Pirithous shook his head. “It must be now.”
Theseus’s gaze slid to hers, questioning, but she only pressed her lips together. Now was not the time to speak against their union. Pirithous would only see it as further proof of her betrayal.
“Would you risk your kingdom simply to plow her?” Antiope demanded, her golden eyes flashing. “Have you not had enough of one another in other ways to sate your lust?”
Pirithous gave her a hard, burning look. Antiope’s mouth snapped shut and she turned her face away.
“Princess.” Pirithous extended his hand, shifting his glower to her. Hippodamia gave him her hand without hesitation, but his fingers closed too tight around her own and his eyes glowed white. “Have you any last confessions to make? Perhaps you’d like to beg me to release you from your vow.”
“I have told you already what I wished to say. All I have ever wanted is this peace between our people, and your loyalty and affection. My feelings on the matter have not changed.”
“You squeak a sweet song, little mouse.”
“The truth need not be bitter on the tongue.”
He grunted, drawing her forward more roughly than necessary. “Priest!”
At the altar, the priest stood before them, his face pale and grave. “I can promise only a fruitful union, my lord. Had I known what the auguries would reveal, I would have urged you to marry before now. Even yesterday, or perhaps tomorrow…”
“No,” Pirithous said.
“But my lord—”
“No,” he said again, his eyes flaring lightning white. “Whatever fate the gods bring us tomorrow, I will face it with Hippodamia as my bedded wife. To hesitate now will only bring excuse for war, besides.”
The priest turned his anxious gaze to her. “My lady, I beg of you…”
“I have already given my promise to your king,” she said. “I will not bring dishonor to myself or my people by breaking it.”
Pirithous drew the knife from his belt and pressed it into her palm, wrapping his fingers around hers. “Much as I would prefer not to place a blade in your hand, this cut we must make together.”
“Wait,” Hylonome said, and the priest looked as though he might weep with relief. “What of Dia’s peace? What do the auguries say of that?”
Beside her, Pirithous swore under his breath, and sparks of lightning crackled in the air, prickling her skin and turning it to gooseflesh. The priest swallowed thickly, meeting his king’s eyes.
“The Lapiths will have peace, but only after they have paid for it in blood and sacrifice.”
Hylonome’s tail switched and she stepped back, the tension of her body expelled with a shudder of her hide. She bowed her head to Pirithous. “If the Lapiths must pay in blood, the centaurs will offer their share of the sacrifice. Centaurus would wish it.”
Pirithous’s hand tightened over Hippodamia’s, the blade pressed to the horse’s throat. The lightning faded from his eyes, from the air around them, and he inhaled deeply through his nose, looking down at her. Hippodamia held his gaze, willing him to see the truth, her truth.
It was only ever you.
The grim line of his mouth softened and something warmer flickered in his eyes. He nodded once, though whether it was acceptance of Hylonome’s offer or in recognition of his own foolish pride, she did not know.
“If you wish it,” he said softly, “we will wait until tomorrow.”
Her whole body trembled with relief as she exhaled. “You have made me wait too long already.”
“Now, priest,” Pirithous said, and the barley the old man had withheld finally fell from his fingers, sprinkled before the victim with a fervent invocation to the gods.
They drew the blade across the horse’s throat, and the hot blood spilled over their hands. The horse sank slowly to his knees, unprotesting, and the priest let out a breath that was half-moan as he pressed a golden bowl to the animal’s neck.
She did not hear the blessing he gave, and she did not care. They would have peace, for themselves and for their people. That was all that mattered.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Pirithous
The priest dismissed them, but when Hippodamia turned to follow the centaurs, Pirithous held her back. “I would have a moment alone with my wife.”
Theseus frowned, searching his face. Pirithous gave him the slightest shake of his head. The madness had passed, and Hippodamia was his. Whatever Eurytion had hoped for, he would not have it. He could not have it. But even if they had waited until tomorrow, he was certain Hippodamia would have made the same choice. He had felt the conviction of her love, tasted and savored it like the finest wine before drinking deep.
Though he was not certain she realized even her own feelings, he could not help but be softened by them. He had no right to her affection, and he certainly did not deserve her love. He had offered her so little in exchange. Generosity, perhaps, when it suited him, but the rest? Mistrust, anger, insult. He had repaid her poorly.
“This way.” He pulled her with him away from the main trail. “There is a pool not far from here where we might wash the blood from our hands…”
“No centaur would find fault in a little blood,” she said, offering a hesitant smile. But even so unsure of herself, of him, she followed.
He wished he could take it all back. All his anger, all the things he had said. Gods, forgive me. How could he have been so blind? But he knew the answer. He’d known it from the moment he had nourished her fragile love with his own strength, unknowing, while she wept for the betrayal she had wanted so much to commit—hoping it might secure his affections, his loyalties. Hippodamia was so unlike the others, and for a breath, for a heartbeat he had feared…
She was the only woman he had ever known with the will to leave him. And it did not matter to her that he was king, or hero, or demigod. All that mattered was that he cared as much for her people as he did his own—that he cared as much for her as he did Dia’s peace.
