The Centaur Queen (The Dark Queens Book 7) Read online

  Scooping out the rest of them with her finger, Ty continued to chew and moan and sigh, and soon my cock had thickened to the point of pain. Gods above, to go from feeling nothing at all for over a year to feeling as though I might burst? I should have been happier about it.

  But I wasn’t.

  My thoughts were a jumbled mess of Myra and confusion over my feelings toward Tymanon. Ty was savoring her food, and it was torture for me. I thought the meal rather boring, myself. I’d made far better before, but for an audience who’d neither cared nor eaten much of it.

  Burping softly, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before patting her slightly distended belly.

  “Gods, I ate like a—”

  “Horse?” I offered with a cheeky grin.

  She only rolled her eyes. “I was going to say a pig, but all things considered...” She shrugged, and I found myself laughing.

  Being with Ty was so bloody easy. I didn’t have to be a sexual Casanova, didn’t have to chase her, didn’t have to be on all the time. I could simply be me. It was scary how much I liked it.

  “So,” she said as she reached into her pouch and pulled out a polished tortoise-shell hair comb.

  My insides quivered. I always enjoyed watching her brush her long, silky hair. My eyes drank her in as she performed the first stroke of the night.

  “Tell me, Petra. What is bothering you?”

  Lulled into a trance-like state as I watched her, I didn’t realize she’d spoken until she cleared her throat and repeated herself.

  “What?” I blinked. “Oh, bothering me?”

  Amber eyes stared at me with patient expectation.

  I pinched my lips together. “I’m thinking about our trip.”

  True enough.

  “Aye, I’m sure you are.”

  Fifty strokes on the one side. With a deft flick of her dainty wrist, she moved to the other side and began the process anew. Each time she brushed, I caught sight of the two small freckles on the side of her long neck that’d always seemed to me to be a set of crudely drawn hearts.

  “But there’s more to it than that. You’ve not stopped staring at that seeing disk ever since I gave it to you.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Have you been spying on me, Ty?”

  A ghost of a smile pulled at her mouth.

  “I have no need to spy on you, gída, not with the way you moon over it constantly.”

  I’d not been very happy when, upon first meeting, Tymanon had called me gída. It meant goat in the ancient tongue. Comparing me to a goat was the same as comparing her to a horse, and yet she’d done it with a hint of a smile upon her rosebud lips and, well... I’d not minded it coming from her.

  “I do not moon.” Suddenly, I was back to thinking of Myra and scowling down at my hooves.

  “My friend,” she said softly, “I do not wish to wound you. Your troubles, whatever they are, are yours. I merely wish to show you I am a friend, if you find yourself in need of one.”

  With one final flick, she finished her grooming, and I found myself grumpy about it. Heart feeling heavy, stomach twisted with nerves, and soul weary, I stood to my feet. Myra was my problem. I’d wanted to use Tymanon’s cleverness to see me through the three, but I couldn’t do that to her. My problems were my own, and not anything I could or should burden her with. Somehow I’d figure out a way to help her save Kingdom and maybe, hopefully, work through the puzzle of my own personal war.

  “I thank you. I should go bathe.”

  A shadow crossed her gaze, and for just a moment, I thought she was disappointed, but I knew that could not be. Tymanon and I were temporary companions, nothing more. Once we’d accomplished whatever it was that we’d been tasked with doing, we’d go our separate ways, me to my forest full of nymphs and worldly pleasures, and her to her books and scholarly centaur males who’d ram their large pricks into her and make her scream out in glory.

  Snapping to my feet, I turned on my hooves and marched off, refusing to look back.

  Chapter 4

  Tymanon

  The next morning saw us up bright and early, just as the sun began to crest the horizon. Because of the wild magic still lingering like a fog, nothing was quite what it used to be. The sky, rather than being a lovely shade of tangerine, was speckled. Thousands of glowing yellow dots, like miniature suns, were everywhere.

