by R. E. Butler
“Queen Sophie is looking for you,” Bry said with a voice devoid of emotion.
“Thanks. Tell her I’ll be there in a minute.”
“I’m going to escort you.” He bent slightly and offered his hand.
Frowning at his outstretched hand, she debated on arguing that she could walk just fine. The problem was that she would offend him if she turned him down, and she’d already really offended him when she told him she didn’t want to become his mate. Coming to fetch her was probably like drinking poison for him, but he was part of the king and queen’s private guards and obeyed orders without question. A soldier to the very end.
She folded her towel around her bathing items and tucked it under her arm before taking his hand. He swung her up onto his back easily, and she settled behind him. She put the towel on her lap and placed her hands lightly on his waist for balance. He jerked her arms forward at the wrists and held them tightly to his chest as he kicked off at a fast pace. Bouncing around bareback on a Centaur wasn’t her favorite activity, but she could hardly complain about it. When she was younger, the Centaurs were like fairy tales come to life. That they accepted her as one of their own kind without question had warmed every inch of her heart. But then as she grew older, it became clear that while she could make her own choices about her life, everyone expected her to mate with a Centaur male and join the herd as a treasured wife.
Centaurs shared mate-dreams with their future brides. The dreams led him to wherever she was, either in the Mortal Realm or one of the supernatural realms. Centaurs wouldn’t take a mate they hadn’t shared dreams with. Bry, however, had already had mate-dreams, but his bride had died. He’d been away in a supernatural realm when his dreams started. By the time he returned, his bride had died in a house fire. Kaya was certain that was why he’d asked her to be his mate, because he wouldn’t have dreams about anyone else. Centaurs received one truemate – whether they found her or not – for their very long lives. That he’d had the dreams but missed his bride had to be hell for him. She knew that he cared for her, but she was certain he didn’t love her. He might have loved the idea of her, a woman who could share his long life and was already part of his world, but the affection and romance that she craved were absent.
She’d been having dreams about two males for years. She knew without a doubt that they weren’t Centaurs, which was what had prompted her to turn down Bry. Two men with copper-colored skin visited her dreams, infrequently at first, but increasing until lately when they appeared every night. The dreams were both good and bad. Sometimes, she would be in bed with one of them, clutching onto a strong back as he rode her to heaven. Other times, they would be in battle together, her between the two strong males.
The battles frightened her, reality shifting around them as if the future weren’t exactly set in stone and could change at any moment. She knew somehow she was a lynchpin for the two of them, that neither would reach his potential without her, but what exactly that meant, she didn’t know. And she had never seen their faces, not in all the years since the dreams began. She knew they were muscular, their bodies startlingly similar, and they had long black hair. Other than that, they were faceless men who were her destiny.
When Bry stopped in front of the king and queen’s home, he squeezed her wrists a little tighter, as if reminding her that he was far stronger than she. Then he helped her slide off his back. She stared up at him, the sunlight creating a haloed effect around his head. If he hadn’t looked so angry, she would have said he looked almost angelic. But he was far too dark tempered for heavenly things. A fallen angel...perhaps.
“Bry,” she started, but words failed her. Nothing she said could fix what happened. He asked; she answered.
Done and done.
He kicked off after tearing his gaze from hers, and she watched him race toward the edge of the territory as if he needed to run off some steam. Taking a few deep, calming breaths, she opened the front door and walked inside.
“Moman?” she called, putting down her things on the small table at the door.
“In here, lili,” Sophie answered from the kitchen.
Kaya followed the rich scent of stew that filled the air and found Sophie standing at the wood stove in front of a large pot. In the Centaur world, the women were the caretakers of the home. The mothers. The wives. Women weren’t warriors or fighters. And maybe that was what bothered Kaya the most. Choosing a Centaur as a mate meant giving up on the one thing she knew for sure about herself – she was destined to use a blade, and not one meant for the kitchen.
Sophie, who asked Kaya years ago to call her Moman – the Centaur term for mother – turned around with two bowls of stew in her hands and set them down at the table. Kaya took her seat and picked up the spoon, stirring the meat and vegetables around in the dark broth and ignoring the feel of Sophie’s eyes on her.
“Daeton and her mates are coming tonight, along with their shifter family from the states. Papan expects you to attend dressed as royalty and has asked for Bry to escort you.”
Kaya lowered her gaze and hid her eye roll behind her long lashes as she blew on a spoonful of stew before taking it into her mouth.
“Why do you insist on torturing him, Moman?” Kaya lifted her face until she was looking at Sophie.
The queen’s long, chestnut hair was coiled in a braid, and her round face held dark brows that furrowed in confusion.
“How is Bry tortured by escorting the herd’s most eligible single female to our celebration tonight?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but then thought better of it. Instead, she asked, “Why does Daeton live in the other realm? Her family is here, and time moves so differently there.”
In the Medes Realm, for every year that passed, ten years passed in the Mortal Realm.
Sophie said, “She’s shared by another male who isn’t a Centaur. She and Perseus would be welcome here, but not the cat man.”
“Is it because he’s not a Centaur or because she shares herself with two males?” Images of her dreams slid into her mind. What would her Moman think if she could see the sexy images that flipped through Kaya’s brain?