He led her through the trees, the path no more than the faintest of deer trails, the brush at times so thick he had to hold the branches back to allow Hippodamia to pass unscathed. She would bleed soon enough without the help of thorn and bramble, but he would treat her gently, carefully, for he had given her too much pain already this day.
And then they broke from the path into a clearing, edged by rose bushes which spilled in lush red and white blossoms over the bank of the pool. Petals fell like tears into the water with each stir of the wind through the branches, and a soft mist still clung to the grasses where the dappled sunlight could not reach.
“My mother used to bring me here when I was a boy. She said it was while she bathed here that Zeus came to her, and Aphrodite herself blessed them.” As he hoped, now, that the goddess might bless their joining, if Hippodamia would forgive him. But he did not feel as though he had the right to ask it of her. Not yet.
One of her fingers coiled in the lace of her girdle, winding and unwinding the leather string. “It is no wonder the goddess favors this place, beautiful as it is.”
“Even more so, with you here.”
She looked up at him, then, searching, and he smiled, taking her hand to still the movement of her fingers. Her eyes closed, just for a moment, and she stepped into his arms, pressing her face into the curve of his neck. He smoothed her hair away from his chin and felt her shudder.
“I thought—I feared I had lost you. This. Everything.”
“No,” he said, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I am yours if you will have me.”
“If!” She laughed, but it was weak, fluttering against his throat. “Oh, Pirithous! He said such awful things, and I only wanted you to tell me none of it mattered. He said you had bewitched me, and for a moment… but then you made me so furious, I knew it could never be true.”
He smiled into her hair. “It would have done me little good to keep you so besotted, Mia. A queen must know her own mind, and I could not have trusted you to care for my people in my
absence if the moment I left you, all you felt was loathing.”
She drew back, staring up at him. “You cannot mean it was within your power?”
“I would have thought that the first warning Antiope gave you.” But her face betrayed no understanding, troubled lines creasing her forehead instead. He smoothed them away with gentle fingers. He ought to have confessed it all to her that first night, but she had wanted so much to hate him already, and he had not wanted to give her another reason for mistrust. “I can feed the spark of some emotion already present, or share my own feelings with yours, but to impose my will upon another—it is a difficult and tiresome thing, and no honor to be had in the winning. To say nothing of what Antiope would have done to me if I had tried.”
“She said you would never take me unwilling.”
“Even now,” he said, his voice hoarse, “if you wished me to release you, preferred instead to join the others at the feast…”
She pressed her fingers against his lips, held them there as she leaned in, her own lips parting, soft and inviting as they brushed against his throat, his jaw, his chin. He dragged her fingers away and claimed her mouth with his own, tasting her sweetness, her warmth. She shifted nearer, her body forming to his, all softness and curves, the silk teasing when he wanted her bare skin.
He tugged at the lacing of her girdle, the gold chiming where it was not crushed between them. The gown itself was a simple thing, made rich by its fabric and embroidery more than its cut. When the girdle fell away, he pulled the dress up over her head, and tossed it into the grass. The silk would wrinkle, but no one would be looking at her gown when he presented her flush-faced and glowing with pleasure.
Hippodamia unknotted his belt, the brush of her fingers so near his manhood he could only groan. She dropped to her knees and pressed kisses through the cloth, letting his tunic bunch over her forearms as they slid up his thighs. His hands shook, and it took all his restraint not to tear the fabric from his body, getting it over his head, for the moment it had risen above his waist, she had taken him into her mouth, swallowing him deeper than he had ever gone.
“Mia,” he sighed, winding his fingers in her hair. “You need not…”
She drew back slowly, as if savoring his length, and he tightened, aching for more. But he did not want her mouth, not today. Today he would spread her thighs and let her guide him inside that slick, tender heat. He would repay her love and loyalty with pleasure beyond anything she had yet known.
“Come,” he said, pulling her up. He needed to calm his desire, needed to go slowly, and it would not do to bring her to their wedding feast smeared with horse’s blood besides, even if the centaurs would think nothing of it. To his people, it would signal only ill. “Bathe with me, little mouse, and the rest will follow.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hippodamia
She was flushed already when Pirithous caught her by the waist, lifting her down into the water, but the cold she had braced for never came and she sighed at the warmth on her skin. Pirithous chuckled softly, sinking back into deeper water and drawing her with him.
“Did I not mention it was fed by a hot spring?” he teased, his hand sliding up her back, tickling the length of her spine.
She shivered and wrapped her arms around his neck, letting him support them both in the water. The hardness of his desire pressed into her stomach, and he tightened his arm around her waist, pulling her closer. His other hand abandoned her back, gripping her thigh instead, shifting her higher and guiding her legs around his hips, until he nestled himself against her center with a moan.
She echoed it, closing her eyes and tilting her hips just so… She bit her lip on a soft sound of pleasure as he teased her, holding back from the joining they both wanted. Heat blossomed through her, but not enough. She needed him closer, inside her. She needed to be filled.
“Even in the water, you’re still so warm, so welcoming.” His lips pressed against her shoulder, then followed the curve of her neck, and she tilted her head back. He grasped her bottom, moving her against him with that same delicious sensation, slipping his body against hers, but not inside. She whimpered, straining nearer, but he only laughed against her throat. “Soon, Princess, I promise you.”