  Petra riffled his fingers through his shaggy hair, squinting up into the sky. “Bloody weird,” he mumbled.

  Last night, he’d stayed in the stream for hours. I wanted to go after him, but I didn’t have a legitimate reason to and didn’t particularly want the awkwardness of watching him bathe. Though, I found myself imagining what I’d see if I had.

  I’d once read in a book of Kingdom species and genera that satyrs’ penises were monstrously huge, and that only nymphs could handle the girth and steel of their pricks. I’d found the paragraph revolting to say the least. Who in their right mind would ever want to bed a satyr? I’d often looked down my nose at the nymphs who did.

  And yet last night, for reasons I still couldn’t quite fathom, I’d found myself wondering what it would have been like to stumble across him in flagrante. Would I have looked upon him as he’d looked upon me, with the type of liquid heat that made my skin feel stretched too tight and my breaths far too choppy?

  Stomping out the last coal of tinder with his thick, black hoof, Petra looked at me. “Did you pack up your smoked flesh?”

  My lips twitched. “You make me sound like a cannibal when you say it like that. It’s meat, gída, and yes, I have.”

  Though he wasn’t as lighthearted anymore, I warmed to see the flash of a smile cross his face. “Good. I have seeds and berries to see me through.” He patted his pouch. “We still have a long journey ahead.”

  “Yes, at least another forty miles until we reach the coastline. Stone dwarf country.”

  His nostrils flared.

  Dwarfs and stone dwarfs may as well be two entirely separate genera of species. Dwarves were drunkards, fighters, and jewel hunters, but mostly harmless for all that. Stone dwarves, on the other hand, were cannibals, territorial, and demonic little imps I’d gladly see stomped off the face of the earth.

  But they mined the most precious of stones and jewels from deep within the earth, a task no other would be foolhardy to undertake. So they lived within their mountains, isolated from the rest of Kingdom. They did not come into our part of the world, and would kill anything that came into theirs if given the chance. They were nasty little beasties.

  Petra shoved my mat into his bottomless pouch before slapping the leather flap back down with jerky, angry movements. “I know a place of relatively safety where we can bed down for the night, but we have to reach it before dusk, otherwise we’ll never find it.”

  I knew all of Kingdom, geographically speaking. Not that I’d been to all parts, but I’d studied the maps of our world. There was a difference, though, in knowing and knowing. Maps only showed so much—bodies of water, unique landmarks. Some even showed terrain and altitude.

  What they did not show, however, were hidden trails. No, that knowledge was gained from having traveled in a place before.

  Petra would not look at me. Instead, he made of show of glancing around our campground as though he were double checking we left nothing behind. He knew as well as I there was nothing there, which meant he was evading me and didn’t want me asking questions about it.

  I waited a few seconds before saying, “You ready?”

  “Aye.” He nodded grimly. “Right as rain.”

  I gestured for him to precede me. I had a hunch and I wanted to test its validity. Without looking back at me, he began running, but not eastward as we’d been going yesterday. He knew, without my having to say anything, that the path we took today would veer southeast only a mile from where we’d made camp.

  Again, neither of us spoke much as we ran. I kept an eye out for him, making certain he was doing okay. Satyrs were not built for t
he run the way centaurs were. I’d rested plenty last night and knew I could easily go another forty, possibly even fifty miles today.

  Petra was a little slower than he’d been yesterday. Only five miles in, his powerful back was coated in a thick lather of sweat. But he did not stop and he did not ask me to, either.

  After another fifteen miles, I noticed his heavy breathing. Petra was a proud male, so I began to slow, going from a swift gallop to a slow trot. He glanced over at me with a question in his eyes. We’d been running several hours. I was hungry, but not enough to slow me down.

  “Stone in my hoof.” I winced, and finally walked, gingerly lifting up my hind left leg and making a good show of limping as I spotted a large, moss-covered boulder a few yards away. He stayed with me, and though he said nothing, I saw the relief course through him. Easing my body against the boulder, I grimaced.

