The Centaurs and the False Maiden (Monster MMMF Menage) (The Erotic Adventures of Heraklea Book 4)

by Roxie Noir

  The Centaurs and the False Maiden Copyright © 2015 Roxie Noir

  All rights reserved.

  This book is intended for audiences 18 and over only.

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  The Centaurs and the False Maiden

  Roxie Noir

  Previously on The Erotic Adventures:

  Heraklea stood, still wrapped in her bedsheets, in the largest hall she had ever seen. She wasn’t even positive that she was indoors; she thought she saw a vaulting silver ceiling high above, but it could have been the sky. The floor was white marble, polished to a high shine and cold on her bare feet. Fifty feet away was a golden dais, columns on either side of the dais that went so high she couldn’t see their tops. The dais had six steps leading up to it, and on it were perched two enormous thrones, gold, the armrests carved in intricate patterns and figurines. Hunters chased deer, boars, lions across the thrones; women swooned; men drank from vases.

  What really concerned Heraklea was the two people in the thrones. For one thing, they seemed slightly larger than people should be. Not giants, but slightly wrong, too large by a quarter. For another, they were more beautifully dressed that anyone she had seen before: the man’s robes and the woman’s dress were shot through with threads of silver and gold, and each wore a heavily jeweled diadem on their head. The man had a gray mane and beard that gave him a slightly wild look, mismatched to his immaculate clothing, the immaculate room; the woman had dark hair and bright violet eyes. Heraklea had never seen eyes that color before.

  She didn’t need a map to tell her where she was: this was Mount Olympus, home of the gods, and these two were Zeus and Hera, the king and queen. Heraklea pulled her sheet more firmly around her and wished she were properly dressed. Technically, Zeus was her father or, at least, he had sown his seed in her mother’s womb under false pretenses. Amphitryon was her father, as far as she was concerned. But her feelings on the matter probably weren’t going to be much use with Hera, who was notoriously jealous of Zeus’ conquests and notoriously nasty to the subsequent offspring.

  “First she fucks half of Greece, then you try and marry her off and she fucks her husband half to death,” Hera continued, looking down at Heraklea like she was a particularly revolting insect.

  Zeus leaned on one fist, ignoring Hera. “What are we going to do with you?” he said.

  Silence. Heraklea looked from one to the other and back again. “Is Lykos dead?” she finally asked, her voice sounding tiny in the great hall.

  “Not yet,” said Hera. “Just fucked into a coma. Never seen anything like it. Have you, darling? You’ve got more experience in that sort of thing.”

  Zeus frowned and continued to ignore his wife. “It’s unfortunate you turned out female. Everyone expects this behavior of a rich young man.”

  “Helen never acted like this,” Hera said.

  “I’m sorry,” Heraklea said, tearing up. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  “No,” rumbled Zeus. “But still, you must atone.”

  “King Eurystheus has been having a lot of problems lately, down in Argos,” Hera said. “He could use some help killing monsters.”

  “Hmm, yes,” Zeus said. “Maybe that will exhaust you.”

  Hera smirked, her beautiful face an ill-concealed mask of rage. “He’s a very demanding man,” she said. “You’re to do anything and everything that he asks of you, or you’ll be his servant forever.”

  “Go then,” Zeus said, and with a wave of his hand, golden light filled Heraklea’s vision again, and when she could see again, she found herself in a smaller room, though still grand, in front of another throne, a surprised-looking king on it.

  Heraklea was at the palace stables before dawn. It had taken her two days of skulking around the figure out where Artemis’ sacred deer was being held, but she’d finally found the poor thing. It looked tiny in the horse-sized stall, but its golden antlers glittered in the light that was just ghosting up from the horizon. She’d asked the king to let it go, reminding him that the goddess wanted it back, but he’d laughed in her face, asked her whose fault that was, and ordered it stabled. The stables were nice, it was true, but the poor thing still looked miserable, locked up like this.

  Tiptoeing on bare feet, Klea stole over to the stall, doing her best not to wake the horses or give the stable boys a hint she was there. She could hear the deer stand up in its stall, saw it sniff at the air as she slid the lock loose, wincing every time it clanked. The bolt came loose and she opened the big wooden door outward. It creaked a little in the cold air, but it didn’t matter anymore, because the deer was free. It lowered its head and looked up at her, golden antlers gleaming, and it nuzzled her hand. Klea stroked its velvety nose for a moment, amazed at how soft it was. Then, the deer licked the palm of her hand, lifted its nose to sniff the air, and bounded off. The king had said it was faster than an arrow in flight and he hadn’t been lying. It was out of sight before she could blink, gone back to its rightful owner, just like she’d promised. Klea shivered in the early morning air and listened to the horses nickering as they began to wake up.

  Predictably, the king was furious, but Klea wasn’t in the mood to care about his feelings. She was Zeus’ daughter, anyway, so what exactly was Eurystheus going to do? He could give her shitty tasks, sure, but he was doing that anyway. Actually punishing her might invoke her dad’s wrath, and the king wasn’t willing to risk that.

  Right now, he was storming around his bedchamber in a bathrobe as Klea stood by a window.

