The three-day journey to Prophia is cold and exhausting. The disappointment I feel at that makes me realize how much I subconsciously envisioned the trip would be a lustful romp with Andrius and I perpetually tangled together.
On the final day of traveling, it feels like my previously unworn riding boots have broken me in, as opposed to the other way around. Even though Andrius barely lets me run alongside him. I keep offering, jumping up and down at one point to show how healed my ankle is, but he's not wrong that riding on his back is faster. And I have no idea if Claudius would bother chasing me down again. For the same reason, we don't dare stay at human-owned inns. Which means we only get to sleep indoors for one of the nights. For all the others, I sleep curled up against his underside, with my back pressed against his warmth and a blanket cocooning me close.
"An hour away," Andrius sighs and points ahead of us to a tree.
I lean forward and squint from atop his back. The sun might as well be fully set for all the light that reaches through the forest around here. Each mile we traveled, I was certain a forest could not possibly get denser. But the only path here is so thin that the branches and bramble comb through Andrius' fur as he walks. As we get closer to the tree he pointed to, a glint of shine catches my eye. Bolted into one tree is a fully metal sword pointing North, the last leg of our travels.
"Can I say something selfish?" I mumble.
"Hm?"
"I'm so hungry."
Andrius laughs weakly and rubs a hand over mine, "How's that selfish?"
"Well, you're carrying me. I can only imagine how hungry you are."
"You could say I'm hungry as a-"
"Shut up!" I laugh so hard it momentarily wakes me up and I sit up straight to shove at his back.
"Okay, okay. There might be something in the pantry you can nibble on when we get back. Unless you want to go to a pub. It will be too late for anything else when we get back."
Just the thought of being surrounded by an entire bar full of rowdy centaurs makes me feel small and nervous. I'd only thought about being away from Claudius. Away from the arranged marriage. The vision of what a life for me in Prophia would look like had never even begun forming until now. Suddenly my hunger feels like a very small worry.
"Although then we might run into Ares," he continues, oblivious to my churning mind, "I don't know if I have the energy for him right now."
"Ares?"
"My brother."
"I thought you had a sister?"
"One little sister, Fern. She's the one that moved East with her husband. My twin sister, Aurora, lives in Prophia. And Ares, older brother."
All the information gets folded into my attempted imaginings of my life here. With him. He has an entire life in Prophia I know nothing about. A family. A history. And I have a backpack.
"What are they like?" I ask to fill my anxious silence.
"Well," his steps pause under me for a moment, "Fern is very demure, shy. She says that that's why she chose such an extrovert for a mate, so he can talk enough for both of them. Ares is a loud mouth, kind of intimidating when you first meet him-"
"Intimidating?" I gulp.
"Looks like an exact copy of our father. He's a sweet person deep down, just has no concept of inside voice and can be a little overprotective. And he's a giant."
"But," I run my hands down his back, "you're a giant."
"No?"
"What do you mean 'no'?"
"I'm a pretty average size for one of my kind."
"Oh. Um. And Aurora?"
"It will be a while before you even meet her, I'm sure. I shook off my workaholic phase when our father died. She just... never got out from under it. She lives a twenty minute walk from my place and I see her a handful of times a year."
I hum thoughtfully to myself and we traverse the rest of the way in silence. At least I don't have any siblings to miss. Some friendships, though they are mostly shallow relationships of proximity. Other girls with wealthy fathers who end up at boring high-society parties desperate for the company of someone who's willing to dance and laugh. The sharp tips of branches drag across my pant legs as we continue on the path.
"Finally," Andrius sighs as he reaches out to part a final layer of greenery.
The few lit lanterns and glowing windows of Prophia give me a general view of the town. The buildings are all single level from what I can see. Everything is strangely tall and wide to me like the proportions of his spartan lodge in the central forest of Leaven. The wide spacing between the houses gives the town the look of stretching on much further than Leaven, but as I count the buildings in my view, I get the impression they're the same population.
Andrius reaches a hand back and helps me down. I lay my arms across his lower back for balance and stretch the stiffness out of my legs. The streets are some kind of gravel instead of cobblestone and they swallow up the sound of Andrius' shod hooves. I follow the swish of his tail in the top edge of my vision as I stare down at my feet, watching the rare lights glinting off the more reflective bits of rock. The thump of something hitting wood makes me look up again. The house we're standing at is apart from all the others on one side and facing the other edge of the forest on the other. Another building sits several feet away, built close to the creeping roots of the trees. Andrius stands with his forehead flat against a door and one hand buried in his coat pocket.
"I'm so tired I think I forgot how keys work," he mumbles.
I laugh and slide in front of him with my back to the door, fishing a hand into the same pocket. The metal ring that comes out jingles in my grasp as I flip through the options. One stands out more than the others with a head of filigree. Andrius all but falls into the home when I open the door, taking me with him as I rush backward a few steps to not end up under his hooves. He removes the hoof-covers and tosses them aside, four metallic sounds clang behind us as each lands out front. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the lived-in, sweet smell of his home as I pull the door shut. In the dark I can hear the sound of Andrius pulling off his clothes and throwing them somewhere on the floor. I follow suit, tossing the stolen peacoat, my backpack, and boots in the general direction of his own discarded things.
Andrius takes my hand and leads me through the pitch black interior. We go through a door and my ankles hit the edge of a bed at the same time that I hear Andrius flop onto it with a sigh. I reach forward with one foot and feel the many sturdy, stout wooden feet of the frame that can amazingly support him. I shimmy out of what clothing remains and lean forward, feeling all over the surface of the bed for the warmth of Andrius before giving up and crawling on blindly. As soon as I find a pillow, I pull it under my head and collapse.
"Where are you?" Andrius mumbles.
The barest touch of his fingertips find me in the dark and I scoot forward so they can wrap around my middle. He yanks me toward him so fast I squeak in surprise. There's the sound of a thick, soft quilt being pulled up and flapped over our bodies as I hug around him with all my limbs.
"Wait, you wanted food."
"I want sleep more," I lie.
"Oh thank God."
"Andrius?"
"Hm?"
"Guess how cold my feet are."
"Don't you fucking dare."
His body shivers under me as I bury my feet in the thick fur of his sides. He gets his revenge when he ferociously grips my buttocks and pulls my hips forward. I stop laughing and can't hold back a moan as he forcibly grinds my clit against the iron-hard strength of his bestial lower chest. I whimper out a pouting sound at the clash of feelings in my body.
"I want to have sex but I'm so tired," I mope aloud.
"I didn't want to admit it but, yes, I feel the same way," his grip relaxes on my soft flesh, "But we have plenty of time now. We can just sleep like the dead for one more night."
