by RJ Blain
Something rustled in the underbrush, and the minotaur whirled around, stomping a hoof, and slashing at the air.
A flash of yellow drew my eye, and a large form, almost a match for the minotaur, burst out from the bushes. Its high-pitched scream startled me into hissing. With one look, I recognized the newcomer. When stuck between a rock, a hard place, a minotaur, and an overgrown yellow mongoose with a death wish, it was time to get the hell out of Dodge and pray to the devil the two combatants didn’t notice me.
I was done with the Black Hills, and I swore I’d never return, not even under threat of death. I could handle waiting for a minotaur to lose interest.
If I stuck around, the mongoose would climb into my tree, scent me out, and eat me. It’d do so head first, and it’d enjoy every last nibble of delicious snake treat. It’d leave a few scales behind when it finished with me as a promise to other black mambas it had no fear of us. It probably thought my venom was tasty.
Uncoiling from the trunk, I made my descent, using bark and branch as launching points to reach the ground. The instant I landed, I darted away, keeping my head low and hightailing it out of the area, obscuring my passage by lurking beneath as many leaves as possible. If either noticed me, I didn’t want to see them catching up; while I could move fast, I couldn’t move monster fast.
I had no hope of winning a race against either a minotaur or a mongoose.
Being eaten alive took top spot on my list of things I never wanted to experience, with someone snatching me by the back of my head and plucking me off the ground as a close second. I hissed, thrashing in the futile effort to free myself. The grip tightened, not hard enough to hurt, but ensuring I couldn’t escape without help.
Why couldn’t mambas be constrictors? A constrictor would’ve viewed my predicament as a challenge to overcome. My captor lifted me up and turned me.
If I never came nose to nose with my father’s black mambas ever again, I’d be happy. They hissed at me, and my father’s scowl promised some form of new hell for me to enjoy in the near future.
I hissed back, lashing my tail. Since being held behind the back of my head wasn’t comfortable, I coiled my body around his arm to alleviate some of the pressure.
“We’re going to have a very long talk about this,” my father promised.
Unable to bite and wary of becoming a living but petrified piece of jewelry for his amusement, I limited my protests to unhappy hisses.
My father sighed before whistling.
Normal people had dogs who heeled on demand. My father had an overgrown yellow mongoose, who bounded over, crouched at my father’s feet, and licked blood off its muzzle. Infuriated my father would dare consort with a natural predator of black mamba kind, I hissed my displeasure.
The minotaur followed, and it’d taken the brunt of the fight, lacerations covering its head and muzzle, with no evidence it’d gotten a hold of the mongoose. It lumbered forward.
My father straightened and every last one of his serpents reared back. Then he hissed.
The minotaur opened its mouth, took a single step forward, and a gray film rippled over its fur, accompanied by the crackle of fragmenting stone. Seconds stretched into minutes, and while the initial paralysis had been almost instantaneous, the minotaur labored to breathe while its body stiffed, darkened to gray, and petrified into stone.
Kneeling, my father held out his hand, his grip firm on the back of my neck. “Hold her,” he ordered.
The yellow mongoose made a soft, purring sound before capturing hold of me with a paw, gripping me as my father had. I hissed over the rival predator’s enjoyment of my captivity.
I hadn’t even known mongoose could purr.
When I saw a mongoose, I left the area before it noticed I was around. It probably enjoyed gloating over having played part of my capture after having beaten the snot out of a mutant minotaur. In its shoes, I would’ve been feeling quite pleased with myself, so I couldn’t really blame it.
My father circled the minotaur his serpents hissing at the impotent statue. “What is this thing?”
I flicked my tongue to taste the air and got a mouthful of death, decay, blood, and fury, none of which appealed when I was within a single snap of a mongoose’s jaws of becoming a memory. While I doubted my father would deliberately let his pet mongoose eat me, I wasn’t going to bet on it.