Sophie’s brow raised slightly. “Both, I suppose. In the other realm, bride sharing is not uncommon because of the lack of suitable women. But here, where the men can journey more easily to find a mate, it wouldn’t be welcomed. Now, remind me again why we are torturing the captain of the guard?”
“He’s still so furious with me. How can you and Papan force him to stand with me when it will just make him miserable?”
Sophie sighed deeply, and when Kaya met her eyes again, sorrow was lodged in the blue depths.
“Moman?”
“I’m sorry, lili, but Papan has decided that you will choose a Centaur to marry within the month or you will have to leave the herd. Before you protest, I promise that this comes only at his worry for your safety. The single males in the herd are growing restless because you will lay with them during your needing times, but not at any other times.”
Although Sophie’s words were gentle, and there was no reproach in them, Kaya couldn’t help but burn with shame. When she turned fifteen, she began having strange desires in the spring and fall. The first two times the desires struck her, it was simply a hollow ache in her belly for a few days that she ignored. But the year she turned sixteen, the hollow ache sharpened and the need to have sex hit her with such force that she ran from her bed and fell on the first male she found. It had been Bry, patrolling the grounds.
After the herd doctors looked her over, they decided she was going through a kind of mating heat as some of the were-groups did. But since she didn’t shift, they were baffled by the reason. Worse than feeling out of control was the guilt that followed, because she longed so badly for the Centaur males to be the two men from her dreams. And now, coupled with this revelation from Sophie that she would either leave the herd or be forced to take a husband she didn’t love or want, a great heaviness settled on her shoulders. Marr
ying a Centaur would be betraying the two males in her dreams. It would mean she’d given up hope of ever finding them.
Forced to marry or head out on her own.
Neither were comforting scenarios.
If she left, she’d be taking nothing with her. She didn’t even have a birth certificate or driver’s license, which meant she couldn’t get a job to support herself.
The stew tasted bitter now and settled in her stomach like lead. She listened as Sophie talked about Daeton’s family from the south, which included not only bear shifters but also a witch and a fairy who had lost her wings. Two of the human wives appeared, and Kaya excused herself to her room to get ready with their assistance.
There were times in her life when Kaya felt like a woman of great power, as if she should be able to control the earth with her fingertips. But now, she felt like a doll, bathed and covered with scented lotion made from their sacred nashal flower. The women were silent as they primped her under the watchful eye of Moman. They paid careful attention to her fingers and toes before turning to her long mass of white-blonde hair. She preferred to keep it either completely loose or in a long braid, but the ceremonial style was one of complicated braids and curls twined with ribbon and flowers.
One thin section was braided and wrapped behind her ears and then around her head. Pins affixed large loops of her hair in an intricate mass. A length of tiny white flowers tied together was woven between the layers of her hair.
Her dress was a multilayered cream-colored affair that gathered at the shoulders and waist and cascaded to the floor in a pool at her feet. Bleached white leather sandals were placed on her feet. Sophie gave the women makeup to use on Kaya.
While the Centaurs shunned many modern conveniences such as televisions and computers, they did have vehicles and bought food and supplies from human merchants. That their males could shift into fully human form was the only reason they were still able to keep their existence a secret. Kaya had been to the human cities several times, and she thought there wasn’t anything better than television. Although air-conditioning in the hot summer months was close to the top of her list, too.
Sophie met Kaya’s eyes in the mirror as she placed a simple golden crown on her head and pinned it in place. “You are a princess of our people, Kaya. A shining star in the darkness.” Sophie shifted strips of gauzy material from the shoulders of the dress forward and down Kaya’s arm, and then she wrapped the ends around Kaya’s wrist, tying a knot. She did the same with the other arm, effectively hiding the tattoos Kaya had inked two months earlier.
The tattoos were simple, replicas of shapes she’d seen in a dream. She had been standing in front of a large tree with red bark. She couldn’t see the two men, but she knew they were with her. A strip of bark was peeled away, and one of the men carved three symbols into the tree. Somehow she knew that two of the symbols were for them and one was for her. When they pressed their fingers to the top and bottom symbols and she pressed her finger to the center symbol, she felt a connection bloom between them, like a knot was tied tightly and would never come undone. When she woke, she copied the top and bottom symbols into her journal, and the next time the caravan went down to the human cities, she joined them and snuck into a tattoo parlor. Because she was supernatural, she had to find a shop that could do the tattoos for her so they wouldn’t disappear due to her accelerated healing abilities. The tattoo artist blended silver and magic into the ink.
When the man had finished tattooing her wrists, she had him tattoo a small sword on her right shoulder blade. She’d seen herself wielding a sword from time to time in the dreams, and she looked on it as if it were a birthright. Sophie and the king had been furious, but the tattoos were permanent, and there wasn’t anything they could do about them.
“It’s time to put away childish things, set aside your school-girl fantasies, and take the next step in your life,” Sophie said sternly.
“Why do you discount my dreams, Moman? Centaurs find their true loves in dreams. My dreams are showing me my future, and it’s not being married to a Centaur.”
