye still called an iris on a bull? Or was that something only used to describe human eyes? I’d never thought about it before.

“You promised we’d talk later, right? I’m holding you to that.”

Levi averted his eyes.

“Go on.” I patted him on the back. “You don’t want to let any more cats or minotaurs out of the bag today.”

He grunted. His body shimmered again, and suddenly the human Levi was standing in front of me.