Page 25 of The Guarded Monster’s Truth

"I built those boards to prove I was useful." He stands across the table, arms at his sides, and I can hear that he didn't rehearse any of this. "That's why I kept them. They made me worth keeping."

"They don't keep you around for your filing system, Bruiser." I've watched Knox pull him into Church. Watched Garrett grip the back of his neck in the hallway like a brother. Watched Colt hand him coffee without being asked. "That club would go to war for you with or without your boards."

He's quiet for a beat. Then: "You told me you won't live in my cage. I'm tearing it down."

Every document carries his handwriting, his obsession, his conviction that the walls he built protected everyone instead of just himself. I look at the evidence spread across the table. I look at him.

"You know what this means." My voice comes out steadier than my pulse. "If I use this, there's no going dark. No Montana. No new identities."

"I know."

"You're choosing exposure."

"I'm choosing you." The corner of his mouth lifts. An actual smile. "And you come with a printing press."

I laugh, and it comes out wrong—wet and cracked and too close to crying. He just gave me everything.

Three weeks ago I crossed a state line for a byline. Now I'm watching the most guarded man I've ever profiled take himself apart in a public library.

He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a steel file. Small, narrow, the kind made for detail work. He crosses the room to the reading nook, the deep chair under the low lamp, where I rebuilt my story from nothing three nights ago. He sits, and the armchair creaks under his weight.

His thumb settles on the watchtower symbol at the base of his right horn.

"Minotaur claiming is different from orc claiming." His voice drops. "An orc bite is magical. Instant, permanent. A bond that transmits heartbeats." He traces the carved lines on his horn, the ones I mapped with my fingers.

"Horn-gifting is deliberate. I file a piece from my own horn. It never grows back. What I give you, I lose, and that bonds us permanently." He stops tracing the lines on his horn. Looks at me. "I want you to be mine, Ava. And I want to be yours. For good. I know by human standards this is insanely fast. But a minotaur knows when he's found his mate. There's no question, no wondering. I've known since I first saw you."

My vision blurs. He's right—by any rational measure this is insane. I left Portland swearing I'd never let anyone close enough to compromise my work, and now a minotaur with CIA clearance and a surveillance addiction is sitting in a library chair offering me forever, and every cell in my body is saying yes. I should have a list of reasons this is too fast, but I can't find a single one. "I'm not going anywhere, I'm yours."

He touches the watchtower at the base of his right horn. He runs his thumb up the length of the horn to the tip, the point that sits highest, the part worn smooth by years of weather. He positions the file there. "Every mark on these horns tells a story I chose to keep. This—" he taps the tip, "—is where it all starts. The first thing that breaks the air when I walk into a room." He looks at me. "I want you to have it."

The file touches horn.

His breath catches. His fingers tighten around the handle and his shoulders pull inward, a flinch he can't suppress, because horns are the most sensitive part of a minotaur's body—the part handlers grab to control, the part I held while he fell apart beneath me. Filing a piece away hurts. I watch the pain travel through his face in real time, from the contact point to the set of his jaw to the creases at the corners of his eyes. He doesn't stop.

The filing takes less than a minute, each stroke short and precise. His jaw holds rigid through each one, and his breath comes through his nose in controlled pulls that tell me the pain runs deeper than his horn. When the piece comes free it drops into his palm. The length of my index finger, tapered and curved, the surface worn smooth. It looks like something ancient.

He holds it out to me.

The piece falls from his palm into mine, dense and smooth, lighter than I expected. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a leather cord. The horn piece threads onto the cord, and he ties the knot at the back of my neck. The pendant settles at the hollow of my throat, warm against my pulse.

His hand covers mine where it rests on the pendant. The purring starts. This builds from somewhere different. A vibration he sends through his palm into my fingers and the cord and the piece of himself he gave me, and the sound fills the reading nook, low and deliberate, a statement he chose to make on the record.

My lips find the filed edge at the tip of his right horn. The flat spot where the taper used to come to a point, raw and exposed, the keratin still warm from the cut.

His whole body shudders. The sound he makes doesn't have a name. Part gratitude, part grief, part surrender, all of it compressed into a single exhale that breaks against my lips. His cock hardens against my thigh through his jeans, a twitch I feel, and his grip lands on my waist hard enough to drag me forward.

I climb into his lap. My knees bracket him in the chair, and when I settle my weight his hips roll up into me on instinct, the ridge of his cock pressing against my pussy through layers of denim that do nothing to hide how thick he is. My palms stay on his horns.

His forehead drops to mine. The horn piece presses warm between our chests. My fingers span the width of his face. His span the width of my entire back. The armchair protests beneath us and the lamp on the side table hums from the purring, a fine vibration that makes the lightbulb flicker.

He lifts me, adjusts, repositions my hips against his. His hands settle me where he wants me, higher, tighter, and when I grind down against him the friction hits my clit through the seam of my jeans and the moan that tears out of me bounces off the library stacks. I'm soaking through the denim. He knows it. His nostrils flare, and the growl that rolls out of him shakes the armchair frame.

My shirt goes over my head. His mouth drops to the pendant at my throat, his lips pressing against the horn piece and my skin at the same time, and the heat shoots straight from my throat to my pussy so fast my thighs clench around him. His shirt follows. I slide my palms down his chest, across the dense muscle beneath heated skin, and his fingers pop the clasp of my bra in one motion. The fabric falls and his mouth closes over my nipple, tongue stroking flat across the peak while the purring pulses against my sensitive skin, and I fist the back of his head and grind into his lap because I need the friction or I'm going to lose my mind.

"Fuck." The word comes out raw. His teeth graze my nipple and I arch into it, rolling my hips against the hard line of his cock. I can feel how wet I am through the denim, the seam slick against me, and in any other context I'd care. Not here. Not with him. He drives up to meet me every time I bear down, and the rhythm turns filthy, a slow grind that drags my clit across the seam until my thighs shake.

I reach between us and unbutton him, work the zipper down, and wrap my hand around his cock. He bucks into my grip, thick and hot, the shaft rigid in my fist. I stroke him base to tip and his head drops back against the chair and the groan that rips from his chest vibrates through the arm of the seat into the floor. My thumb sweeps over the head, slicking through the wetness already gathering there, and his fingers dig into my hips so hard I'll wear the marks for days.