It wasn’t until the footsteps stopped and the shadows of all her thralls fell upon them that he forced himself to look away from her. His eyes roved over them, searching for her mother among the group, but she was nowhere to be seen. He looked back at Calavia and knew, even in her haze, that she had noticed too.
“Tell them to listen to my commands,” he ordered.
She glanced at him briefly then looked back at her thralls, nodding. She gave the command for her thralls to follow his lead just as her head rolled to the side.
Satisfaction and dark infatuation filled him.
He laid her down gently onto the linens and leaned over her, feeling some of the tension leave his gut. He licked her neck and face as he removed his arm from under her and rubbed his horns over her chest.
“When you awake,” he rasped, low with assurance, “you’ll be safe.”
He just had to break her soul in the process.
Chapter Sixteen
“Gather your weapons, and prepare to leave this place,” Astegur ordered as he moved away from Calavia. He turned to look at the thralls around him. He met their dead, bleak expressions. They moaned and shifted in eerie unison, seemingly ignorant of his demand, and for a moment, he thought Calavia’s final command hadn’t worked. But then they turned away, white, wet, and ghoulish to the exit.
“Do not make a noise, the enemy is listening,” he added as they left the room.
He turned back to Calavia when a soft snore pricked his ears. He brushed her tangled hair from her face and ran his fingers down the curve of her neck where he had licked her. Then he pulled back and tightened the cords around his waist, retrieved the weapons he shucked aside while they mated, and placed them back on his person.
He rummaged through his satchels until his fingers brushed over the vials he’d taken from the goblins, the ones filled with orc and human blood. His hand clenched into a fist, knowing that the centaurs weren’t their only problem.
Every being in these lands would know by now that the centaurs were on the move. Every tribe had scouts. He wondered if his brothers had found out by now as well, if they wondered about him. Astegur shook the thoughts away and moved to another satchel filled with roots and herbs for medicine and dumped it out.
With one final look at Calavia, he strode away from her side and entered her altar room. In minutes he had refilled the empty bag with some of the last remaining clumps of her wax. It was all he could carry. He sifted through the vines around the edge of the room and looked for the vials that could cure humans of mist sickness, but could not locate them.
He snarled, his movements clipped. Anxiety and speed gnawed at his hooves.
I have to find her mother.Astegur stormed back through the temple, flicking his eyes everywhere, searching for her.Where is she?
Now that he knew she controlled the barriers, he no longer trusted they would stay up for much longer. They could not be relied on. Especially not if Calavia’s mother wanted death, and not with a full-blown attack from the centaurs on the horizon, offering it to her.
He stopped at the exit where he came across some of the thralls. “Find Calavia’s mother,” he snapped, his eyes shifting to the green lights hovering on the outskirts. The thralls moved away in opposite directions, and he stepped into the swamp.
Stakes remained upright and pointed out in every direction, and he moved between them, scanning his surroundings. The smaller ones were hidden within the tall grasses and reeds, rooted to the ground and mud beneath. Between them were the long ropes of braided reeds that tied them together, tied them to the shacks and houses, and as he maneuvered through them, he checked to make sure they were still encased with Calavia’s wax.
He suddenly cursed their existence as he wound his way through the tangled, knotted webs they made as they slowed his progress significantly. He tried not to think that he, once again, was about to do another first in his life. Flee.
If Calavia had not been involved, he would have fought to the death, would have taken as many of her enemies out before his lifeblood spilled across the ground. He would have taken his glorious death with a grin.
But her safety was in his hands, and she trusted him now to help her. That meant something to him. He had changed. No longer was he a blood-lusting young bull hoping to kill anyone who crossed him. Now he had the possibility of a future, one that he had to protect. Even if that meant running from battle.
Astegur bared his teeth at the mist and continued his search. Time passed in quickened haste. The brume swirled around him with the green of the light orbs, as if they were leaking their magic, as if they were dissipating before his eyes.
He tore through what was left of the settlement, looking everywhere for the mother, but she eluded him.
A faint scent of smoke caught his nose and he knew the bonfires the centaurs were erecting were drawing nearer. The water, the swamp, everything was literally vanishing beneath his hooves. He hissed through his teeth and gave up on his search.By this time tomorrow, the centaurs will have Prayer surrounded.There was no more time to lose.
He was making his way back to the temple when he caught sight of Calavia’s mother. He startled to a stop before the broken steps and looked up at her. Blood, old and new, stained her torn, flimsy dress. Her black hair twisted in the breeze, obscuring half her face. But he saw enough of it to know she looked upon him with morbid, mindless contempt.
“You,” he muttered, sharing her perceived hatred.
She wrenched her mouth open to scream and he surged forward, knocking her into the stone with such force dust rose around them. She fought and tore at his skin, ferocious with survival. He clamped his hand over her mouth and stopped her from making a noise. She bit in and ripped at the skin of his palm hard enough that he felt the flesh tear away.
Astegur cursed and fought her upright against his chest, clamping his other hand under her chin to force her jaw closed.
She kicked and howled like a rabid animal as he dragged her inside the temple and into the old kitchens where Calavia slept. She fought him the entire way, shredding the flesh of his arms and sides.
