The Centaur Queen

  “Reach into my pouch,” I gasped, words sounded slurred to my ears. “Take out Wulfric’s finger.”

  I’d not wanted Petra to face the Gorgon’s wrath, but we had no choice now.

  He frowned, but said nothing, doing as I’d asked. “This?” He held up the tiny, bandaged parcel.

  I nodded, leaning more of my weight on him. My stomach heaved again. I was going to be sick.

  Sucking in a shaky breath, I forced myself to say, “Now sing. Walk us forward and sing.”

  He blinked, confused for only a moment before he finally understood. “Thrall her? She will not like it, beloved. To abuse her in that way would be anathema to her.”

  I nodded because he was right. There were few monsters in the ancient world more tragic than the Gorgon. Raped by a village of men and turned into a monster by a god because of it, she had not deserved her fate and raged against one and all who crossed her path.

  But if we didn’t leave here soon, I would be no good to him anymore. I needed to heal, and to do that, I needed time without the threat of monsters breathing down our necks.

  “I know.” I shook my head. “I know.”

  Closing his eyes, he kissed my cheek. Then turning, he opened his mouth and sang.

  The words were in a language I did not know but were full of power, stronger even than what he’d shown me last night. I sucked in a sharp breath as my body burned for his.

  I did not know if it was my love for him that made it so all-consuming, or whether Petra was simply this powerful, but I knew the Gorgon would not stand a chance against it.

  “Look at the ground, Petra. By the gods, do not look at her,” I warned.

  “Yes, don’t look at me, male.” A voice I’d never heard before, but that shivered with the blunt edge of rage and longing, echoed all around us.

  I sucked in a breath, and Petra faltered.

  “Never stop singing, my love. Never stop,” I murmured.

  Her laughter echoed like millions of bats’ wings, causing me to break out in chills. “Clever, girl. What do you want?”

  Petra never stopped singing, understanding the gravity of our situation. It was only his voice that stayed her hand. I would be useless in a fight right now, and I was just barely clinging to consciousness. This would either work or it wouldn’t.

  “To help you,” I said haltingly.

  I could make out her vague form in the shadows, see the way her hair snapped and curled around her head. A soft, sibilant hiss whispered between us. My heart raced, pumped full of adrenaline.

  “Help me? How dare you think you could—”

  “I have a gift for you, Gorgon, a means of escape.”

  She stepped into the light, and I trembled as I finally beheld the face of the monster.

  She was beautiful, dressed in a diaphanous white Grecian gown that flowed like water behind her. Her skin was as pale as ivory and flawless like smooth marble. Her eyes were a clear gray, and her rosebud lips a lovely shade of pale pink. Chestnut-colored hair lay in a tumble, snapping and writhing, not hair at all, but hundreds of snakes with black beady eyes that stared back at me.

  I did not see a monster when I looked at her, but a broken woman who had no hope.

  She looked at the two of us, and I shivered, hoping Petra would not look upon her beauty. To do so would instantly petrify him.

  “I cannot simply escape the Fates.”

  “No,” I shook my head, “you can’t unless, of course, they knew and accepted what I had planned to do.”

  She frowned.

  Channeling the last bit of strength I had left, I took the finger from Petra’s grasp and walked slowly toward her. I sensed Petra stir behind me, but he never stopped singing.

  I handed her the finger, which she took. Unwrapping it slowly, she stared down at it in awe. “Is this—?”

  “The sixth finger of the stone dwarf king. With this magic, you can tunnel through any stone. You can find your freedom again.”

  She trembled, pulling it close to her chest. “I was cursed. The gods would not want me free.” Clear gray eyes looked at me with a quiet sort of desperation that broke my heart.

  I shook my head. “Perhaps not, Gorgon. But what happened to you should never have happened at all.”

  She swallowed hard. “Had your man not tempered my anger, I would have killed you both.”

  I nodded.

