The Centaur Queen (The Dark Queens #7)(32)
I wanted to teach Ty about passion, wanted to show her all I knew. She liked to learn, and I could be her teacher. But I did not want to frighten her with the ferocity of a satyr’s needs, either. I’d not felt desire in some time, and never like this.
I wanted to be all things for her, everything, her sun and moon and stars. I wanted her to see me as a capable and equal male. Satyrs were often the butt of jokes in Kingdom, but I never wanted to be that to her.
“What happened tonight?” I asked her, needing to understand this, needing to know what she was thinking before I could decide on my next move. “Why this sudden change?”
She cocked her head, causing a cascade of curls to tumble prettily against her cheek. My gods, I was ruined for her. Those sweet, innocent kisses had undone me completely.
“Your kiss today. Why did you do it?”
The sharing of feelings wasn’t a general practice of mine. In fact, it’d never been required in any of my relationships. I wanted to shield myself, wanted to hide what it was I felt, wanted to guard my heart as my sister had not.
Her love had destroyed her.
What if the same happened to me?
I’d hated Myra for giving into those feelings, for being so bloody weak that she’d forgotten the one lesson ingrained in all satyrs from birth. Never give all of yourself. Never give your heart.
She’d done it and had been ruined for it.
But when I looked at Tymanon, I saw truth burning back at me. Sincerity glowed in her reflection. I didn’t have it in me to believe this nothing more than pretense.
I’d seen it in Myra’s man, Tronos, seen his words for the pretty lies they were. Myra hadn’t seen it, though. She’d sworn up and down it was love, sworn I was wrong. I’d thought her a fool for deliberately closing her eyes to reality.
Was I being the same sort of fool now? Was what I was seeing truth, or the desires of my own heart to believe it so?
Rubbing the back of my neck, I knew I had one of two choices: tell her the truth, or stop this now.
She gave me a soft smile, as if trying to ease me. Tymanon was not Tronos.
“Because I wanted to,” I finally said.
Ty said nothing for so long I thought maybe she’d not heard me, until she said, “So why did you run from me?”
Licking my front teeth, I tired to ignore the sick pit eating a hole in my stomach. “Because I thought maybe you hadn’t liked it, and I felt like an arse.”
Her lips twitched before she ran her fingers lightly over them. “I had never been kissed like that before, Petra. I was stunned. But I did not hate it. In fact, I rather liked it.”
My chest puffed. I hated how much her words affected me, but they did. I wanted to stomp my feet in satisfaction like some Neanderthal. One might think I’d never known the affections of a woman before with the way I felt now, all hot and full of anxious nerves.
“A male propositioned me while I was at the village.”
That feeling of fulfillment fizzled out like a flame in water upon hearing her say that. I scowled. She shook her head.
“It was nothing, Petra. Truly.” She shrugged. “Except it did help clarify something for me, something I might have been willing to ignore otherwise.”
“And that is?” I asked in a rush.
“I have never been a sensual creature. I have had sex in the past, but it was nothing to me. It did nothing for me. I thought myself incapable of ever experiencing the emotion that so many poems and sonnets laud. It was one aspect of my learning that seemed beyond me.”
I swallowed. So I had been right, this was nothing more than research. I clenched my jaw.
She frowned as she flailed her hands. “I am saying this all wrong.”
“Saying what, exactly, Ty? If you want to learn about sex, about how gratifying it can actually be, then tell me so. I am the best tutor you could ever have, at least in this field.”
Why the bloody hell had I said that?
I ground my molars so hard they’d soon turn to dust if I didn’t stop. I didn’t want to simply be her tutor. I didn’t want that at all. Tymanon was an apt pupil. In no time, she’d learn all my secrets. She was already catnip to her kind. If she learned about the art of seduction, there would be nothing alive that wouldn’t want her. I wouldn’t stand a chance of winning her then. She did not need me for anything, not for protection, not for my mind, not even for my body. I had nothing to offer her except the dregs I was.
And yet, I wanted her with the type of fire that grew and blazed and destroyed all it touched. As much as I wished I could be, there was nothing about me that was her equal. At least with my nymphs, I was secure in what I was. But Ty would soon grow bored of me. How could she not?
It was for that reason alone that I knew I should not do this, should not cross that line with her. I would never find another like Tymanon. If I let her in completely, it would destroy me when she finally woke up and realized she was far better off without me.
And yet when she crawled toward me on her knees, looking all soft and lovely and utterly breakable, my heart squeezed like a vice because she was different. Tymanon was a warrioress. She would never appear thus to anyone else, and yet she was willing to be soft with me.
It had to mean something. It had to. My heart echoed like a drum in my ears, loud and painful and desperate, begging me to walk away, to protect myself, and not to go down the same path that’d destroyed my Myra.