The Centaur Queen (The Dark Queens Book 7)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Table of Contents
The Centaur Queen
Author’s Note
The Centaur Queen
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Other Books written as Jovee Winters
The Centaur Queen
The race to save Kingdom is on, and the unlikeliest of heroes have been tasked with discovering the key to salvaging all of fairy tales’ happily ever afters...
Tymanon is a centauress without a home or even many friends. But that's just how this shy, intelligent female likes it, until three capricious gods pair her up with a satyr in the infamous "love games" that are anything but.
Petra isn’t her happily ever after. What nonsense to ever believe a centaur could be happy with a satyr. And yet when he looks at her with those mossy-green eyes, Ty feels things she's never felt before—wonder, joy, and maybe even something more.
But now isn't the time for her to figure out whether she’s in love or not. Tymanon suddenly finds herself on the isle of Gnósi, which is governed by the three Fates. She has three challenges to beat before she can ask the question that will save all of Kingdom. But a terrible sacrifice will have to be made at the end. Love or honor, which will Tymanon choose? Only time will tell...
Author’s Note
The Centaur Queen follows on the heels of The Mad King, which is technically book 1 of the Dark King Saga, however, if you want to read the books in chronological order then I highly recommend you go back and pick that one up first. Also, if you’re unfamiliar with The Fairy Queen or haven’t read it yet, stop everything you’re doing and go back to that book since everything that occurs there affects all future Kingdom books!
The Centaur Queen
Copyright 2017 Jovee Winters
Cover Art by Nathalia Sullen
Formatted by D2D
My super seekrit hangout!
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, events, or places is purely coincidental. Though if you should spot a cute fairy or a lecherous imp, say hi for me.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, Jovee Winters, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in the context of reviews.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Jovee Winters.
Unauthorized or restricted use in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patent Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2017 by Jovee Winters, United States of America
Chapter 1
Tymanon
Petra and I were tossed violently from the games, as though a large and powerful hand had suddenly yanked us away. Dizzy and disoriented, I frowned as I gazed at the red clay beneath my palms. How had I gotten here? One moment I’d been inside the games, and the next I was here, wherever here was.
Nothing about the games had been normal. Petra and I were trapped inside a world-within-a-world created by the gods for their own warped amusement. A part of me wondered if maybe we’d been thrust into a new challenge without either of us knowing. And yet... I blinked and frowned. And yet there was a niggling thought within me that something had gone terribly awry.
Inhaling deeply, I washed my lungs with the scent of dirt and pine. Getting shakily to my feet, I dusted off my hindquarters and turned to look for my traveling companion. Petra was a few yards behind me, and he too was dusting himself off, wearing the same quizzical frown that I no doubt still wore. I wasn’t often at a loss to describe what was happening around me, but I was without answers right now. Shoving thick strands of hair out of my eyes, I studied our surroundings.
Just a few minutes ago, Petra and I had been discussing the next challenger we were set to face—Fiera, elemental goddess of the eternal fires. We weren’t supposed to duel until tomorrow, though. Perhaps the gods had fooled us yet again, and we were supposed to duel right now. Readying my bow, heart racing, I studied the landscape, expecting to see Fiera standing off to the side, fireball in hand.
But the goddess was nowhere to be seen. Instead there were trees, hundreds of them. We were in a grove of towering behemoths whose branches kissed the sky. I turned in a circle, doubting what I was seeing.
This was Kingdom.
We were back in Kingdom.
“How the blue blazes...” I mumbled. I walked to the first tree and laid my hand against its corrugated bark, scratching at its woodsy thickness with my nail. There was nothing unusual about it. It wasn’t sentient and it didn’t sing or talk, which meant we weren’t in Wonderland. However, the trunks were a shade of deepest brown with large swaths of colorful streaks running down them. Riffling through the catalogue in my brain, I quickly came to the conclusion that these trees—more specifically the eritque arcus lingo—were exclusively native to the western region of Kingdom.
“Bloody hell,” I murmured. We really were out of the games. Mouth gaping in shock, I shook my head. This made no sense. I had many questions, but no one to ask. So instead, I made note of the facts.
Petra and I needed to understand why we’d been thrown out. Had we failed again? True, we hadn’t fallen in love. I admired and even rather enjoyed the satyr’s company greatly, but admiration was a far cry from the rules of the games that demanded we either declare our love and leave, or lose and spend an eternity in purgatory for our hubris in defying the gods.
I looked up, studying the needles of the spindly conifers above. The western region was said to be a thriving, bustling countryside filled to bursting with big game animals to hunt, plenty of wild-sown crops to eat, and some of the rarest types of flowers in all of Kingdom. Pursing my lips, I turned in another small circle before trotting back to the country lane.