  “—explicitly said that you’re to follow my commands,” he was going on. “Letting the deer go was absolutely not in my commands. I ought to have you locked up.”

  “Probably,” said Klea. She crossed her arms and looked out the window. Let him try it.

  The king didn’t say anything for a moment, and Klea turned back. He was two feet away from her, holding perfectly still, watching her with those intense, dark eyes.

  “He doesn’t see everything,” he said quietly.

  Klea stared at him a moment.

  “Who?” she said.

  “You know who.”

  “You going to test that theory?”

  “I don’t need to test it. I already know it’s true.”

  Klea hated him. She hated his face, she hated the haughty way he conducted himself, she hated his absolute confidence in everything he did. She hated that, when he said he didn’t need to test his theory, her resolve faltered.

  “You have far too high an opinion of yourself,” she said.

  He took a step closer. His mouth wasn’t smiling but something played around his eyes. The fucker looked like he was having fun.

  “Your father spends most of his time chasing tail and impregnating half the mortal women in Greece,” he said. His voice was very, very quiet. “And everyone knows he’s much more interested in his next conquest than in the children he already has.”

  Klea stood her ground. “It’s not my father you need to worry about,” she said, her voice just as quiet as his. “I could break you in half myself.”

  The king’s lips lifted the tiniest bit, into what Klea would have sworn was an amused smile. “Maybe,” he said. He turned and walked back into his bedchamber, robe flowing behind him as he strode to a desk filled with scrolls and maps. “In any case, now that you let the hind go I need another animal. You’re to fetch me the Erymanthian boar. Alive.”

  Klea tri
ed not to smile. So far, every one of the king’s errands—kill the Nemean lion, kill the hydra, fetch the deer with the golden antlers—had involved a good hard fucking, something she very much missed living at the absolutely prudish palace. A boar didn’t sound particularly sexy, but then again, neither had anything else.

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  Eurystheus shrugged. He sat at his desk and picked up some papers.

  “You’ve got no idea.”

  “There’s a group of centaurs living in the caves by the Limni river. Maybe you can get them to tell you something,” he said, distracted by a scroll. He began writing something, then looked up. “You can go,” he said.

  Klea walked for the door.

  “Oh,” he said, just as she touched the knob. He didn’t look up from what he was writing. “You know about centaurs, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They only like virgins.” Klea watched him until he lifted his eyes from the paper he was reading and they stared at each other for seconds on end. Finally, he smiled at her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure you’re an excellent actress.”

  Just for the hell of it, she took her sword and bow when she set off for the centaurs’ cave the next morning. Maybe she’d come across a bear or something. It took her hours by horseback, but she wasn’t exactly in a hurry. She’d get the damn boar when she got the boar, and if the king was too big of a pussy to capture himself, he could wait. When she reached the river, she fed and watered her horse and tied it to a tree, then slipped down to the riverbanks in search of the caves where the centaurs lived.

  Upon reflection, she realized she’d heard before that they only like virgins. It made them hypocritical bastards, of course, since they fucked far and wide, but getting the boar was getting the boar and she didn’t particularly care what a savage group of horse-men thought of her. She probably needed to act meek, though. Act shy, act like you’re horrified by the thought of a constantly horny half-beast known for his sexual prowess. Klea felt her pussy swell, juices beginning to flow. This “virgin” thing might prove a trifle difficult, she thought. She ignored the throb and gave herself a pep talk: you’re shy, you’re demure, you’ve never seen a man in the nude before, you’ve heard rumors about what sex is but you’re not really sure yourself.

  It wasn’t too long before she found the entrance to the cave, leading up away from the riverbank. How come everything was in caves? The lion had been in a cave, the hydra had been in a cave, and she was starting to wish the monster of Greece would find somewhere else to live. She entered anyway, letting her eyes adjust to the cool dark space, and walked forward. This cave was much nicer than the others, at least: the floor was sandy, the passage was wide enough and tall enough for a full-grown centaur and certainly large enough for a woman to walk comfortably through. About twenty feet in she came across a curtain, firelight flickering behind it.

  Remember, she thought. Innocent. Demure. Just some sweet young thing.

  “Hello?” she called.

  “Who goes there?” a voice rumbled.

  “Heraklea of Thebes,” she said. “I come seeking advice.”

  The curtain swished back and suddenly, she was face-to-face with the centaur: a man’s torso mounted on a horse’s body. Both parts were heavily muscled and backlit by the firelight inside, the man’s hair dark brown matching the horse’s fur.

  “What kind of advice?” he said.

  Demure, she thought. She lowered her eyes from his face to the floor. “I’ve been tasked with capturing the Erymanthian Boar,” she said.

  The centaur said nothing but continued staring at her. She didn’t look up.

  “Who is it?” asked another male voice from behind the curtain.

  “A girl who wants to know about the boar,” said the first centaur. He reached down and grasped her chin, gently, brought it up so she faced him. “I think we can help her.”

  “Doesn’t she want some wine?” asked the voice.

  Klea lowered her eyes again to the centaur’s stomach, tight and toned, the muscles seeming to shift on their own in the flickering light. He had a trail of dense fur running downward from his bellybutton. Klea wanted to lick it, run her tongue along his hipbones, feel that fur beneath her hands. She clenched her jaw and thought, Innocent, dammit.