He caught her arm with his own bloodied hand, slipping it from behind his neck and drawing it beneath the water. The blood washed from her arm and hand with nothing more than his gentle touch, his hand gliding up her forearm, then down, his thumb massaging her palm, then each of her fingers.
She sighed, her head falling to his shoulder and her body melting against his, all liquid and warm. The things he could do with his hands, the way he touched her, firm and deft and confident. He always knew what she needed, and how to play her body until there was nothing else in the world but his hands, his mouth, and the growing need inside her, white and hot and so exquisite when it bloomed.
He lifted her up out of the water and set her upon the grassy bank, the cooler air making her skin prickle and the buds of her breasts harden. Pirithous tweaked one, and a flush of heat spread through her body against the sudden chill.
“Lie back, little mouse,” he murmured, his other hand sliding up her thigh. When he stood, the water rose to the middle of his chest, and his eyes were dark as hurricanes. His thumb slipped between her folds, stroking between her legs. She shuddered hard, and when he urged her to part her thighs, lowering his head to take her with his mouth, she lifted her hips to meet him.
“Please,” she moaned. “I need—”
One thick finger slipped inside her as his tongue flicked the place where his thumb had been, and she cried out, arching her back, her body flooding with warmth and need. He curled his finger, stroking something deeper, and she whimpered, feeling it build. She rocked her hips against his touch, against his mouth, needing more, begging for more. Her hands fisted in the grass, pulling tufts of it from the soft earth.
And then his mouth was gone, the absence of that warm, wet touch making her ache all the more. Another cry, half-moan, escaped her throat. So close! She had been so close.
But Pirithous hushed her, his body hovering over hers, and where his finger had been, the thick head of his desire pressed against her readied entrance. Her eyes flashed open, meeting his, and he pushed deeper, stretching her wider, filling her in a way his fingers never had. She clutched at his shoulders, his back, her nails scraping his skin as some small discomfort flared, then faded. He was so thick, and she needed him there, needed him.
He groaned and sank inside her completely, every muscle of his body tensed. “I’ve never…” He moved slowly, carefully drawing himself back, and she sighed. The feel of him, so deep, and she was whole.
“So tight,” he murmured, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deep again.
He fit her so perfectly, so completely, filled her to overflowing, and still she wanted more. “Please,” she breathed.
He answered with another groan, one hand grasping her hip, holding her tight to his body. “I swore to myself I wouldn’t hurt you, Mia, not like this. But I am not certain I have the strength to hold back.”
She framed his face in her hands, curling her fingers around his ears. “It hurts more not to have you.”
He growled and gathered her closer still, unwinding one of her legs from his waist. And then he rolled to his back and she straddled his body, gasping, the shift of her weight driving him all the deeper. His hands settled upon her hips, rocking her back and forth, guiding her until she found the rhythm and the heat spreading through her blood swelled into fire and lightning, prickling her skin, lighting her from the inside out.
Pirithous’s hands glided over her ribs, his fingers pressing into her skin just hard enough. His mouth found the point of her breast, suckling, and the cresting wave of her pleasure broke at last, her body shuddering, clutching at his as she moaned her release.
But it was far from the finish, for Pirithous only laughed as she collapsed upon his chest, and roll
ed her to her back.
She had married a true son of Zeus, after all.
They bathed once more in the pool after, and helped one another dress. Pirithous combed his fingers gently through her hair, smoothing the tangles and picking leaves and rose petals from the strands. Her body was pleasantly sore in ways she had never imagined possible, but she had never felt so calm, so at peace, so whole.
“Will you forgive me?” he asked, his voice low and rough with emotion. “I will beg if I must.”
She turned to look up at him, stroking his cheek. “As long as you are mine.”
He turned his face into her hand and kissed her palm. “Then perhaps Aphrodite has blessed me, too.”
Goddess, let it last. Give me the strength to match him in body and heart. Perhaps, in time, they might even find love, as Antiope had promised. She could only pray it would be so.
“Shall we join the others?” Pirithous asked. “I confess, I have no desire to share you, even the sight of you, but I fear your people will take offense if we do not feast with them.”
“And yours will not?”
He flashed a wolfish grin. “The Lapiths know my appetites. They would find nothing amiss if I took my bride to bed.”
She let her hand fall from his face, stepping back before he could tempt her further. “I would not mind the food or drink, and if we must eat to keep our strength, perhaps we ought to do our guests the courtesy of joining them for a time.”
“A short time,” he amended, and he caught her hand, his fingers tightening around hers.
Hippodamia laughed, her heart so light she feared she would float away but for his hold upon her. “A short time,” she agreed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Pirithous
The wine had flowed freely in their absence, though the sun had barely reached its zenith, and Pirithous had ordered it well-watered out of deference to Hippodamia’s guests. At her insistence, he had even set out pitchers of goat’s milk for them, for whatever good it might do. At least the day had dawned clear, and long tables had been set within the courtyard for the centaurs, who had come in numbers far larger than he had wished.
Tamer of Horses Page 13