The Centaur Queen (The Dark Queens #7)(56)

“Ty,” I choked out.

“Shh. Shh.” She smiled softly, brushing her fingers over my chest. “I’ve figured it out. I solved the riddle, my love.”

I blinked. “What?” She couldn’t possibly mean it the way I thought she did. Freeing Myra wasn’t a riddle. It was black and white. There were no other options.

She smiled. “I had plenty of time to solve your problem, my love. Tomorrow, she will be free, and you will be happy again.”

I smiled, even as ice skated down my spine, turning me cold, making my head suddenly ache. “You mean we will be happy? Us? Right?”

Joy radiated through her face as she whispered, “Yes, my love. We will be happy again. Now sleep and dream about the new life you’ll have.”

Tymanon would never lie to me.

She hugged me close, humming softly beneath her breath. But sleep eluded me for many hours that night.





Chapter 18


Tymanon

Awake, I sat up, causing the cool sheet draped over Petra and me to gather on my lap. Pouting, he reached out for me even in his sleep, and I grinned as I patted his hand. There were no more boundaries between us.

Smiling to myself, I moved my hand once he’d finally settled back down. I rubbed at my arms and winced when I ran over a tender area. Glancing down, I noticed I was covered in bruises. My heart leapt in my chest, rattling the bones of my ribcage at his marks.

I’d thought I’d known what making love was. But I’d known nothing. What Petra had shown me last night, no male of my herd could have equaled. For so long, my gída had felt inferior, but he’d been so very wrong.

Petra had saved me, in more ways than one. He’d opened my eyes to the reality that there was far more to learn in this world than just what could be found between the pages of a book. I was complete now, knowing not just intellectually what love meant, but able to feel it too, to understand it to the very root of me.

There was now only one thing left to do.

When you loved something, you didn’t stifle it. You let it grow. You let it fly in the hopes that it would choose to stay by your side forever, and not just because it had been caged and conditioned to do so. Today, I would choose to let Petra fly.

Our journey had begun only days ago and yet it felt like years to us both. I trusted him in a way I trusted no other. My sacrifice would be for him alone. And deep down, I believed that someday he’d find me again, because what we had wasn’t just words. It was truth.

It was real.

But this was the only way.

Leaning over, I ran my nose lightly along the scruff of his cheek. I’d studied this face for two incredible long years. Each day, my love grew stronger, deeper, and fuller.

Hearing the stories of his Myra, I felt as though I knew her too and the tragedy her loss had been for him, the way it’d changed him so deeply.

He needed her back to be whole. The only way he could truly choose to be with me would be for him to have an actual choice in the matter. Selfishly, I wanted Petra to choose us, but I would never fault him if he didn’t. The love of a sibling was a powerful emotion. If he chose to remain with her, I would understand. I undertook this sacrifice willingly.

Gently kissing his cheek, I inhaled his scent of man and wild spring clover one last time, filling my heart and mind full of him, taking this memory so deep inside me nothing and no one could ever strip it from me.

“Antío zoí mou, I agápi mou, I kardiá mou.” Farewell my life, my love, my heart, I said in the old tongue, hoping that subconsciously, he would always remember it was love for him that made me do what I was going to do.

Sensing Lachesis’ return before she’d ever said a word, I stood and turned.

She stood behind me, alone as before.

“Two years I left you in that realm, Tymanon.” She held up her fingers. “Two years. Why did that time not change your mind?”

I cocked my head. “Do you not wish me to remain always in Gnósi with you? I should think you’d want that. I know how keenly you desire my intellect be part of your challenges.”

She held up her hands. “Do not misunderstand me, centauress, queen of nothing, for I keenly wish your skills to forever remain a part of my games. But it is rare in life when I encounter someone I cannot fix my eye on. I suppose that in the end, I expected you to reconsider.”

I chuckled softly, glancing over at my still-sleeping Petra. Lachesis would keep him so until I’d departed. It wounded to me to know I might never hear his voice again, that this could possibly be the last time I ever saw him. But she was wise to keep him sleeping, for if he awoke and asked me to stay. I would, though I knew I shouldn’t. I would always be weak for my satyr.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve reconsidered, telling myself over and over that it wouldn’t matter to him, that so much time has passed for us now that he’d rather die than lose me.”

“Then why persist?” she asked softly.

I looked back at her, at her milky-white eyes studying me so intently, and I shrugged. “Because it’s the right thing to do. Because I swore an oath to him that I would do whatever I could to bring her back to him.”

“He would release you of that vow now, Tymanon. Surely you know this?”

I nodded. “I do, which is precisely why I can no longer stay with him. My heart and his are inexorably bound, but it is not fair to his Myra. This is the only way to release her, by sacrificing my freedom for hers.”