The Centaur Queen (The Dark Queens #7)(59)
I could tell, even from a distance, that she was tall. Her features were delicate and beautiful as Petra’s were average. Her hair was a spill of silky blond so light it was almost white. She wore a slitted gown the color of a spring lily. A laurel wreath sat upon her head, twisted through with flowers and twigs. Hooked horns, much larger and broader than Petra’s, curved prettily from between strands of hair.
Suddenly, her shoulders stiffened and she twirled, nostrils flaring wide as she scented the air. Her eyes were the same milky-white as the Fates’.
“Who are you?” she called, reminding me of a startled gazelle ready to fly away at the first sign of danger. She wrapped her fingers tight around her neck, her nerves obvious.
I wet my lips, heart pounding like a drum in my chest. “Myra?”
She blinked and gave her head a slight shake. “How... how do you know my name?”
I broke through the screen of bushes that’d hidden my lower half from her gaze. She gasped the moment she caught sight of me.
“A centaur? How? What?” She stepped forward, the gown she wore parted as she moved, revealing the long, furry satyr legs so familiar to me now that it brought instant tears to my eyes. “How are you even here?”
Sniffing, I turned my cheek into my shoulder to hide the tears and swiftly brushed them away.
“Lachesis sent me here to free you.”
With each word spoken, she looked more and more confused. “But I’m... but this is... forever.”
Heart twisting painfully within me, I nodded. “I know. To be freed, someone must willingly accept your fate.”
She cocked her head, staring at me with an incredulous glance. Wings of brightest orange and deepest black flickered in and out, creating the illusion of an aura behind her.
“This curse is eternal.”
I smiled softly. “Ask me your question, Myra. Let us not delay this matter any longer.”
Her brows twitched. I could read the questions on her face as easily as if she’d spoken them.
Thrusting out my jaw, I ignored the swift pulsing of my blood pumping through my veins and said, “I am a friend of your brother’s. Long has he searched for you.”
She gasped, small hands covering her mouth swiftly as she shook her head. “You know Pétrapos?”
My stomach fluttered, and a smile graced my lips. “He never told me his full name.”
“Then how good a friend could you be, really?” she asked, voice rich with doubt.
“The very best kind.”
She looked over my shoulder as if searching for him. When she realized no one was there, her milky eyes turned back toward me. “Then how is it that he does not come with you? Why are you alone? Why would you do this at all, unless...” She gasped as her words trailed off.
“I love him.”
She hissed, her beautiful face contorting into one of fury and rage. “He would never. You lie! You’re a demon sent to torment me by the villainous Fates. Pétrapos would never bind his heart to one such as you, a lesson I learned far too late.”
She spat by her foot, vitriol ringing like steel slapping steel in the sudden silence of the forest.
“I know about Tronos, Myra.”
“No.”
“The sacrifice you made to save him,” I pressed on.
“No,” she said louder, rougher.
“His betrayal.”
“No! No! You know nothing. Nothing!” Her face contorted into a mask of fury.
Wetting my lips, I forced myself to remain where I was. I let her unleash her anger upon me, knowing the rage wasn’t for me at all, but the injustice of what she’d faced, the years of isolation she’d been forced to keep because of a love that’d never truly been returned.
“You lie, and I will hear no more of this! Begone, sorceress!”
She flicked her wrist, and there was a great boom. The ground shook beneath my hooves. My pulse raced. The stench of rotted flesh assailed my nostrils.
I twirled just in time to see the large body of a male Cyclops tromp through a set of trees. He swung a huge steel mace in his hammy fist, smashing the massive trunks apart as though kicking at a sand castle.
I cried out, but moved swiftly into action, hand reaching back for my bow and arrow.
The Cyclops was smaller than most I’d read about, approximately the size of a large human male, roughly seven feet tall and looking like he carried close to a ton of solid muscle.
He was a baby for his kind, but he moved with a quickness I did not expect. The mace rushed past my head, missing me by inches. I twirled out of his way, kicking my hind legs into his chest. The impact of hitting him reverberated all through my bones. It’d been like kicking a steel-plated wall.
He stumbled but kept his feet and roared as he raised his mace high again. I unloaded, drawing the tension tight as I released arrow after arrow with uncanny accuracy.
I did not wish to kill the beast, only subdue him.
I aimed at his knees and hit both. He bellowed a roar that shook the heavens. But still, he came.
I struck at his ankles. He stumbled, roaring louder, but still pressing forward, slower now, but still coming.
My next arrow took out his left wrist, causing him to drop the mace, his fingers now deadened and unusable. Looking confused by how easily I’d dispatched him, it seemed as if he didn’t know whether to stand and fight or turn and flee.