  “Who are you?” Thrusting out her jaw, I could almost swear I saw heat shimmering in her eyes. She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You have done me a great honor today. You pass this challenge, female. Both of you are free. But more than that, I owe you a boon, so I humbly ask you to accept my gift of stone.”

  Petra’s singing stuttered, and I shook my head. I did not think the Gorgon wanted to hurt others, but the burden of her pain was so deep it overwhelmed her and made it impossible for her to stop.

  A single tear slipped out of the corner of her eye as she said, “Catch the tear, female.”

  Even I could not touch that tear. It would turn me to stone. But I knew that somehow, just as the finger had been important to the successful completion of this trial, so too would the tear.

  Suddenly Petra stood beside me, holding up an empty vial. Tossing him a grateful look, I uncorked it, and the Gorgon neared, tipping her head forward so that the lip of the vial caught on that tear.

  A curl of smoke wound through the air like a serpent’s tail when it landed safely within. Her own snakes were calm, blinking and flicking out their tongues, but not to attack.

  “And now we are even, female,” she said. “I will never harm you, but that is not a promise I make to your male. Fare thee well.”

  Just as before when the Fates had whispered those same words to me, we were back in the garden where we’d started.

  Petra opened his arms, and I sank gratefully into them, finally able to give in to the darkness.

  Chapter 13

  Petra

  I watched her as she slept, stoking the flame before us, wanting to keep her warm. Tymanon had collapsed in human form, and she was far too fragile for my liking. The night was cool and felt pleasant, but Ty had lost so much blood.

  To her hands, I’d applied globs of that magicked salve she kept in her pouch, bandaging her hands tight and praying to the gods that, come morning, she’d be hale again. Those hands were her life, her salvation. I would rather die than see her suffer.

  Watching as that Minotaur had crushed her and witnessing the shock set in had scared me half to death. I’d never seen Ty go so pale or look so lost. She’d always seemed so powerful to me, bold and fearless. But I’d seen another side of her today, and it’d shaken me to my very core. Panic had eaten a hole through my gut straight to my spine as I’d furiously tried to snap her out of it.

  I knew sleep would elude me the rest of the night. Anytime I closed my eyes, I saw her as she’d been—on her knees, her ruined hand spurting precious blood as it slowly leeched the color and life out of her.

  She moaned, rolling over in her sleep. Slipping off the seat of my log, I scooted toward her and gently pulled her head into my lap, rubbing a hand down her tangled and gnarled hair. Tymanon would hate how filthy she was. She bathed religiously, careful to keep her coat and body clean.

  My heart ached in my chest at the continued whimpers spilling off her tongue. Even in sleep, she flinched as though running for her life.

  “Ssh, ómorfo álogo. Ssh,” I murmured soothingly, pressing a delicate line of kisses along her stress-wrinkled forehead.

  “Petra. Petra,” she mumbled, though I knew she was still gripped by sleep.

  Anxiety and even a thread of satisfaction at hearing her call my name rolled through me. I continued to stroke her hair.

  “I am here, my brilliant one. Do you hear me? We are safe now, Tymanon. Because of you, we are safe.”

  I swallowed hard. For a time, I’d not thought we’d escape our fate. The challenge that’d been thrown at us today had been far deadlier tha
n anything I’d faced in my trial.

  Had she not brought that bloody, filthy finger... I shuddered. The brilliance of her mind still astonished me, even after all this time. How could she have known? How could she have suspected the games had already begun before we’d even arrived?

  “Petra!” she cried out, startling herself so suddenly that her eyes popped open and she blinked several times, as though lost in the haze of her mind. Slowly, she awakened.

  I didn’t move, didn’t even breathe, I simply stared at her, consumed by her, completely lost to this woman lying before me. Then her light-brown eyes met mine, and my heart flipped.

  Shoving locks of hair out of her face, she sat up, and immediately I missed her, missed holding her body, missed her weight. I just bloody missed her.

  This love thing was a terrible yet wonderful sensation of falling and dying and flying. I both loved and hated it. I was miserable, but I’d also never been more content.