  “I’m not really permitted to drink,” she said quietly.

  The centaur grinned. “There’s a first time for everything,” he said. “Come in!”

  To her surprise, there were two other centaurs in the cave. The space was surprisingly well-lit by holes in the wall, almost like windows, and the place was well-appointed, hung with draperies and curtains, the centaurs themselves sitting around on huge cushions, drinking wine from goblets. All three eyed her. The one who had opened the curtain walked to a large bowl, grabbed another goblet, and filled it to the brim with dark wine.

  “Feel free to take your armor off,” said one of the centaurs sitting on the floor. He had sandy hair and dappled fur, striking in the low light. “I’m sure it’s heavy.”

  “And please, take a seat,” said the other centaur on the floor, whose skin was darker, the color of the mud on the riverbank. He had curly hair that brushed his shoulders.

  The first centaur handed her the goblet of wine, smiling. In the light, Klea realized he had blue eyes so bright they looked unnatural. She took a sip and nearly spat it out, coughing—she drank plenty of wine back at the palace, but this stuff was strong. The centaurs smiled again, and the one who’d given her the wine took her shoulders and spun her gently.

  “Let me help you with this,” he purred, brushing her hair off her neck. He released both shoulder buckles, the side buckles, then gently lifted it away from her. She wore a thin tunic underneath that stuck to her skin where she’d been sweating that day, and she shivered. All three centaurs looked at her nipples.

  “Where are my manners,” said the standing centaur mildly. “My name is Chiron. Welcome to my abode.”

  Klea nodded.

  “Pholus,” said the blond centaur.

  “Arctos,” said the third, with the long curly hair.

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” she said, and took another sip of her wine. Then she took another. She was beginning to get hot and flushed, alone in this room with three very good-looking men who were slowly stripping her. The virgin act would be more believable if she were drunk, she figured.

  “You can’t sit in that,” said Chiron. He gestured at the skirt of her armor and her sandals. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

  “Oh,” said Klea, trying to sound surprised and just the littlest bit scandalized. She put her wine down and unbuckled her skirt, the wine already making her fingers clumsy. It dropped to the floor and Chiron scooped it up neatly with one hoof, deposited it near the top of her armor. Klea looked around at the three centaurs and smoothed down the front of her tunic, pulling the sweaty parts away from her body. She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, lifted her wine goblet, and took another sip. It was two-thirds gone, already.

  “Sit down,” said Pholus.

  “Here, I’ll top you up,” said Chiron, ladling more wine into her goblet.

  “Oh, I shouldn’t,” she said. She could feel the alcohol in her blood, that tingle between her legs that meant she was on the way to getting drunk.

  “Nonsense,” he said, and handed back the goblet. As she moved it to her mouth she tilted it a bit, spilling the red liquid in a thin stream down the front of her tunic.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Come sit,” said Arctos. He gestured at a large cushion right next to him. Klea walked over and began to sit, spilled her wine again instead. “I’ll hold it while you get settled,” he said, and took the goblet from her. Their fingers brushed. His were dry and warm.

  Klea was extra careful to keep her legs together. Her tunic was on the short side, and she pulled it down as much as she could, mostly for show; with the wine adding to her libido, what she
really wanted to do was rip it off and sit on one of the centaur’s faces. Chiron settled himself on a cushion on her other side, pitcher of wine on the floor between them.

  “Why are you looking for the boar?” asked Arctos. He reached out with one hand and brushed a strand of hair off of her neck and began stroking a fingertip along her shoulder, nudging it gently under her tunic.

  Klea licked her lips and tried not to breathe harder. She took another swig of the wine; half-gone, now, and her head was beginning to swim. “I’m indebted to King Eurystheus, and he gave me the task,” she said. Arctos was slowly leaning closer to her.

  “Indebted for what?” asked Pholus, the blond one, watching Arctos’ fingers.

  Why hadn’t she thought ahead? The warm, dry fingers were tracing up and down her arm, from her neck to her elbow, the soothing, delicious feeling combining with the wine to make her feel a little like swooning.

  “My father is Zeus,” she admitted. “And my parents wanted to marry me to someone I didn’t want to marry, so I ran away and this is my punishment.”

  “Marriage can be hard on young ladies,” said Chiron. His blue eyes flicked over her body. “Why didn’t you want to marry?”

  Klea looked up, tried to flutter her lashes at him. “I didn’t like the man they wanted me to marry. I couldn’t imagine—well, you know.”

  “Imagine what?” Arctos asked softly from behind her. Klea turned her head, realized his face was inches away from her own.

  “I couldn’t imagine,” she began, and his lips met her shoulder. He moved slowly up to her neck, his mouth slow and hot on her skin. “Lying with him,” she said in a rush. “I couldn’t imagine lying with him.”

  “Why not?” said Chiron. He put one hand on her knee. Had he moved closer? How had he moved without her seeing him do it? Klea put her wine goblet down, realizing it was now empty. She drew her leg away from Chiron, just a little, looked into his blue eyes. How much longer did she have to act?