Chapter 7 Zara
Zara
Oh gods, what just happened?
Only the best fucking orgasm of my life, that’s what!
“Give us a minute!” Zara shouted as she quickly rolled away from Hektor.
Dear Lord, did they almost just have sex?
Oh yeah. That was definitely not a banana in his pocket.
And that tail…
She would never look at it, or Hektor for that matter, in the same way ever again.
“Zara,” Hektor began, clearing his throat. “We should—”
“Alright, you have had your minute!” The tent flaps opened and Vyzeh walked in, a knowing smile on the female centaur’s face. “As much as I would like to give you more time, there are others waiting for their chance.”
“Er, right.” She got up. “Hektor, are you—”
The Drakkon scrambled to his feet, then rushed out of the tent. As she followed him, they were greeted with cheers from the others.
“I take it that things went well with your Drakkon?” Vyzeh teased.
Her cheeks warmed. “You could say that.”
Earlier that evening after the feast ended, the siblings had been introduced to some members of the Rainspell herd. Like all the centaurs she’d met all of them had been friendly and warm, but she had found Vyzeh to be especially affable and so they quickly got on like a house on fire.
“I’m glad you’ve finally had a chance to be alone with your Drakkon.” Vyzeh whispered as they hurried away from the others. “Was it everything you thought it would be?”
Her cheeks turned even hotter. I shouldn’t have had so much grass mead. But she had always been a lightweight and after a few mugs, she had confessed to Vyzeh about her crush on her coworker.
Frankly, she’d been feeling discouraged the last couple of days.
She’d tried cornering him, peppering him with questions about basilisks and their preferences.
While he answered her questions, he didn’t engage further and he avoided her outside their training sessions and with him being so unreadable, it was difficult to know what to do next.
“I know how you feel,” Vyzeh had said. “I, too, am hoping to catch the attention of a certain colt.”
“Oh, tell me more,” Zara encouraged, hoping to steer the attention from her own woes.
“His name is Therul and is a member of the Moonwish herd. We have locked eyes across the fields before but he’s been too reserved to approach me.
” She glanced around and lowered her voice.
“I’m hoping tonight I could get him alone during a round of zegizh minwha, a game we play where a filly and colt are placed in a kezil together for eighteen minutes where they can do anything they want. ”
“Oh, sounds like a game we play on the Upperworld. Well, what are you waiting for? How do we get this game started?”
Zara of course, had no plans of joining the game. She only wanted to see her new friend succeed in catching her crush’s attention. But then Hektor came along…
“I hope you didn’t mind that I pushed you in,” Vyzeh said. “Seemed like a good opportunity.”
She burst out into a laugh. “Right! And—” She halted her steps and glanced around. “Wait, where’s Hektor?” She thought she had seen him walking just ahead of them, but the Drakkon was nowhere to be found.
Vyzeh’s eyes narrowed. “I think I see him up ahead.”
While she could only see a large, dark form stalking back toward the main campfire, she knew that could only be Hektor.
“I should go after him.” They needed to talk.
“You should.”
“Yes—oh wait!” She had been waiting to get her new friend alone for most of the night to tell her something important. “About Therul?”
Her face lit up in genuine interest. “Yes?”
“He feels the same way you do.” She had sensed it when she met the other centaur earlier in the evening.
“Truly?”
“Yeah, big time.” She honestly thought she would combust at the spot, sensing the male’s lust and attraction toward Vyzeh. “So, don’t worry and go after him. But, I’ll see you later?”
“Yes, but if we are both lucky, maybe not until much, much later,” the centaur said with a saucy wink.
She chuckled and waved at her friend before she scurried after Hektor. She really had to push herself to catch up to him and by the time she was within his earshot, she was panting.
“Hektor…wait…a sec…” With a deep breath, she managed to surge forward and reach his side. “Hektor, didn’t you hear me?” she said, grabbing onto his arm. “Hektor?”
He kept his gaze straight ahead. “The wind must have carried your voice away.”
Even without her empath powers, she could feel the change in his mood. It was a complete one-eighty from the passionate, lusty Hektor in the tent that had made her feel things she never had before.
“Hektor.” She tugged at his arm, but he didn’t look at her. “Hektor, we should talk.”
“Yes.” He blew out a breath. “We should.” Gently, he pried her hands from his arm. “Zara, what happened back there can’t happen again.”