  The way she hopped to her knees, using both of her hands as support without flinching, meant the medicine had worked. Praise the gods.

  “You’re here,” she said softly, and I nodded.

  “Where else would I be, my álogo?”

  Inhaling deeply as her lashes fluttered like tiny moth’s wings upon her pale cheeks, she shook her head. “I had terrible dreams. Dreams that I’d lost you.” Shimmering heat gathered in her large, beautiful eyes.

  Unable to keep from touching her another second, I wrapped my palm behind her neck and tugged her gently to me. She came without hesitation, wrapping her entire body around mine like a warm, welcoming hug. I shifted so that I could easily hold her, and we clung to each other, breathing in and out in tandem. It was an act far more intimate than sex had ever been for me. I’d be mocked by my kind for saying so, but holding Tymanon like this, revealing to her just how much I treasured and admired her, was better than anything I’d ever known with any nymph before.

  “I thought I’d died today,” I grunted, voice thick and full of pain as I relived the moment I thought I’d lost her.

  When the Minotaur had charged at us, I stopped thinking completely. I was not a brave man, but I hadn’t given my actions a second thought. I simply knew I could never lose her.

  I’d been changed forever today. I thought, when we’d made love last night, that I knew what love was. But today, faced with the very real possibility of losing her, I was forced to confront my beliefs.

  She shook her head, planting several small kisses against my chest before nuzzling me, causing me to break out in a heated wash of prickles. I loved it when she touched me.

  “I thought I had too. And I would have, Petra, if not for you.”

  I shook my head. “You saved me—”

  “No.” She covered my mouth with her small hand, stilling my words as she stared deep into my eyes. “No. Not today I didn’t. It was all you, my love.”

  Taking her hand, I kissed her palm tenderly before tracing the lines upon it. “The finger. The Gorgon. I may have eventually known to sing to her, but I’d not have given her the gift you did. I might still be there, running away from her, or... just another statue in her garden now. The way your mind works, Tymanon, is astonishing to me. You had the foresight to take Wulfric’s finger. I never”—I shook my head—“ever would have thought to do so.”

  Cocking her head, she stared at me for several long seconds. I’d complimented her, but she looked sad. I opened my mouth, wanting to take that look away from her, but she spoke first.

  “You break my heart when you say these things.”

  My brow dipped. “What? Tymanon, you are miraculous, I don’t understand—”

  “As are you, my Petra. Do you not see yet?”

  “See what?”

  “You, the way I see you for who you really are. I don’t think you do. You seem to believe me above you in every way.”

  “It’s because you are. I can never match up to you, Tymanon. I am nothing. I am a satyr. I am nothing.”

  “You are everything, my darling. It was not I who faced down the Minotaur.”

  I shook my head because what I’d done had been very little. I’d run through that maze, getting us hopelessly lost. It’d been Ty who’d known to mark the walls to help guide us out.

  She grabbed my face, forcing my gaze to hers. Neither of us spoke for several long moments.

  The night was rich with the scent of flowers, different ones this time, lavender and roses. The tinkling, bell-like sound of the fountain at our back seemed like a crashing wave to my ears.

  “How could you possibly want me?” My voice cracked. I felt dejected and hopelessly in love with her.

  Unlike satyrs, centaurs mated. But all of Kingdom knew that to be with a centaur, you must be his or her equal in everyway. I was clumsy and ordinary, a lumbering brute compared to her lithe, graceful beauty. She was so lovely, and there was nothing pleasing about me at all. My brain did not work as hers did. I did not think in the way she did. I was slow, only able to see connections after the fact.

  “Someday you will wake up, Tymanon, and see me for what I really am.”

  “Oh, my Petra, you are so very wrong.” A tear spilled out of her left eye.

  My heart squeezed as I brushed it away with my thumb. She should never cry. Not over me.

  “I love you,” she said softly. “And you are my equal in every way.”

  I shook my head. “I did not understand these challenges, so I failed, and now I can see why. I never thought ahead like you. I didn’t see the bigger picture.”