I was a bad enough daughter that threats of breeding a replacement made a great deal of sense to me.
“I think it started life as a minotaur,” the mongoose growled.
Great. My living nightmare could talk, which put it—no, him—in the shapeshifter or lycanthrope category. He talked, he purred, and he had enough strength to pop my head right off if he wanted, assuming he didn’t decide to enjoy me as a morning snack.
“And he smelled my daughter in the area,” my father hissed.
Balling his hand into a fist, my father took two steps towards the petrified minotaur, jumped, and lashed out. While my father’s hand looked like flesh, he treated the minotaur’s head like the minotaur had treated the trees, resulting in a powdered mess of stone.
My mongoose captor chuckled, a deep, rumbling sound. “Lesson learned.”
My father shook out his fist, strolled to us, and reclaimed me from the mongoose, and the pair worked together to wrap every last inch of my fourteen feet around his forearm. “Thank you, Justin.”
Of course. I shouldn’t have been surprised. What other type of species would be capable of working with a black mamba gorgon with any hope of surviving a bite? My luck was truly the worst. If I wanted Justin and his bacon for life, I’d have to sleep with the enemy, who could eat me the instant I stepped out of line.
I was truly my mother’s daughter.
Chapter Sixteen
Pride demanded I escape—or at least struggle. My time spent up a tree hadn’t done me any good, and neither had becoming a piece of living jewelry for my father’s amusement. I ached, and even when my father tested his luck and released his hold on the back of my head, I was too tired to bite him.
Even my fangs hurt, something I’d never experienced before.
Leaving the beheaded mutant minotaur, my father marched through the forest with Justin bouncing alongside him. I wondered how many times I could bite the lycanthrope before my venom would do anything other than annoy him.
Thinking about him made it easier to ignore the bumps, bruises, and broken bones. I’d never considered a mongoose as a partner before.
They could eat black mambas, which went at the top of the con list. However, they could eat black mambas other than me, which went at the top of the pro list. If I bit him, he wouldn’t fall over dead, which gave him an advantage over other potential lovers. Not killing my partner took spot two on the pro list, although losing my most potent self-defense weapon took spot two on the con list.
The only option was to make Justin Brandywine suffer for a lifetime for daring to be a mongoose. Every morning, I’d begin with making him make me bacon. Some goals in life I couldn’t sacrifice, and good bacon was one of them.
He’d obviously, somehow, determined my nature—likely my father’s fault—and had begun his clever schemes to infiltrate his way into my affections using my one true weakness. Once I shifted back to human, I’d have to have a long discussion with my father. Was he unaware mongoose ate black mambas? Did he lack fear because of his gorgon heritage?
I bet it was because he was a gorgon. Obviously, my father cowed other black mambas by parading his pet mongoose around. As I had a severe objection to my prey—a mongoose!—being someone else’s pet, I’d have to take steps to take him from my father and make a proper arrangement with Justin. A mongoose was a good predator.
While I couldn’t retire, I could obtain a partner in crime. Having a partner would help me restore my past, careful practices. It wouldn’t be just me taking a fall. I’d thought about it—I’d even already considered Justin as a potential.
A mongoose lycanthrope with
the hybrid form had to be at least as rare as the bacon he made. The problem was, what was I supposed to do with a mongoose? I didn’t want him heeling like some pet, obeying my every word.
I wanted a challenge. I wanted to be the predator as much as he was the predator, equals in our lethality.
My first challenge would be rescuing him from my father’s clutches. My second challenge would be teaching my father he would never, ever make my mongoose heel like some dog. I’d have to spend a great deal of time coming up with a suitable punishment. I’d involve my mother in some fashion, assuming I could get her to stay in the same room with the gorgon for more than five minutes.
I still questioned how I’d been born in the first place. I also didn’t want to think about if I was the result of an interspecies quickie.
The possibility annoyed a few hisses out of me, and I eyed my father’s wrist. One bite probably wouldn’t kill him, would it?