“You can’t mean that.” Anxiety wrapped around her, feeling him slipping away. “Hektor, what happened in there wasn’t anything we should regret.”
“You have another male in your life. Your basilisk.”
She gritted her teeth in frustration. Damn him and his obsession with her fictional love life. “I told you, we’re just chatting.”
“But you are not speaking with anyone else? And you’ve been using your time getting to know his culture? You’ve asked me numerous questions about basilisks.”
“Yes, but…” She bit her lip. Her hounding him for answers about basilisks had apparently backfired in this instance. “We didn’t do anything wrong, Hektor.”
“Not yet,” he qualified. “Place yourself in his shoes, Zara. If a man you truly liked did what we did with another woman, even if you had no understanding, how would you feel?”
Once he said it, she found it hard not to imagine Hektor with another woman.
His mouth, hands, and tail on her.
Jealousy rose in her, stabbing her in the chest.
“See? It does not feel great, correct?”
Damn him and his logic. “I guess not,” she murmured.
“Zara, from what I can tell, you are a decent, respectable, and trustworthy woman,” he began. “I know you would never betray your partner and I expect nothing less if you were my mate. If anything, it was my fault, letting my instincts get the best of me.”
Double damn. Did he really have to bring that into this?
“We should just forget this ever happened.” He turned his back to her. “Before anyone gets hurt.”
Zara took a deep breath. She was on an emotional high, thinking she had made progress tonight. Her instinct told her to keep pushing, to break down the walls he was starting to put up before they blocked her out completely.
But perhaps for now, it was best to back down, retreat and consider her next steps.
It would be a lie if she agreed with him, as she doubted she could ever forget what happened.
So instead, she said, “We won’t talk about it.”
For now.
His shoulders relaxed. “Good. Let’s get back to the others.”
The team stayed in Orunai for one more night and they managed to visit a few of the other herds and found a few more of Zeus’s children.
There were still other herds that they couldn’t contact because they were settled on the far corners of Orunai and could only be reached by centaurs—or on horseback.
However, Corinea and the other chiefs promised they would send out people to those herds and warn them of the possible danger.
The chiefs also promised they would stay in touch with their office and update them if they uncovered any pertinent information.
Confident that the centaurs were sufficiently warned, they made the long drive back to Alindale. That had been days ago, and once they arrived, it was pretty much back to normal for everyone.
Well, almost everyone.
Zara was about to take the first sip of her coffee when she heard footsteps in the hallway.
They were much too heavy to be Perseus or Medusa and her siblings were seated at the round dining table, devouring their breakfast. They must have heard the footsteps too or saw the way her entire body froze because Liora shot her a pointed look and Elian hid his expression behind his mug.
Ignoring them, she shuffled out of the breakroom and nearly collided into the hulking Drakkon form lumbering by.
“I—oh!” They locked eyes as she stumbled backward. In a split second, she saw him reach out to grab her then hesitate, and she continued her downward trajectory until her ass hit the floor. “Oomph!”
“M-my apologies,” Hektor spit out, complete surprise on his face. “I did not see you there.”
Wincing, she scrambled to her feet. “I, uh, didn’t see you either. No worries.” She dusted her hands on her thighs. “I’ll be fine.”
Truth be told, the fact that he would rather let her fall than touch her bruised her more than the floor.
Did he really not want to touch me that bad?
Perhaps she’d been wrong about what happened in that tent. That she had misinterpreted the whole thing.
How could you possibly misinterpret what he did to you with his mouth and hands? And what he almost did to you with his tail?
Zara squared her shoulders. Her instincts were correct. She just had to give him time to realize that what was between them was real. Though how much time she could wait, she didn’t know.
“I, uh—” he began.
“Have you—” she said at the same time. Both of them stopped. “You go first.”
“No, you go,” he insisted.
“I was just wondering if you had coffee yet?” She jerked her thumb back at the break room. “There’s a fresh pot.”
“I have already had my coffee.”
“You have?”
“Yes. There is a new cafe across the street from my accommodations.”
“I see. Are they any good?”
An awkward beat passed before he answered. “They are adequate. The, uh, meeting will be starting soon.” Hektor brushed past her and stomped off in the direction of the conference room.
Zara could only stare at his retreating back.
What did you expect?