  “Are you alright, Ty?” he asked, breaths coming in short little huffs.

  I waved off his concern. “It’s wedged in there tight. It’s a bad one. Would you be a dear and find me a nice, sharp twig?”

  A little color returned to his cheeks. I wasn’t certain we’d make it fifty miles today. I wasn’t even certain we’d make it forty. I could let him ride me, though I shook at the thought. I wasn’t a horse and wasn’t in the habit of letting anyone ride me.

  But truly, he looked exhausted, and if we weren’t under such a time crunch, I’d tell him I was too injured to go farther.

  “Of course,” he said and turned, moving with an ambling sort of gait.

  Poor man.

  Once he was out of range, I dropped down to my haunches and rummaged around the grass for anything I could possibly use. I found a sharpened twig the size of my thumbnail.

  It would do.

  Lifting my front leg just a little, I made a dramatic show of it. I had to sell it in case he watched me without my knowing.

  Fumble.

  Fumble.

  Fumble.

  Okay, surely this was enough time. “Ah, got it,” I said, flooding my voice with relief. Then I reached into my pouch and pulled out some of the smoked vole.

  Petra returned a few seconds later, carrying a twig and looking at me in such a way that I knew he’d seen me, though I wasn’t quite sure whether he believed me.

  Grinning widely, I tipped the bit of twig I still held toward him. “Sorry, I found one after all. Anyway, I’m famished and my hoof is still a little tender. Might as well eat while we’re here.”

  His eyes narrowed, the moss color looking a deeper green and full of some strange emotion I couldn’t place my finger on.

  I thought maybe the jig was up, but I plastered on an even bigger smile and tried to affect a nonchalant attitude.

  A second later, he sat across from me and crossed his legs. Reaching into his pouch, he pulled out a handful of seeds and berries and quickly set about eating.

  I gnawed at the bony bits still attached to the crude slivers of meat. In this position, his trousers gripped his thighs. He had large legs. Not fat, but very obviously muscled. Even through the cloth, I could note the ridges of them, faint though they were.

  Suddenly, I found myself wondering the oddest things... like how high did the fur go, really? All the way? Did it look like a second pair of pants? When he pulled off the trousers, would it still look like he wore a set? Or did it gradually taper off?

  His ridged stomach was hairless, as was his chest. He really did have a very sculpted body for a male. In fact, I’d say he looked more powerful than most of the centaur males in my herd. Gods above, was I really comparing a satyr to a centaur? And doing so favorably?

  My stomach fluttered. Aware that he was watching me, I looked up at him, at his pretty eyes, and swallowed hard.

  “Did you notice the changes in the terrain?” he asked softly after several minutes of silence.

  “What? Oh, hm.” I nodded before reaching for another slice of dried meat and shoveling it in, mostly because I didn’t know what to do with my hands.

  Looking over my shoulder, he pointed with his chin. “Several large craters where none used to be. And there was a village on the maps only half a mile from here. But I see no smoke and hear no sounds.”

  I shrugged. Having spoken with the fairies at length, I already knew the landscape of our world had changed. The people too had been affected. Families had been torn apart. Brother no longer recognized brother, wives and husbands were separated, and some had even died.

  It was all very tragic, but I had a task to accomplish, and I could not do that by dwelling on the sadness. So I pushed on, regardless of my feelings in the matter, because I had no choice.

  Much of the terrain that’d been fixed in my head from poring over the maps was simply altered, or in some cases, gone completely.

  “How do we know Gnósi is even there anymore?” he asked.

  “We don’t.” I rolled my wrist. No sense in sugarcoating the obvious truth. “But geographically, north, south, east, and west are as fixed today as they were before. Of that, at least, we are certain.”

  Scattering the leftover seeds and berries he hadn’t eaten to the right of him, he dusted off his hands with short, angry claps. “And so what? Just because direction remains unchanged doesn’t mean Gnósi remains. What if we’re searching for a ghost?”

  He cared too much.

