The Centaur Queen (The Dark Queens #7)(27)
I snorted. “Fairly frequently, I’d imagine, since I travel with one.”
Blue eyes blazed for just a moment. There was something barbaric in our males. They tended to be a mite territorial, even if we’d only just met. “I see no strange males walking about the village. Perhaps you like to tease me, beauty.”
That smug look was back on his face as he moved in closer, gliding his callused palm down my forearm, making his intentions quite clear.
He was a handsome male, to be sure. But I’d slept with handsome males before. I’d been mounted and thrust into. There’d been some grunting, things got a little sweaty if they bothered to try and please me at all, and then it was over, and I was left feeling just as disappointed as I always had.
I shook my head. “He camps along the thicket tonight.”
His nostrils flared. “You banished your male?”
He sounded positively stunned, which almost made me laugh. I supposed for a centauress, I was more of a feminist than most. I did not particularly subscribe to the patriarchal system. That did not mean I was against it either. It just simply wasn’t for me.
Most herds were actually ruled by queens, and our shamans tended to be women, but in other ways, we were just as backwards as the humans.
“I did not banish him, and he is not my male, nor is he a centaur. He is my dear friend.”
“A human?” He said it with a curl of his nose.
“No.” I shook my head as I pretended to casually slip my arm away from his reach. “A satyr.”
“Oh.” He rolled his eyes, before suddenly guffawing with laughter. “And here you had me worried. Only a satyr. I think we both know that goat face can do nothing for you that I can’t do bet—”
“Good day, Nigel,” I countered icily, turning and marching off, gnashing my teeth as my tail flickered in agitation behind me.
That bloody, damned bastard. How dare he? He knew nothing of Petra. “Goat face!” I scoffed loudly enough that if Nigel were still behind me, he’d hear. “Indeed!”
Several pairs of eyes turned my way, but they were nothing to me, and I did not pretend to care. I no longer wished to be here, not even a little. But I had an appointment to keep and by damn, I’d be keeping it.
Marching toward the wise woman’s hut, I tossed aside the strings of dried hay and twisted twigs that comprised her doorway and walked in, determined to hide myself away from any and all until she showed.
So I was startled when an older woman with a thick head of gray hair and a coat of steely silver-blue along her hindquarters looked up at me with wry amusement.
“I wondered when you’d show, Tymanon.”
I blinked. This was not the shaman. She was still back at the fire telling stories. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “I’m sorry, I thought—”
“No. No.” She got gingerly to her feet, dusting off her coat with several flicks of her tail. “No worries at all. I’m an old woman and find I’d rather keep to myself anymore. Come, come. Join me. I was just about to enjoy a pot of stew.”
Stomach growling with fierce hunger, I gave her a grateful nod. I’d never turn down food.
“You may call me Kezia,” the wise woman said as she ladled a heaping spoonful of meat, veggies and steaming broth into an earthenware bowl for me.
I took it gladly, drinking from it before even blowing to cool it. It burned going down, and it was glorious. Already, I could feel my heavy spirits lifting.
“Good?” she asked, steel-gray eyes twinkling.
“Very,” I said, munching on a meaty chunk of carrot.
Kezia ate alongside me, saying nothing, only looking at me every so often, and giving me time to study her humble home, mud-bricked and smelling faintly of fresh hay and smoke. She had nothing in the way of furniture, but then, my kind generally didn’t need it. There was a small tub full of plates and utensils, a well in the corner to pump fresh water from. Mostly what she had was ornamental trophies dangling from leather thongs from the beams above—little odds and ends, unusually-shaped woods, feathers, butterfly wings, and chitinous beetle armor threaded together to create a string ten and twenty long.
Woven mats of colored straw decorated the dirt floors, reminding me of the one Petra had made me, and I smiled softly to myself.
“That is a look of love if ever I’ve seen one.”
“What?” I asked, frowning at her words.
She grinned, scooping out a piece of meat from her bowl with her fingers. “The stars in your eyes, the bloom high on your cheeks.”
“I’m not in love.”
Her eyes thinned.
“Truly, I’m not. I can’t be.”
“And why not? There can be no crime—”
“Crime, no. But to fall in love with him would be seen as... anathema.” I frowned, feeling faintly bitter that it was so.
Kezia snorted. “Yes, well. The forbidden is often the sweetest kind of fruit.”
There was a secret sort of look about her, as though she not only spoke the words, but had once lived them too. Kezia was long in the tooth now, but even so, there was an inherent beauty to her.
“Petra is a satyr,” I said it quickly, nostrils flaring as I waited for her to mock or laugh as Nigel had.
“Oh,” she said softly. “Oh. Like that, eh?”