Chapter Twelve
Pikquarrys
Aevumoon Iris petals blur into a mass of earthy maroon and mulberry on the long walk along the ridge.
The massive flowers are said to be living embodiments of the Fallen Stars.
The sensual curve of their bulbs plants thoughts in my mind, but staring down into the grove is the only thing preventing me from studying the sway of Princess Loreleivnna’s hips.
I met her at the Wise Ones’ memorial fountain in the palace courtyard after washing up and vigorously scrubbing the alcohol from my breath.
She proffered a curt greeting and hasn’t acknowledged me since.
If she’d asked my opinion, I’d have suggested we take the barrier forest to the apple orchard, but clearly she prefers the scenic route.
At least this way won’t tear up her feet, which are bare again, for petal’s sake.
I want to break our silence, but only sharp thorns born of ego and desire rest on my tongue, so the sound of children playing and sneezing in the grove below is all that’s between us.
I vowed to take better care of her today.
It’s my duty to keep her safe from greedy creatures seeking to deflower her, including my own misguided mind.
That means suffering in the heavy silence of her atmosphere, perfumed with midnight honey.
I will bear it, even if the sunshine seems to follow her like a spotlight, the rays glinting on strands of loose hair the color of ripe pomegranates.
Her beauty is ethereal yet tangible, and I long to sink my teeth into the forbidden fruit.
“Oh!” Princess Loreleivnna exclaims. She stops in her tracks and spins around, running smack into my abdomen. As my hands instinctively come to grasp her shoulders, steadying her, I realize staring at the trees didn’t help me keep my distance at all.
“What is it?” I ask, my tone too gruff and gravelly even to my own ears.
She glowers. Long pink eyelashes hood the fire in peridot gems. I release her and ball my hands into fists to keep from smoothing the furrow in her brow.
“I forgot something.” She attempts to step around me, but I put out my arm. “Move, you clod!”
“All the way back at the palace?”
“I left it in the garden.”
I let out an irritated whinny, my hooves shifting restlessly. “We’ve come so far. Can’t it wait?”
“No.”
Princess Loreleivnna takes a large step to my left. I move to block her path, and she takes off around my right.
“Cursed brat!”
The princess turns, running backwards as she shouts, “Wait here and rest your legs. I’ll be right back!”
“I don’t need rest,” I mutter. I wonder again if she truly believes I would require oil to maintain an erection, and have to remind myself of my vows to keep from imagining all the ways I’d love to prove her wrong. “Merely a break from ornery royal brats.”
Her bare feet flash dirty soles with every hammering step, their flesh rough from such treatment. I follow at a light trot, gritting my teeth.
The princess is unbothered. Even when she steps on the broken top of an acorn, she doesn’t slow. A spot of densely velvet garnet appears on her sole, stamping the ground with rapidly growing lilies of gold and plum.
More blood trails down the slope of her foot. Images of her beneath me as I squeeze dripping pomegranate arils over her soft green skin overcome me, and on the next breath, her moondrop honeycomb scent is rich on my tongue.
“Fallen Stars, grant me your wisdom.” I release the air in my lungs with a forceful sigh. Speeding up, I grab her by the waist with both hands and hurl her over my shoulder.
“Umph!”
Her rear end thumps onto my withers, and she falls back. I slow, allowing her to adjust before taking off at a gallop that I hope is fast enough to keep prying spiritvines from eavesdropping for the king.
“As your princess, I order you to stop plucking me from the ground like a petal-fucking weed!” Princess Loreleivnna grips the muscles below my shoulder blades, and I’m acutely aware of her nails digging into my flesh.
“I’m tasked with your wellbeing, and you’re out here running barefoot like a sapling.
” I leap over a fallen branch, letting my hooves land more severely than necessary.
Her bottom bounces against my back, and she lets out a sound that makes me want to veer toward my stable-suite. “Why must you be so impossible?”
“Why must you be such a withering dick?”
