Taken By The Bull

Chapter 7

He remained perfectly still after hearing her words, his eyes on hers; and after several long seconds he said, “That’s one way of looking at it, yes.”

She’d expected him to deny it. Even if it seemed true – even if it was true! – she’d expected him to laugh, and maybe say she was mistaken. Or crazy. Or both.

“That’s your secret.” Staci could barely breathe; it felt as though there was a crushing pain in her chest, a feeling that she couldn’t put into simple words. “That’s why you… How you… Are so good at what you do… Isn’t it?”

“That, and practice. Though why you’d be caring about that at a time like this, I don’t know.” Steve shrugged, so casual, so – certain, as if this wasn’t any big deal, not really. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it from you, forever. Can you stand?”

“Can I…” His words simply didn’t compute. He talked about such strange and unnatural things in one instant, and then asked her such a normal question the next; her mind, her emotions, simply couldn’t keep up. “I…”

He smiled, soft and slow; and then moved closer, as if he were about to kiss her. She thought he was about to kiss her; and then one arm stole under the crook of her knees, the other about her shoulders as he lifted her into the air, as easily as if she weighed nothing. “Let’s get you into somewhere warm and safe, okay?”

A part of her wanted to push him away, to demand answers, to make sense of everything before he could lay another hand on her; but the greater part of her ruled, and she put her arms around his neck and laid her head on his bare shoulder as he carried her easily up the path. Her eyes closed as the sound of gravel underfoot changed to the soft hollow of the wooden porch, and she heard the creak of the door opening, the darkness giving way to light.

Then she felt softness under her body as he laid her on the couch, his hand smoothing her hair back from her face. She opened her eyes to see his own dark ones looking back, and blurted out “But werewolves and things don’t exist!”

He stared back, silent for a moment; and then, unbelievably, he laughed. “Now, I don’t know about werewolves.” He stood, utterly unashamed at his nakedness, and put his fingers to the side of his head, wincing slightly at the pain of the bleeding wound. “But I know I exist, because my head is hurting like hell.”

*****

“So, you, your father, and Seth… Are you the only ones?”

Spots of red stained the bathroom floor, and scarlet threads twisted through the water in the bathroom sink. The wet cloth in her hand stung the torn skin of her palms as she held it against the cut on Steve’s head; she knew that he didn’t really need her help. But at this point, it felt like the least she could do.

He had stopped to put some jeans on, and she was glad; it was hard enough to concentrate, even with him half-dressed.

“All the men of my family line have the gift – or curse, if you’d rather call it that.” He kept perfectly still as she tended him, hands resting on the rim of the sink. “We got family in Texas, Greece, Austria – hell, all over. But, me and Seth are the only ones in Mississippi.”

“All the men?” Staci paused, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. There was dirt on her cheek, and her hair was all over the place. “There aren’t any women who are – what’s that word? Taurus…?”

“Táv̱ros-kin.”

“Yeah. There are only were-bulls, and no, ah… Were-cows?”

“Not in the last six generations.”

“That’s – sexist?” Staci paused, uncertain. “I think?”

“Ain’t my fault!” Steve shrugged that off with a slight grin. “Besides, would you want to be a were-cow? It’s enough that you’d have to take shape three times a month and can’t leave your own lands for more’n a handful of days without going stir-crazy, without having to worry about udders.”

“Hmm.” Staci wrung out the cloth and checked over the cut buried in Steve’s hair; it seemed perfectly clean now. “You’ve got a point. I can’t say that most women would want, ah… That.”

“Damn right.” Steve opened the cabinet behind the mirror and took out a bag of cotton balls and a small bottle of iodine, uncapping it. “You hurt your hands, didn’t you?”

“Yeah…” Staci eyed the bottle of iodine, biting her lip. “I’m okay though.”

“Don’t worry. This is for me, not for you.” He pulled a cotton ball from the bag and put a few drops of iodine onto it, handing her the bottle. “Oh man, this is going to hurt.”

“Do you need-” Staci started to say, but without hesitation he put the medicated pad to his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “-Any help with that?”

“No. No. I’m okay.” The words were forced out through gritted teeth; he certainly wasn’t being quite as stoic as she was used to. “Ow, ow, ow! Dammit!”

“You hit a truck head on,” Staci said as she replaced the cap back on the iodine bottle and put it back in the cabinet. “It could have been a lot worse. You really shouldn’t have done that.”

“Maybe.” He cracked an eye open at her gently chiding tone. “I was a little riled up, it’s true.”

The black color of his irises was starting to give way again to his usual blue, the darkness receding from the pupil. That how you know he’s doing some… Something magic, she thought. Like that old country song, ‘Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue’. Except, it makes his blue eyes black, and it has something to do with not actually being a… normal human being. It looked strange, like ink dropped onto sapphires; strange, and beautiful.

“I gotta say though – I guess I’m glad that you got a little riled up.” She turned her head away, unable to meet those unnatural eyes. “I don’t know what I would have done, otherwise.”

“Yeah. I wanted to ask about that.” He threw the used cotton ball into the trashcan, and smoothed his hair back over the cut. “How’d you get yourself in that situation?”

“I didn’t ‘get’ myself in any situation,” she replied; quick, defensive. “They followed me! It’s not like I asked them too. It’s not like I picked a fight.”

“Hold on now. I never said you did.” He shrugged, holding up his hands. “I’m just wondering, how come you ended up in my driveway with a gaggle of bad sorts lookin’ to do you harm. It’s a fair thing to wonder.”

“Yeah, I know.” Staci passed her hand over her eyes, rubbing at them; she felt the grit of mascara under her knuckles, and looked down to see a dark smudge across the side of her fingers. “Well, sh*t,” she muttered. “It’s always something, isn’t it?”

Steve stood, a strong and silent shape in the doorway while she washed her face and told her story. It wasn’t a long story, all told; she didn’t understand much of why it had happened, only how. When she finished, and her face was clean, he took a moment to answer.

“Can’t say I have much of a solid idea about what was up with that.” He paused, looking into the middle distance as if thinking something over. “Can’t say I have much of an idea about anything, for certain. Did any of them say anything, at all?”