“Don’t even think about it,” my father warned.
I raised my head, opened my mouth, and displayed my fangs in warning.
“Tulip!”
I hissed again, beating his arm with the tip of my tail.
“I left you alone for one week. Then you decided to run away and become the prey of a minotaur. You are in no position to hiss at me, young lady. What were you thinking?”
“With all due respect, sir, it is possible he lured her out here. Why else would she come out here? There’s nothing here.” Justin bounded forward a few strides, stretched out, and shook himself, tufts of yellow fur shedding out of his coat. “I’d consider it fortuitous she had enough control of her faculties to climb a tree and stay there. It’s also fortuitous he was too stupid to climb up after her.”
“Or he had no idea she was there and smelled a female he couldn’t find,” my father grumbled. “To try to touch my daughter. When you get to the car, take her home. See if you can get her to shift back to human. I’ll return to his lair and evaluate the situation.”
“I’ll call the police as well.”
“Yes, do. They’re welcome to what’s left of his body for study.”
“I’m sure the CDC will be pleased to be given a gift of a beheaded minotaur.”
I hissed my approval of Justin’s sarcasm and began the tedious process of untangling my coils, reaching towards the ground. Before I made it far, my father grabbed the back of my head. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Justin rose to his full height, seized the back of my head, and used his other hand to gather my full length. “I’ll save you the walk back to the car. Should she refuse to shift, I’m sure I can stuff her into a bag for transport.”
“Justin,” my father warned while his snakes hissed their displeasure.
With a low, rumbling laugh, the mongoose wrapped me around his arm, kept hold of the back of my neck, and bounded off, his run consisting of long jumps. The way he moved suggested he was accustomed to carrying something in his left hand while in his hybrid form. My first thought was a gun, but I discarded the idea; why would a lycanthrope need—or want—a firearm?
The minotaur could pulverize trees with his head, but lycanthropes with the hybrid form could rip cars apart without putting much effort into it.
I’d have to make sure Justin understood there’d be no destruction of any vehicles I wanted to claim as my own.
Capturing a lycanthrope, obviously, would only be the beginning of my problems. Caring for one and taming him enough he wouldn’t destroy me and everything I wanted to own, would be a challenge. I’d also have a lot of work to do in the untaming department. I’d have to do something about my father to ensure Justin wasn’t controlled.
Under no circumstances could I allow my future partner in crime to heel to anyone, not even me.
Almost every problem in life could be solved with a nap, or so I liked to believe. Justin won a great number of points recognizing when I went from alert to dozing. When he arrived at a dark sedan parked at the edge of the forest, he opened the driver’s door, snatched clothes from the passenger seat, and set me down. Then he started the engine, cranked the heat, and left me alone.
He shifted, revealing a deceptively lean, soft body. I suspected his muscles hid beneath his skin, waiting to be flexed. With no sign of fear, he took hold of me behind the head, transferred me to the passenger seat, and dressed before sliding behind the wheel. “I see no reason to force you to shift,” he announced, reaching over to open the glove box. He retrieved a cell phone, and he dialed a number. “I’ve made it to the car, sir. She’s mostly asleep, so I’m going to let her be. I’ll crank the heat in her room, settle her in, and stand guard in case he’s part of a herd.”
I liked that his tone allowed no argument, and I also liked he hung up before my father could say a word. I didn’t like the idea the mutant minotaur from hell, recently relieved of his head, might not be a solitary entity.
Justin drove, and I rearranged myself on the seat, coiling properly so I could bask in the hot air blowing on me without agitating my collection of bumps, bruises, and probable broken bones.
I couldn’t remember most of the ride, and I stirred when he transformed my bed into an oversized nest, placing me in its heart. True to his word, he cranked the heat high enough I was comfortable; I suspected Justin sweltered, and his solution to the problem was to strip and shift, hopping up on my bed as a mongoose, the kind I didn’t want to battle in the wild.