“Is that all you can think of, Petal? So eager to bloom, you fantasize about cock all day, even as you ride me bareback?”
Princess Loreleivnna gasps. “You forget your place, barbaric centaur.”
I scoff. “Have I? Please, remind me of my place, for I’m so old, the Wise Ones have begun repurposing my memories in their fate-roots.”
She takes hold of my braid and pulls, tilting my head back so roughly I hiss.
“Underneath me,” she snarls.
A forge lights within me. The delicate little princess has claws.
I keep my eyes forward, though my attention is on everything but the path ahead.
My awareness knows only the sting of my scalp, the heat of her sex on my pelt, the taste of her hyacinth-and-forbidden-honey scent, and the tension building in my spine.
“Gratitude for proving my point.” I use my right hand to pry her fingers from my hair.
She digs them into the muscles of my shoulders instead, which is no better.
“Will you tell your date how you fantasized about your Guardian mere moments before meeting? They’ll know your mind is blighted, picturing a creature of my status beneath you. ”
“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it,” she says, but honeycomb flavors the air.
Another minor obstacle appears in my path, and I take it with an extra bounce. Her nails burrow under my skin, the growing heat of her intimate region rubbing against the hump where my withers meet my equine back. She lets out a soft whimper that does unspeakable things to my spiraling thoughts.
“Desperation isn’t pretty on a lass. You throw yourself at anyone near, be they a strange centaur in a bar—”
“You are not a stranger!”
“—or my apprentice in a barn,” I finish, smirking at the snap of her teeth as her mouth shuts.
“You saw that?” she whispers.
Yes, I saw her drunkenly drag Cadmynthus to the stables at the last Lunaplume Ball I attended, five and a half decades ago.
She’d been the focal point of the evening, in her gossamer gown and light pink root paint on her legs, her dewy lips painted a deep shade to match her flowing hair.
Every noble and their handservant was watching her that night.
Cadmynthus swears he didn’t deflower her, and I wouldn’t keep someone in my employ if I didn’t trust them around my best friend’s daughter—anyone’s daughter, for that matter—but every time he asks, I deny his request to accompany me on a supply trip home, despite the fact I rarely enter Svitaeryl’s gates and never visit the palace.
“Lusty lass, how long have you wanted a centaur to fill you with his cock?”
“Nothing happened with Cadmynthus.” Her nails break my skin, her thighs squeezing my flanks. “I’ve never lain with anyone, centaur or otherwise.”
“Yet you accept drinks from strangers and tease them with thoughts of frolics and pollen.” I click my tongue and jostle her again. “You want a long centaur cock to slide inside your unbloomed cunt, don’t you?”
The spot between us grows unbearably hot just before a gush of warmth coats my pelt, and I groan, feeling the way my words make her pussy weep.
“You scandalize me,” she all but growls.
“Ha! Pretty Petal, you truly believe me an incompetent clod. You’re not scandalized. I feel your wet heat on my pelt at the very mention of a slick, dripping centaur cock filling your belly with warmth.”
She tries to smother her whimper, but I hear it, and I feel the erratic beating of her heart where she’s fallen forward against my back.
“What did you two do in that stable?” I ask. “Perhaps you’re lying about your innocence.”
“Nothing! We kissed, and he kissed my—unf, oh!” I take another rough leap, and she falls forward against my back. “I don’t have to tell you anything, you brute!”
A guttural groan escapes my chest, picturing her face contorted with pleasure as fingers pinch her nipples.
I’m certain her blissful cries would taste sweeter than lunaplume syrup.
Jealousy scratches the edge of my brain at the knowledge that my young apprentice has kissed her places other than her mouth.
“Did you glimpse his cock, leaking for you? Centaur males are virile well past maturity. Moondust oil can be fun, but we produce more slick than a satryus or elf. Especially with partners as small as you.” I’m lost now, my tongue galloping away without a lucid thought in my brain.
“For all you tease, you may be the one to require moondust oil, if you’re truly as inexperienced as you say. ”