  Not that I didn’t care for the fate and plight of those I’d never know, because I did. But it wasn’t as personal for me, not the way it was for him. I was fairly certain I knew why at this point. Petra wore his heart on his sleeve.

  “I’m not convinced everything is as dire as the fairies believe,” I said softly.

  That stopped him. He visibly inhaled before slowly exhaling, and hope flashed through his moss-green eyes. I did not want to encourage that kind of belief in me, did not want him to think I was infallible. Would that it were so, but I was most certainly fallible, and had been many times in the past.

  “You think so?” he asked in a breathless rush.

  My stomach kinked into a massive knot. I frowned. “Do not mistake me, Petra. There will be challenges ahead. Of that, I have no doubt. But yesterday I bathed in a stream.”

  He frowned, obviously confused by my sudden change in subject.

  “It was once part of a great tributary chain of rivers and lakes, but no more. Naught but a stream. But the remnants of what it used to be still remained. Like a ghostly footprint, it’s still there if you know where to look.”

  “And you know where to look?” His voice was deep, full of unnamed emotion, and my heart squeezed for my friend.

  “When I was below the water, I opened my mouth and let its coolness rush over my tongue.”

  His nostrils flared.

  “Do you know what I tasted?”

  Grunting, Petra cleared his throat twice before answering in a sharp burr. “What?”

  “Salt.”

  His mouth turned down, and I knew he still didn’t understand.

  “That body of water once had a tributary that led directly toward the ocean.”

  “A stream is freshwater,” he said, and I grinned. He was no centaur, but my friend was bright all the same.

  “Aye, that it is. Salt could have remained behind only if it’d once been there to begin with. We will find Gnósi, one way or another. But I believe that the gateway to the world of the ancients would not have moved. It seems only Kingdom has been affected.”

  “Are you better enough to head out now?” he asked, and I startled because I’d forgotten all about my little fib.

  He looked much better, and there was a sudden buoyancy to him, so I knew he’d make it to our stopping point for the night without dying. Stretching out my leg, I hemmed and hawed and finally declared myself all better.

  Petra’s lips twitched. Surely, I had made a fool of myself, but it was worth it to see him better.

  With the spry movements of a satyr, he hopped quickly to his feet and held a hand out to me. I could have
gotten up without his help. I’d done it all my life before I’d met him. But I slid my hand into his, feeling the slightest bit lightheaded when his callused palm rubbed against my own.

  Once I was up he released me. But I swear I felt the touch of his hand in mine for the next twenty miles.

  Chapter 5

  Petra

  We arrived at the stone dwarf mountains. To call them so was a misnomer. There was nothing miniature about them. The mountains were slate-gray, jagged ranges grouped together and spiraling high into the heavens.

  Many of Kingdom’s most precious and semi-precious stones could be found within a hundred-mile radius of where we stood. The particular mountain Ty and I found ourselves on was mostly shale, loose rock that could break off at the slightest touch, making this a treacherous pass to navigate for most anyone.

  My steps were surefooted as I guided us through the perilous terrain. We had to make it to Agua Veneno before nightfall. Otherwise I’d lose my way through the windy, twisted trails that had led many an unwary traveler to their deaths.

  A gasp sounded behind me, and I heard an avalanche of gravel and large slabs of rock plummeting down the cliff’s face. A bolt of terror gripped my heart so swiftly that I went hot all over.

  “Ty?” I barked as I swiftly turned, heart banging so hard in my chest it made me breathless. All I could picture was her crushed, broken, or dead.

  She was scrabbling for purchase, her four hooves slipping and sliding in a thick bed of gravel. She clung to the small roots of a creeping pine, knuckles white and eyes panicked.

  Rushing to her side, I moved to her hind end and pushed, wedging my hoof into the thick trunk of a weeping willow for better traction, knowing I would pay dearly for it. The leaves literally cried tears of bitter sap that stung the flesh and burrowed through me like writhing magma worms, making me hiss and bear down on my back teeth with grim determination.