Page 43 of Rauf: Minotaur Mates

“What if he comes back?”

“I think Korfas is putting patrols together. Wouldn’t I be safer in town, surrounded by everyone, than ten miles out on a farm with no way to communicate with the others?”

“I’d be there.”

“And what would I be doing? Sitting in your house until you decided I could leave?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“You haven’t said much beyond telling me where I need to be.”

He glanced toward the open door. Someone was coming up the steps, and we both fell silent while a minotaur with a bandaged wrist squeezed past us. I wished we weren’t having this argument at all.

Rauf gritted his teeth. “Then maybe you should stay with Korfas.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are you saying I should marry him?”

Say no, say no, please say no.

I hated how pathetic I sounded, but I couldn’t deny that Rauf had gotten his hooks into me. If he said one word, I’d have a lot of trouble telling him no.

“You don’t need to marry the bull to stay at his place. He has a guest room.”

That startled a surprised laugh out of me. “So now you get to tell me that too?”

“What do you want from me, Teresa?”

He sounded genuinely frustrated, as if I’d been making this difficult on purpose. Otho was calling for someone down the hall, and the man with the bandaged wrist had stopped pretending not to listen.

“I think we both know that.”

Rauf’s gaze dropped from mine. I couldn’t bear to stand there waiting for another answer I wasn’t going to get.

“I’m going back to the dorm where I will be perfectly safe. If you want to ensure my future safety, find the guy and we can both stop worrying.”

I stepped around him and hurried through the doorway before he could come up with another place to send me.

“Teresa.”

I kept walking. If he followed me, I was going to shout at him in the street, and then the entire town could enjoy the show. Fortunately, I didn’t hear him behind me. I made it all the way back to the dorm without turning to check.

Julia was already asleep when I got to our room. She was curled on her side with one hand tucked beneath her cheek, breathing so deeply that she didn’t stir when I put my bag down. Otho must have given her something.

I was a little jealous. I’d have liked to swallow a pill and skip the rest of this day too.

Instead, I sat on my bed and opened my bag. Some of the supplies were out of place after Julia’s search. I straightened them and took out the jar I’d marked at the first site where a goat had died. The dirt had settled into a hard-looking little mound at the bottom.

I tipped it, watching a few loose grains slide against the glass. Even if Otho could test it, I didn’t know what to ask him to look for. Poison? Something left behind by a machine? Now I didn’t even know whether this dirt had anything to do with the man in the cave.

And I hadn’t managed to collect any of the oily water. I had empty jars for that. Very useful.

I wanted to help, but I was fooling myself to think that I could be of any use. I’d started this just to figure out what was killing some goats. Now there were strange men punching women and the whole place felt like a powder keg that could go up at any moment.

I put the jar away and went out to the living room.

Robin came home a little later. She shut the door, checked that it had latched, and stood with her hand on the handle for a moment before she noticed me on the couch.

“Julia?”