I watched him, kept my fangs to myself so I wouldn’t provoke him, and waited.
At my lack of aggression, he jumped into my nest with me, rammed his nose under my coils, and shunted me aside.
I uncoiled and moved to reclaim my territory.
With what I interpreted to be a mongoose grin, one that displayed his snake-eating teeth, he swatted my nose with his paw, then he bounced, swaying in place.
I hated mongoose. I hated the smug little bastards. Since biting—and potentially killing—my future partner in crime wouldn’t work, I’d have to come up with some other tactic to browbeat him into submission. I reared up to my full height and hissed at him.
Justin dared to purr at me.
Since killing him wasn’t an option, I’d teach him that there were ways I could use all fourteen feet of my length to put him in a bind. Humiliation wasn’t lethal, and I’d enjoy when my father discovered I’d used my natural weapons in unexpected ways to keep my opponent tied up and unable to bite my head off for annoying him.
I couldn’t help myself. I enjoyed a challenged.
Justin cheated. I had no other explanation for how we’d ended up a tangled mess, rather than me binding him with my coils and remaining in full control of the situation. Sometime during bringing all fourteen feet of my length into play and wrapping around my furry nemesis, I’d become knotted in several places.
I’d done exactly what I’d set out to do, trapping the squirming mongoose. Like me, he avoided using his natural weapons, claws and teeth included, which was likely how we’d become a living pretzel, so twisted we’d need an intervention to escape the situation.
I still counted it as my victory. My goal had been to ensure he couldn’t escape. As I’d accomplished my goal, I’d be content.
I yawned, wiggled enough I could burrow my nose into his warm fur, and took a nap.
A bark of laughter woke me, and I displayed my fangs for the intruder, lifting my head with a long, low hiss. Not much had changed since I’d decided consciousness wasn’t a requirement; Justin remained tangled in my coils, although he’d squirmed to make himself as comfortable as he could.
My father leaned over my bed, and his serpents canted their heads to the side as though at a loss.
“Please tell me you know how to shift, Tulip.”
I flicked the air with my tongue, and as he had asked a reasonable question in a pleasant tone, I bobbed my head.
“Is there a reason you haven’t shifted?”
I nodded, then I pointed my nose at Justin, who remained asleep despite
my father making enough nose to wake the dead.
“I fail to understand how Justin is responsible for your current status as a rather lovely black mamba, if I do say so myself. I should’ve guessed you were your own supplier. Do we need to have a long talk about the appropriate use of your fangs?”
Annoyed over his incorrect belief he could control how I used my fangs, I hissed and burrowed my nose back in Justin’s fur where it belonged.
“And here I thought you’d be more like your mother. She made it halfway across the planet before she realized I wasn’t going to hurt her.” My father gently took hold of the back of my head, peeling me away from Justin, trailing a finger along my back. Making a thoughtful noise, he released me, pinched Justin by the scruff of his neck, and lifted us both up.
When alarmed, mongoose barked, and Justin thrashed before blinking and realizing my father held us hostage. Both of his ears twisted back, and he showed off his snake-eating teeth.
My father rolled his eyes at Justin’s display. “Unless you want to stay tied up with a black mamba rope all day, settle down. And to think my parents want me to have an entire hive of children tormenting me until I die of old age. I have enough trouble with one daughter. To make it worse, unless you get your act together, I’m going to be stuck with both of you. You just had to introduce her to your cooking skills, didn’t you? Taking advantage to my family’s weakness to bacon was low, even for you.”
Justin lifted and turned his head with a satisfied huff.
Grunting his disapproval, my father resumed untangling us, and I found it amusing neither one of us made any efforts to help him. When I was finally freed, I returned to my nest, coiled up, and hissed.
“You need to shift back to human,” my father replied, still holding Justin by the scruff of his neck.
I reared up, opened my mouth, and showed off my fangs.