Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(87)

After a moment he cleared his throat. “This is where many a gentleman might think that it’s ladies who have odd minds.”

“Richard—”

“Please don’t do me the insult of comparing me to that worm,” he said, quietly and seriously.

“I’m sorry,” she said at once, because she was. Apollo was nothing like Richard and she more than anyone else knew that. “But you must understand: even without his violence, I don’t think their marriage would’ve been a happy one.”

He rolled to his side and propped himself up on his arm. “You’re still comparing,” he said gently. “I don’t give a damn about bloodlines. I think today’s events more than prove that only madmen do, really.”

She swallowed, pulling off her stays gingerly. “Your family won’t like an actress for your wife.”

“My family consists of Artemis and, I suppose by default, His Grace the Ass. Did you find either of them unwelcoming?”

“No, but—”

“And they won’t be.” He rose, gloriously nude, and walked to her, taking her hands. “Lily, my light, my love. What are you afraid of?”

“I…” she began and then couldn’t answer because she didn’t know what it was she feared. She looked up at him helplessly.

He smiled his gentle smile and brought her hand to his lips, tenderly kissing each fingertip. “I love you and you love me. I might’ve been in a little doubt before this afternoon, but when you flung yourself in front of a pistol, it did rather clarify things. And, since you love me and I love you, it is right and meet and wonderful that you and I become man and wife and spend the rest of our lives sleeping together and rising together and having masses of children together and living joyfully.”

“Masses?” she muttered a bit doubtfully, but fortunately he ignored her.

Apollo sank onto one knee there before her, with her only in her chemise and him in… nothing at all.

“Lily Stump,” he said, his voice rasping a little as it always would, “will you take me as husband and be my wife? Will you be my sun and light all the days of my life and never make me regret bathing in a muddy pond?”

And she laughed as she drew him up to kiss.

“Yes,” she said against his lips. “Yes.”

Epilogue

A cry broke from Ariadne’s lips at the gruesome sight. The monster shook his head and Theseus’s body fell to the ground, bloodied. She ran to kneel by the man, but saw at once that the wound was too deep and too terrible. Theseus looked up at her, his eyes wide in surprise, and gasped with his last breath, “I am the hero. It is the monster who should die, not me.”

And then his spirit left his body.

Ariadne bowed her head and said a prayer. When she raised it she saw the monster wading in the pool, washing the gore from his chest and head. She stood, but he did not look at her. In fact, he turned his back.

“Monster!” she called, but the moment the word left her lips, she knew it was wrong. “I’m sorry,” she said, softer. “You aren’t a monster, no matter what others say.”

At that he raised his bull head and finally turned to look at her.

There were tears in his beautiful brown eyes.

“I do not know your name,” she said. “Perhaps you’ve never had one—not a proper one, at least. So I’ll call you Asterion—ruler of the stars—if that meets with your approval?”

Gravely, Asterion bowed his head.

Ariadne held out her hand. “Will you come with me out of the labyrinth? It is beautiful here in your garden, but no birds sing and I think it rather lonely.”

So Asterion took Ariadne’s hand and she, following the red thread from the spindle the queen had given her, retraced her steps out of the labyrinth. Of course it took many days, for even with the thread to follow, the labyrinth’s corridors were long and winding. But Ariadne passed the time telling Asterion about the island outside the labyrinth, and the people who lived there.

When at last they reached the entrance of the labyrinth and Ariadne heard birds singing in the trees, she turned to Asterion with a joyful smile upon her face.

But what a surprise met her when she gazed upon her companion! For while Asterion still retained his coal-black hue, his massive shoulders, the horns of a bull, and the tail as well, his visage had changed to that of a man.

And with a man’s lips and tongue came the power of speech. Asterion fell to his knees before Ariadne. “Gentle maiden, I owe you my life,” he said, his voice hoarse and halting. “For years others have entered into my labyrinth bent on killing me. Only you saw me as a thinking being. A man with a soul. In this way you have broken my curse.”

“And I am glad of it,” she said.

Ariadne and Asterion went to the golden castle. But how it had changed since she’d last seen it! The great halls were empty, the courtiers and soldiers disappeared. Together Ariadne and Asterion wandered for many hours before they at last found the mad queen.

What tears the queen wept when she saw her son! For the first time in years she put down her spinning, and she opened wide her arms to receive him. As for the king? Why, he was quite dead. One morning he’d grown irritated at the singing of sparrows on his balcony, and when in a fit of ire he’d chased them, the balcony wall had given way, and the king had fallen to his death.