Lara woke up when it was well into the morning. Light shone in through a window on the wall by the bed. The fireplace had gone cold sometime during the night, leaving the room to the chilly late autumn air. And yet Lara wasn't cold. Tarok's body had kept her warm, and his arms still draped over her. She couldn't help but sighing satisfyingly when she opened her eyes.
The steady soft snoring told Lara Tarok hadn't woken up yet. She craned her neck to look at him and was reminded of how he looked two days before: calm and serene. His sleeping face had the tranquility of a well-rested man, but today there was something else, which, judging by his curled lips, seemed like contentment.
Lara looked at his chest. She didn't notice it last night due to darkness and other 'distractions', but the bandage was replaced. Someone had done a better job than her since the gauze was wrapped tighter and no blood had seeped through.
Another thing Lara didn't notice about Tarok until now was that his head was full of tangled black, coarse, thick hair that flowed down to the back of his neck, forming a sort of mane. The mane extended onto his back, where it morphed into the thin layer of black fur of his body. Protruding atop his head like two towers in the middle of a coal-colored forest was the pair of horns. Lara wondered what they would feel like if she touched them. She had touched a stag antler and really loved the velvety texture of it; Tarok's horns, on the other hand, seemed smooth. If she extended her hand just a little, she could give them a feel. Lara tentatively raised her hand.
But what if he woke up?
She drew her hand back.
It's just a quick touch. It couldn't do any harm, and it wouldn't bother Tarok in any way.
She lifted her hand again, aiming for the midsection of his left horn. When her hand was an inch away from it, Lara suddenly had a funny feeling: the feeling of being watched. She instinctively looked down to find Tarok's eyes following her outstretched fingers.
"Eeeee," Lara shrieked and jolted. She almost felt off Tarok, but his hands were quicker and they caught her.
"I'm sorry, Ididntmeantowakeyou," Lara jabbered. She froze as Tarok held her waist to stop her from falling.
"What are you doing?" he asked after a yawn. He sat up while still holding Lara and relaxed his grip. He laid her on one of his thick muscular thighs.
"Nothing," mumbled Lara. She hid her face from his by looking at her lap.
"Come on, tell me, I'm curious. What are you planning to do?" asked Tarok. He patted her back in a friendly manner to coax her answer.
Lara slowly peered up and saw his toothy grin. She relaxed a bit.
"I'm just curious about your horns."
"Curious? Did you try to touch them?"
"Yes. It was dumb. Please forget about it."
But he didn't. Instead, he tipped his head forward, presenting her his pair of ivory horns.
"Touch it," he said.
"Um..."
Lara didn't expect him to agree to her silly curiosity this easily. She raised her hand gingerly and touched Tarok's horns. They were indeed smooth, like polished wood. Her hand drifted downwards to his thick rough hair, and she stroked it lightly. She remembered how much he enjoyed her doing this last night. Soon enough, Tarok began to hum satisfyingly. Lara couldn't help but giggled when she saw the broad happy smile on his face. She moved down to his neck and continued stroking.
Tarok's hands circled Lara's hip, and he lifted her up so that her face was on his level. He pressed his lips to her and gave Lara a gentle morning kiss. It lasted a minute before Lara pulled away, her glassy chestnut eyes met his blueness. She spoke first, "How are you today? Does the wound hurt anymore?"
"Just a dull pain now, nothing I can't deal with," said Tarok absentmindedly since his attention was entirely on her face. He had been with many other girls, some slaves, mostly paid whores, and he had never paid much attention to how they looked. Now he couldn't get his eyes off this young girl. He liked how beautiful she looked, how soft her skin felt, and especially, how lovely she smelled.
"Lara, can I ask you something?" Tarok asked.
Lara raised her eyebrows. "Yes?"
"Do you mind..." Tarok paused, his lips twitched. "...if I, um, hold you?"
Lara thought that was a strange thing to ask, but it was even stranger to see how Tarok said it: he looked nervous when he asked. He's not the same cold and imperious Tarok as before, and Lara decided that she liked this Tarok much more than the old one.
She nodded and smiled reassuringly to set him at ease. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck, as his body was too wide for her to fully encircle, and nestled her head on the left side of his neck. Tarok in turn wound his arms around her back and waist and pulled her close to him, her lithe little body fully enveloped in his warm embrace. With Lara's head right beside him, Tarok couldn't resist digging his nose into Lara's hair and held it there, indulging himself in her heavenly scent. She did not object. The little nudges he sometimes gave her with his muzzle when he sniffed gave Lara delicious tingles. Being so close to Tarok, Lara could feel the steady thumping of his heartbeat against her own.
Lara closed her eyes. The last time Lara was hugged was during her childhood, and Tarok was big enough to make her felt like a child in his embrace. She reminisced about her youth. Back when her mother still found it suitable to pamper her little daughter, she would hold Lara at night, singing lullabies or telling tales about pixies and dragons and princesses. Lara missed those days. She missed the stories, even the boring ones about the sages of yore.