  “Maybe not, gída, but you are brave and fearless and bold. You are honorable and my rock. I could not save us from that Minotaur. Not today. It was you, my love, all you.”

  A trembling breath rolled through me. “I know centaurs do not lie, and yet I find it hard to accept your words.”

  Her eyes closed, and a pained expression crossed her face before she said, “Someday you will. Someday I’ll prove to you that this is real for me.”

  “For now, Tymanon. It’s real for now, and I can accept that. I just need you to know that when the time comes—”

  “It will never come,” she said in a rush.

  I clenched my jaw. I was stubborn, I knew that. But I also knew that my Tymanon was innocent in so many ways. Satyrs were not built to love deeply. It was why we were one of the few creatures in all of Kingdom unable to perform the Veritas ceremony.

  I could not bind my soul to hers, nor could she to me, which meant there would be no magical bond to keep her with me, to make her believe I truly was the man she thought I was. Without that ceremony, she would awaken someday and see my flaws, and she would leave me.

  “Just know that I will never blame you for it, my álogo.”

  “You stubborn goat,” she said with a half laugh, half sigh of exasperation. But then she was threading her fingers through my hair and finding the nubs of my horns, making me tremble, making me forget my fears and my worries for tomorrow.

  I sucked in a sharp breath when she held them tight and began to rub them softly. Pleasure spiked like a drug through my veins, and my eyes rolled to the back of my head as my cock sprang instantly to life and a moan thundered out my throat.

  “Look at me,” she said, voice scratchy and rough with lust.

  I fought to open my eyes and watched as she drew up on her knees, her hot center poised just above the tip of my aching cock.

  She wet her lips. Her eyes were dewy with lust but also more, infinitely more. I wanted to hang onto this moment forever, wanted her to look at me this way always.

  “I will want you until my heart beats no more, until I take my final breath and become dust in the earth. You may be a satyr by birth, but you have a centaur’s soul, a centaur’s strength. There is no male that could draw my eyes away from you. You are my world, and I will fight every day until I’ve convinced you of that. And once I do, my stubborn, prideful gída, I will never stop telling you just how very much I adore you. If you are broken, th
an I am broken too, for I am a centauress madly in love with her beautiful satyr male.”

  I shook. Her words pierced my heart like an arrow, and all I could do was laugh even as shameful tears spilled out my eyes.

  “You see, my love, you are touched in the head, for there is nothing remotely beautiful about me.” My words danced with laughter even as my heart twisted painfully within me.

  “Ah.” Her brown eyes sparkled. “But I see you through the lens of love, which means you are utter perfection to me. I love your horns.” She rubbed them again, before her hands trailed down my face. “I love your face, the craggy dips of it, the shaggy brows, the rich green eyes that remind of heavenly pastures. I love your nose—” she kissed the tip of it, making my blood boil, and I swallowed hard “—and this strong, impossibly gorgeous jaw.” She kissed the corners of it.

  My hands slid up her spine. She leaned heavily against them, opening herself up like a flower before me.

  Trailing a finger down the line of my throat, she murmured, “I love to watch you eat, to swallow even. I love the way you form your words. I love when you call me your ómorfo álogo. I love that you knew I called you goat, and you never told me so.”

  She laughed, and the sound reminded me of a choir of bells.

  “I love all of you, Petra. Your body. Your goat’s legs. Those wonderfully different hooves of yours. I love the way you look at me. I love the way you make me feel.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. “How? How do I make you feel?”

  Her smile was soft, but her words shredded me. “Like a woman. I have never felt that way before. I’m a warrior and scholar. But no one has ever seen me like you see me.”

  “You’ve had sex with others before me,” I said, trying to understand why it was that I continued to fight this as I did. Why couldn’t I accept her words as truth? Why was it so hard for me to believe her?

  I stared at the beauty in my lap and understood why. Nymphs were lovely and carefree and fun, but Tymanon was an angel. She was everything I never thought I could truly have and never known I’d wanted.