A haughty expression passed over Sophie’s face, which was not one that Kaya had ever seen before. “You are not a Centaur and, therefore, the mate-dreams do not apply to you, Kaya. You are my ward. I adopted you when you had nothing and no one. You will respect our laws or you will leave.”
Stunned at Sophie’s utter lack of understanding for her situation, she could do nothing but stare in shocked silence as the queen and the two women left her alone in her room.
Chapter 3
Shy was happy to get out of the RV. The trip from Cleveland to the meeting place with the Centaurs had taken forever. Their small caravan – made up of two supply trucks and three RVs – carried the entire family, plus Rysk and Tyrant. Shy, his brother, and sisters, traveled in one RV with their parents. His uncles, one of his aunts, and all his cousins traveled in another RV, and his grandparents followed right behind. Rysk drove the truck that led the caravan, and Tyrant drove the truck that brought up the rear.
During their next stop, Shy stepped out of the RV, squinted at the sunlight, and stretched. Although the RV was spacious, anything started to feel cramped after two days. The sound of vehicles approaching made him turn and watch the dust kick up behind the two large vans that made their way to them. When the vehicles stopped, one male got out of each van and opened the back doors.
One male approached and said, “I’m Farienne. We’ve got a few hours left to our journey, so if you’ll split up between the two vans, we’ll get on the way.”
Adriel shook Farienne’s hand and said, “Thank you.”
Shy’s family split up between the cargo vans. There were benches built in to both sides of the interior of the vans, but no windows, and a solid wall stood between the back and front seats. Rysk climbed in with Shy and his family, and Tyrant rode in the other van with the rest of the family members.
The doors shut, and an overhead light cast a sickly yellow glow over everything.
Malia said, “Why aren’t there any windows?”
“The Centaurs don’t want us to know where their city is,” Ash said, slipping his arm around her shoulders.
“Why?”
“Because no one in our realm knows that Centaurs are real. They keep to themselves in the middle of nowhere so they can live in safety,” Axe answered.
“Wouldn’t they be safer having a group of other shifters looking out for them, like the ones in Cleveland do for us?” Aiyana asked.
There were five different shifter groups in Northern Ohio. Bears, ravens, tigers, dragons, and white lions. The groups had alliances and watched out for one another. Every group had alliances with the Wiccans, as well as with the vampires, but the shifter alliances were more valuable because shifters understood one another better than Wiccans or vampires could ever understand shifters.
Elizabeth shrugged. “I think they’re just too afraid to let their identities be known. A few hundred years ago, Centaurs were hunted and kept as slaves, used for their shifted forms as beasts of burden. When they broke free, they left for the Medes Realm where your Aunt Daeton lives now. After a century had passed, when the humans who had been instrumental in their capture had died, some Centaurs returned to our realm but decided to spend most of their lives in secrecy.”
“Well, that would suck,” Dena said.
Elizabeth chuckled. “Oh?”
“Yeah. How do they find girlfriends if they live in secret?”
“Centaurs are unique in the shifter world because they find their truemates through dreams. They call them ‘mate-dreams.’ Daeton dream-shared with her truemates. She said the dreams were fuzzy at first, and as she drew closer to Perseus and Ekho, the dreams became clearer,” Ash answered.
“And,” Elizabeth pointed out, “Centaurs are only born male. So, they can’t look within their own kind for their truemates. Without the dreams, they wouldn’t know where to look for their mates.”
Shy glanced at
Teck as his parents and siblings discussed dreams. Teck’s eyes were closed, and he leaned back against the wall of the van with his arms crossed over his chest, but Shy could see his clenched jaw.
“Centaurs aren’t the only ones who mate-dream,” Shy said.
His family quieted, with his mother giving him a sad smile. “That’s true. Other shifters and supernatural creatures can have dreams about their mates. I think, though, that Centaurs are the only ones who only use mate-dreams and won’t mate with a female they haven’t dreamed about.”
“What if their mate dies before they meet her?” Malia asked.
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said. “It would be sad if they had to live alone for the rest of their lives, though.”
“I’m glad I’m not having mate-dreams about a Centaur,” Aiyana said. “I like electricity too much.”
Everyone laughed.
Elizabeth tousled her hair and said, “I think if the one guy on the planet meant for you lived without electricity, you’d find a way to get along without it. Nothing is better than finding your truemate.”
“Or truemates,” Axe said.
Sighing, Shy rubbed his thumb between his eyes to settle a headache that the rumbling engine caused, and he leaned back. He was looking forward to seeing Daeton and her family again, and he knew it made his parents and grandparents happy for everyone to come for the get-togethers. Closing his eyes, he tried to relax for the remainder of the ride.
When the truck finally stopped, he heard muffled voices outside, and then the back door opened.
Aunt Daeton, belly round with child, said, “I thought you’d never get here!”
With tears in her eyes, she beckoned them out of the van, and they exited with smiles. The same as it had been ten years earlier, she stood alone, but off in the distance, Shy could see her two husbands and young son waiting.
Daeton hugged Shy tightly. “I can’t believe you two are as old as me now,” she said with a sniffle. “And so handsome. You must have she-bears chasing after you all the time.”