Standing in the center of a red-clay dirt trail that diverged in several directions, I paused, waiting to see some sign of life, be it animal or otherwise.
After many long minutes, nothing appeared.
Kneeling, I touched my palm to the ground and cocked my head as I waited several heartbeats in near silence. I couldn’t even feel the vibrations of another soul roaming these lands. From all I’d read, this realm was far less civilized than other parts of Kingdo
m, but the evidence of life should have been here. Where was the wild game? Where were the trees bursting with fruit and nuts, and thick stalks of wheat shooting up from the ground?
I felt Petra’s approach, but he said nothing, just looked at me as I continued to assess our situation. I had always appreciated my companion’s ability to recognize when I needed silence.
I glanced worriedly at the sky, realizing for the first time that it wasn’t merely blue, but many different colors. Salmon, tangerine, and violet were not unusual to see in the sky. It was the other colors that actually caught my eye. There were patches of phosphorescent blue, green, and black wavering like a desert mirage as they floated away. I knew what they were because I’d seen them before. Those were the remnants of powerful magic running its course.
Rubbing the fine hairs on my forearms that were standing electrifyingly on edge, I shivered. What in the bloody blazes had happened here? This was Kingdom, but a Kingdom I didn’t quite recognize. That thought shot like a cold thrill of adrenaline through my veins, making me feel both hot and cold. I was a creature of knowledge, of facts, and of truths. I’d spent the better part of my life learning all I could of my world and of the lands, people, flora, and fauna that filled it.
My heart beat a terrible treble inside me. Petra and I had failed at the games most miserably, but not because I wasn’t a brilliant bowman—we’d single-handedly beaten all our opponents, save for the conniving Baba Yaga—but because we’d failed to fall in love, which was the only prerequisite to getting out of the cursed realm relatively unscathed. But something strange had happened in that world created by the gods. Something I could hardly even fathom, in truth. I thought myself mad, feared for my sanity even, because Petra and I, we lost. We were cursed, flung into a time dimension outside of reality, doomed to be separated for all eternity.
I screamed his name, feeling empty and so alone, terrified of what came next. I blinked and then—this was the strange part—I’d gone back in time, to him, to our pasture, to a time before we’d reached the end of the challenges and were punished by the gods for our disobedience.
That part had been bad enough, but when I mentioned what’d happened, Petra looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. He said I hadn’t left him, that he and I were talking, and I suddenly went wide-eyed, slack-jawed and silent.
I didn’t believe him until the next day when we squared off with Galeta the Blue, a challenger I’d already faced several gauntlets back. I realized that I hadn’t merely gone back in time, but that time had altered completely, presenting me with a different present and future the previous timeline had afforded me.
Confusion weighed me down, made me anxious and nervous because I could remember with startling clarity every emotion I had felt when the goddess Calypso told us our fate. I could close my eyes and relive the terror of it all, could paint a picture in great detail of all that happened.
I’d felt the panic of being separated from him. One moment I was battling Baba Yaga for not only my life, but that of Petra’s, when one of Fiera’s little fire imps sabotaged Baba, flinging a deadly curse at her. I saw the witch crumple, saw her fall, and saw Petra taken away by deadly, terrifying beings.
I hadn’t known what to think or feel, other than I knew it happened, and I sensed I shouldn’t tell Petra about it. I didn’t want to panic him. Either I’d somehow been granted the gift of seeing the future, or some form of powerful magic had temporarily twisted our reality so that only I could remember what it had once been.
Or worse yet, I was going crazy.
Days passed after that, and I’d convinced myself that I had indeed gone temporarily insane, when it happened again.
The second time it happened, I had challenged Petra to kiss me, and he did. My lips tingled with the press of his warm skin to mine. My heart rattled the cage of my chest. I wasn’t certain I could say I liked it, and yet I wasn’t certain I could say I didn’t, either. I felt as though my bones melted, my blood boiled, and it was quite hard to breathe.
Fear gripped me too, fear of what others might think of us, fear of dating outside of my species. It was forbidden for hybrids to do so. Though there were cases of it throughout the ages, those couples were rare and often the butt of ridicule and derision. I opened my mouth, ready to tell him I didn’t like it and that we shouldn’t experiment like that anymore when my present looped again.
This time, I didn’t go as far back as the first instance. I merely returned to five minutes before I presented Petra with the challenge. And just as before, Petra had had no idea about any of it. It seemed only I could remember.
With the first time loop, there’d been a subtle change to the present path of time, but with the second, I’d only lost my challenge and Petra’s kiss.
