Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
“I hate the Conquest Moon,” Raptor says at my side, his tail thrashing almost as wildly as mine. “Makes me want to come out of my skin. Or rip someone out of theirs.”
I snort with amusement, because I know just what he means. Humans are blissfully unaware of such things, but Taurians are sensitive to the god Old Garesh, and the Conquest Moon is meaningful for every person with a drop of minotaur blood in their veins. Once every five years, the Blood Moon crosses over the White Moon, just as Old Garesh took to wife the queen of Old Prell. It’s called the Conquest Moon amongst the Taurians, because the god conquered the queen’s army and then kept her in his bed for five days. When she arose, she was pregnant with five sons.
And until the Conquest Moon passes, every Taurian is going to be agitated and on edge…or leaving the city entirely. Every Taurian female goes into heat, and every Taurian male is hit with the need to rut with abandon until the Conquest Moon passes.
It’s not convenient.
If you have a wife, I’m sure it’s fine. Fun, even.
But I don’t have a wife. I don’t even have a lover. My work in the tunnels takes up my days, and there’s no time for a woman or a family. The only female I’m ever around is Magpie, and the thought of falling upon her in a rutting frenzy makes me shudder with horror. We’re friends and business partners, but that’s as far as it goes.
I scratch at the fur on my neck and try not to snarl when another hopeful scholar tries to push forward. Baring my teeth at him, I manage to keep myself in check—but just barely. The Conquest Moon is almost a month away and yet I’m already short-tempered and impatient. I’m going to be an absolute wreck by the time the moon gets here. “Timing is awful,” I tell Raptor as the human moves past me with a quivering look. “I need to be here in the city.”
“You’ll murder someone and then rut their corpse if you stay here in the city,” Raptor tells me with a smirk not even his nose ring can hide. “And then they’ll lock you up and throw away the key.”
He’s not wrong, but he doesn’t know the half of it. Magpie needs students…yet she can’t be trusted to guide them on her own. If I count on her to pull things together, we’ll find ourselves with two students (or no students) instead of the standard five, and then they’ll quit because there’s no way a team of two will pass, and then there will be no income for either of us, because Magpie will be booted from the teaching program. Magpie will spend all her time at the bars, getting laid out and moping about the past, and I’ll find myself without a job.
I flex my magicked hand, the fingers aching despite the fact that they’re not real. If Magpie doesn’t get students, I’ll never get out of my indentured contract. So I have to stay. Magpie can’t be left to run things alone. “Can’t leave,” I say absently, flexing my hand again out of habit, just to make sure it’s there. “I don’t have a choice.”
“I always forget,” Raptor says, and there’s a hint of sympathy in his hard voice. Raptor works on a Five for Lord Nostrum, with a constantly rotating roster. Lord Nostrum is cheap and also neglectful, and I’m pretty certain that Raptor only stays because he can sell some of the artifacts he pilfers on the black market. Everyone else realizes that Lord Nostrum is paying pennies and so his team constantly switches out, leaving Raptor to do all the work. Sometimes I think it’s not about black-market sales, but just that Raptor would rather work alone than have to babysit the fools he’s normally saddled with.
“You’re leaving? Soon?” I ask, crossing my arms as another scholar pushes his way in out of the rain. It’s well-known that Taurians make the humans nervous, and we know to stay at the fringes of the room or in the shadows. They can’t do without us because we’re far superior in the tunnels, but we also know when to make ourselves scarce. I remain in the doorway instead of pushing my way inside. It lets me see the entire vicinity while also letting me leave easily…or so I tell myself.
Raptor shifts on his hooves. “I shouldn’t, but it’s pretty bad this year. I keep waking up sweaty, and I can’t sleep. It’s either stay or spend my entire fee on whorehouses, and then another fee for the delousing I’ll need after that.”
I wince. If I don’t leave Vastwarren for the Conquest Moon, I’m going to be the one in the whorehouses. I hate the thought. There’s something cold and impersonal about having a stranger with you through your rutting. I had to utilize a sex worker last time, and it left me feeling vaguely unsettled. Took me months to feel like myself again. The whores do their job and don’t discriminate between human men and Taurians, but it doesn’t mean I like it.