The Centaur Queen (The Dark Queens #7)(40)

Tymanon’s jaw clenched. “I have. I want it.”

A smirk stole across Atropos’ full lips. “If you could see what I see, perhaps you would not be so quick to say so, centauress, queen of nothing.”

Tymanon held her head up with pride blazing in her eyes. “I was chosen for a reason.”

“Indeed you were.” Lachesis’s smile was softer than Atropos’s smug one.

What in heavens name where they talking about? I knew this conversation was veiled. I’d asked Tymanon to keep no secrets between us, and I trusted her implicitly. Whatever she was hiding, she believed she had to. I had no other option but to believe that about her. I did not like it, but I would trust my álogo.

Lachesis’s milky eyes gleamed. I did not like that look, and my skin broke out in a wash of cold sweat.

Clotho chuckled, and the sound caused the land beneath our feet to groan.

“Do not mock her, Atropos,” Clotho said, “for if you had seen what I have, you too might question the lengths one would go to have it again and again.”

Then she looked at me and winked, and I knew she’d seen what we’d done last night. Biting onto a corner of her ruby-red lip as she continued to pet the seeds, she purred, “Perhaps I too have misjudged satyrs.”

I wrinkled my nose at the hint of avarice in her words, which only made her laugh harder, causing her dark, perky breasts to bounce becomingly.

I glanced away quickly as I felt heat course through me. I was not attracted to the Fates. Only a fool would be. But I was a man reborn into the wonders of sex and, well... it was hard not to notice beauty, even when it came as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“Hm,” Atropos murmured, studying Tymanon as though seeing her through new eyes.

“The seeds are acceptable,” Lachesis said, gesturing with her chin toward her sister. “You may both face the three. Should you succeed, we will answer your question. Ask wisely, centauress, queen of nothing.”

“I already know my question.”

“Yes,” Atropos said, “you do. But that is not the one you wish to ask us? Not truly.”

Tymanon clenched her jaw, and I was more confused than ever. I shook my head, wanting to know, and yet not sure that I did. What was my centaur up to?

Clotho shook her head. “No, she settled on her true question last night.”

I frowned. When?

Tymanon skittered back on her heels, and I was shocked to note how nervous she was. The fact that she refused to meet my gaze told me much.

But then when Clotho looked back at me and winked, I knew. Whatever Tymanon was about, it concerned me.

“The cost will be steep,” Lachesis said. “Are you sure you’re willing to pay it?”

Ty said nothing, but Atropos beamed and her butterflies quivered. “Aye, sisters, she’ll pay.”

“Then we accept.” Clotho dipped her head. “But know this, centauress. We do you a great honor by answering two questions, and so we will demand much from you. For you, the cost of failure is death.”

“No!” The word burst out of me. “Tymanon, no!” I barked, looking at her.

But Ty still would not look at me. Clenching her jaw until the muscle in her cheek twitched, she said, “Aye.”

Power rolled between the five of us, tightening my skin like I’d stepped through flame. I grunted and dropped to my knees at the strength and ferocity of their magic.

Ty kept to her feet, but her head drooped and she was keening in agony.

And then, like someone had burst a bubble, the air was clean and fresh and smelling of perfume, and the Fates were smiling serenely. “Be thee well, challengers,” the Fates said.

Between one blink and the next, we were no longer in a beautiful, calm garden, but a dank-smelling cave. It reeked of death and the wet fragrance of powdered rubble.

Clutching at my forcefully beating chest, I made my way slowly to my feet. My entire body ached, my muscles throbbed, but it was my heart that felt the worst.

Tymanon was sprawled out before me, moaning as she held herself up on her arms, elbows twitching unsteadily.

I stared down at her head, wanting to rail at her, wanting to demand she tell me right now what it was she’d agreed to and why.

But I finally understood why she’d not told me much concerning the Fates. I’d not paid heed to it before, how they’d read my life and determined my challenges based on it.

I’d noticed it now.

They were going to use me against Tymanon, divide us and cause us to fail. The first step had been in purposefully being just coy enough with their words to make me doubt her, to fill my bones with fury and rage, to make me angry and panicked at what she’d done, what she’d agreed to.

I could not give into that emotion. I had to trust Tymanon as I always had before.

So I clenched my jaw and held my hand out to her. She looked at me, mouth open and shaking her head as though she hadn’t expected my reaction.

“You... you see it now, don’t you, Petra?”

My nostrils flared, hating how weak in the knees I felt whenever she used my name, when she caressed the vowels of it with tenderness and warmth.

Her hand slipped gently into mine, and I pulled her up. Her knees were shaky, but she stood on her own, staring down at me with hope and fear mingling in her light brown eyes.

“I am angry with you,” I admitted softly, and she flinched. My heart beat heavy in my chest. “I desperately want to know what you’ve done and why you would agree to your own death if you lose. Ty, don’t you understand what you mean to me now? Last night was—”