Petra’s long sigh and stomp of goat’s hooves on the red-clay dirt brought me back to the present. Solid-green eyes stared up at me. Petra and I were so very different. A centaur and a satyr, we were not common bedfellows. And yet we found ourselves thrust into a strange new world that neither of us were fully prepared to navigate.
“Did you feel that magic, Tymanon?” he asked, shoving thick waves of dark hair out of his kind eyes. His voice was soft, not as deeply masculine as most males. If I had to classify Petra, then he was firmly a beta in every sense of the word. Not as abrasive as many of the other males in the game had been, he was gentle and introspective—traits I rather admired, if I must be honest. I had more than enough of an alpha temperament for the two of us.
I raised my brow and nodded. “Aye, I did.”
He puffed out his chest with a heavy sigh, looking around and peering deep into the forest beyond.
There were no creatures as in tune to the world around them as centaurs were. It was simply in our chemical make-up. As hybrids, we’d adapted the very best of both species. We were more intelligent than a human and far more intuitive than a horse.
But, Petra was no slouch either. In fact, he was rather surprising at times. “I sense nothing around us,” he said with a slow frown. He turned to me, giving me a small shrug of confusion, as if wondering what our next step should be.
And for once, I found myself just as befuddled. Usually, I was clever enough to work through a riddle, but I confess this one eluded me almost entirely. I still wasn’t quite certain what had caused the disruption in magic, or why we were out of the game with no word or warning from the gods who ran it.
“There is only one thing we can do, satyr. We must make camp for the night. Until we figure out what’s happened, there is no sense in wandering off into madness or, worse yet, danger. Powerful magic has been unleashed. We wait, watch, and learn.”
He nodded. “In this case, I must agree. I’ll go gather some twigs to start a fire.”
“Mhmm.” I nodded, watching as he walked off, his heels thump-thumping loudly on the trampled trail.
Generally, I wasn’t much for company, preferring to be alone in most things. I didn’t even travel with a herd. I was one of very few centaurs that favored the silence of my own thoughts over the noise of another’s.
But not once had Petra irritated me. In fact, I rather looked forward to our shared evenings, to talking into the wee hours of the night. I found my companion to be stimulating in the most wonderful of ways. I enjoyed his mind, enjoyed hearing of his escapades before meeting me.
He was so very different from the satyrs I’d read about in books. Satyrs had always been depicted as sensual creatures, obsessed with seduction, the chase, and lusts of the flesh. I’d thought them all silly and simple creatures before I’d met him. But he was so contrary to what I’d read about his kind that I found myself fascinated and curious about everything—above all, why he’d been brought into the games in the first place, and why he’d been brought for me, of all people.
Sighing heavily, I shook my head. Sunlight was fading fast. I had to make camp quickly.
I might be a female, but I was powerful. Reaching into the spelled pouch I always kept belted a
round my waist, I created a harness with the thick rope I found within. I attached one end to the trunk of a fallen tree and tied the other end around my waist. Working quietly but efficiently, I’d soon dragged enough timber into a large clearing and set about creating a comfortable lean-to. I was just slipping the final log in place when Petra returned with an armful of dried kindling.
We worked in silence as we built the campfire. He placed the twigs just so and I gathered enough large, flat stones to safely encircle it all. Once done, I withdrew a small sliver of flint from the leather pouch and, using one of my arrowheads, created an immediate spark.
“I suppose I should gather meat for us,” I said.
Petra blinked his eyes rapidly then looked up at me as if I’d startled him. He’d been staring into the fire with a mile-long look, the same look he’d been wearing the past month back at the games. I’d often wondered at the emptiness of it, but never questioned him about it. If he wanted me to know, he’d tell me.
“Yes.” He rubbed his thick palms down his doe colored trousers. “Yes, and I will gather whatever edibles I can find.”
I used to think it odd that Petra wore clothing. As a female, I wore a leather halter over my breasts, but more to assuage the fragile sensibilities of the humans I’d been surrounded by in the games. Normally, I didn’t wear clothing. Being covered was considered an act of shame by most hybrids, something vain and silly. I’d grown accustomed to Petra’s use of pants, though I did sometimes wonder what his legs might look like beneath them. I’d read that satyr’s legs were far furrier than a centaur’s.
“Good.” I nodded once then turned and headed deeper into the forest, looking for any sign of life.
Centaurs were intensely curious. We lived for solving the most impossible of riddles and puzzles. Yet, every time Petra went silent, I didn’t seem to know what to think, say, or do. He was a puzzle I hadn’t quite cracked. Not even close.
I was certainly not in love with the satyr. The likelihood that I would fall in love with anyone was slim to none. I simply wasn’t built that way. I preferred my solitude and independence over almost anything else.