Lara opened her eyes. She wondered what was going on in Tarok's mind. He had sat still the whole time. It had been a long hug, not that she's complaining though, Lara had enjoyed his embrace very much.
"Tarok, is everything alright?" Lara whispered, she didn't need to speak up as his bovine ear was right above her face.
Her question gave Tarok a barely noticeable start as if her question had pulled him from wherever he was at and back to the bedroom.
"I'm fine. Can you give me a minute more?" said Tarok after a pause.
"No no, that's not what I meant," said Lara quickly, "It's just—you're so quiet."
Another moment of silence. "I can talk. What do you want to hear?" whispered Tarok by Lara's ear. She felt his hot breath flowing down her ear. Lara shivered.
"If you want, I'd like to hear about your mother."
Tarok stayed silent and made no detectable movements. Lara became afraid she had intruded too much, she was about to apologize when Tarok moved backwards so that he could lean against the headboard. He hugged her tighter, her modest breast squished against his hard, masculine chest, and then he relaxed. His hands caressed her back, causing Lara to squirm joyfully. He began his story.
"My mother was the daughter of farmers who lived very far from here, in the north. I didn't know much about her parents, just that they were always poor. When mother was about to be married to a son of another farmer in the village, the non-humans attacked. Goblins, orcs, ogres, minotaurs and many others. Their territory had been gradually cut back to the mountainous region by the migrating humans for centuries now, and they had grown more and more restless. Finally, the most combative of them banded together and organized raids against human settlements. Their goal was not to steal but to drive the humans away. Mother's village was one of the first targets.
"Mother was captured. Her parents didn't survive. The non-humans had no use for humans, they just wanted to scare them off their lands. Except for the minotaurs. They wanted female slaves. All females in a minotaur tribe live under the protection of the chieftain and are separated from the bulls. Breeding is not a right, it must be earned from battles, therefore only the strongest can produce offspring. It was a great honor for a male to be allowed to touch a female and breed, and the females know it too. They are an extremely proud kind, even more than the gods, one might say. They refuse to touch any males who haven't proved themselves. There is no such thing called love in the minotaur race, they don't pair up and start families like humans. The god Palpinos didn't create them that way. There is only breeding. That's why minotaurs are always fighting, against others or themselves. Doesn't matter. They must fight. It's in their blood.
"Breeding isn't easy, since the females aren't available. Yet they still have the urge for it. The primal urge that even constant bloodshed can't sate entirely. As a result, many inferior minotaurs used whores or captured slaves to pleasure themselves since they can't have a suitable partner. Mother was captured and enslaved."
Tarok stopped to gather his breath. Lara hugged him tighter.
"Minotaurs chieftains usually tried to prevent slave-raiding as it caused outrages among other races, but this specific chieftain didn't care. He regulated how the slaves were given out too, long as he could get his hand on them any time he wanted. He saw mother and wanted her first, that same night she was struck by Melisza's spell. Melisza and her mentor, Talina, was staying with the tribe. Talina promised to use alchemy to give the minotaurs' weapons powerful enchantments in exchange for them letting her study some lightning-discharging stones in their territory. Talina had discovered a way for species to mix and create cross-breed children, yet she didn't tell a soul about it. I don't know why. Somehow, Melisza learned about Talina's secret spell, and that night the witch offered to put it on mother, lying that it was a 'calming' spell that would help to put her mind at ease for what would come later that night. And mother was desperate enough to agree.
"Of course, the spell didn't work that way. Mother still suffered at the hand of the chieftain. Months went by and nothing changed until she was visibly pregnant. The minotaurs couldn't explain it. Difference species can't mix and breed with each other, and there was no other male human for miles. When Talina heard about it, she immediately knew what had happened. She went to confront Melisza about it, but her student was quicker. Their tent exploded in a giant electric-storm with Talina in it. Mother saw Melisza flew out of the carnage and disappeared.
"The tribesmen didn't know what to do with mother. Besides Talina and Melisza, nobody else knows about the spell. They regarded her as some unholy curse delivered to them by some trickster god, and they didn't dare to kill her as that would give some reasons for said god to punish them. So, she was banished from the tribe, forced to leave the mountain, alone and pregnant.
"Lucky for mother, she was saved by a few dwarfs who had decided to stay out of the fighting, given some supplies, and guided out of the mountains. On her way, she approached an advancing human army, sent to crush the non-humans raiders. They thought she was a refugee, took her in and sent her back to the nearest walled city. She stayed there until I was born. Then she couldn't stay anymore. Words of a terrifyingly deformed infant soon spread, and she had to run away with me. She ran into the woods, found an abandoned cottage and made it her new home.
