Page 12 of Fae Trials

Furrowing his golden brows, the centaur rubbed his chin. “What does a pretty girl like you want to do in a place like that?”

My gaze darted toward the Jack of Smiles floating through the crowds like an apparition. “Can you take me there or not?”

“It will cost you,” he said.

I pulled back my sleeve, exposing a wrist-full of beads.

His black eyes gleamed. “Hop on my back, and we’ll negotiate a price.”

A knot of worry formed in my gut. Accepting a ride before agreeing to the cost was a terrible idea, but with that joy-sucking monster following me like I was his only chance of a meal, getting scammed by a centaur was the least of my worries. I’d happily give him all my money to help me catch up with Sicily before she made such a dangerous bargain.

I pulled myself onto his saddle and rested my hands on his broad, muscular shoulders. Contrary to the sexy centaurs in movies like the Chronicles of Narnia, ours grew coarse horsehair up to their beard-lines.

“Hold tight,” he purred.

“That’s alright.” My fingers curled around the muscles stretching down from his neck. I’m fine like thi—”

With a happy neigh, he reared up, making me jerk backwards on the saddle. I clamped my arms around his waist and wedged my chest against his back. The crowd parted to let him through, and he cantered a wide circle around the fire and then up the Doolish Road.

“Bloody hell!” I shouted. “What was that all about?”

“That Jack o’ Smiles was about to grab your arm,” said the centaur. “I had to do something to startle him.”

“Was he?” I turned around and glanced into the crowd.

The monster’s bright eyes shone like beacons, making me twist back toward our destination. I hadn’t noticed him come closer, but with few humans brave enough to leave their homes after dark, the Jack of Smiles had probably become hungry enough to force eye contact.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Call me Coltrane.” The centaur continued down the street of one-story buildings toward the town’s outskirts.

“Is this the route a human would take to go on foot?” I asked.

“That’s right.”

To our left and right, beings stood outside the windows of human dwellings, likely trying to catch glimpses of innocent people sleeping in their beds. A shiver ran down my spine. Mother and Father always kept the curtains closed. Now I really understood why. Keeping my gaze forward, I clung tighter to the centaur’s back.

It took several moments before we reached the vast expanses of farmland that stretched from Doolish to the lower foothills of the Mound. At this time of the night, the mansions on its higher levels twinkled as though they were made of starlight—the Lucky bastards.

There was no sign of Sicily on the road, which either meant that she’d left earlier than I had thought or one of the creatures on the route had—I tamped down that terrible thought.

“This is cozy,” murmured Coltrane. The centaur galloped between two cornfields.

“How much longer to Hope Woods?” I asked.

“Ten minutes after we get to Charity Woods.”

“How far away is that?”

The muscles on his back tightened as though he had bristled at what I’d said. “Why don’t you enjoy the ride and leave the transportation to the professional, eh?”

Clenching my teeth, I loosened my grip around his waist. He was probably annoyed because I didn’t flirt back. Centaurs were nice enough when they weren’t trying to mate with human girls. They needed us to reproduce, as there was no such thing as a female centaur.

I shook a strand of hair out of my face. Putting aside the fact that two-thirds of their body was a horse and they had dicks the size and girth of a man’s arm, getting pregnant by a centaur was as dangerous as jumping into a pond full of grindylows. Without the help of a hag who specialized in midwifery, most girls died in childbirth.

Coltrane bolted forward. I jerked to the side and grabbed hold of his waist to avoid falling.

“That’s better,” he said.