Page 76 of Centaur Bolt

“I am lots of fun, just not that kind.”

The elevator spat us out on the dorm level without me having attained one bit of clarity about my situation. Kiko would answer if she could, but she just didn’t have the knowledge base.

For that, I needed Cara.

No way I was going to see her in this state. One look, and she’d know I’d been up to something I shouldn’t have been. And I was too tired to think straight. Fuck.

But to talk to that lady and not reveal more than I intended—I’d have to be on the ball.

We arrived at the room with a minimum of stares, and Kiko sat me down on the bed.

“I’m going to get you some food,” she said, and vanished.

Food. Food would be good. Now that the nausea had eased, my stomach growled. I closed my eyes. My body shook with exhaustion, and my thoughts squirmed away from the entire crazy adventure that my life had become.

Waiting for Kiko seemed like it took forever. I sat on the bed and leaned against the wall. I might just pass out. Maybe she’d return to a dead body…

She finally breezed in with an armload of food.

“Who did you bump into?” I asked.

The Satyr shot me a guilty look. “The librarian was getting a snack.” She licked her lips. “I think he got a little more than he’d bargained for.”

I rolled my eyes and grabbed the offered meatroll with rather more gusto than was truly polite. She nibbled on a chocolate bar as I inhaled everything else. Then she left to get some more, apparently avoiding other male entanglements as she returned in a reasonable time.

I inhaled that too.

“Wow,” she said. “I think you could give your Centaur a run for his money.”

Thoughts of Marcus made my gut twist. I needed to get a grip on all of this. The food had made me feel a little better, but traveling through time had definitely thrown my reserves into the red zone. Something to remember if I were ever crazy enough to try it again.

I needed to talk to Cara. But first, I had to recharge.

Apparently, the Satyr agreed. She pushed me back on the bed—not without a final disappointed glance at my distinctly female crotch—and drew the covers up over me.

“Sleep,” she said. “We can tackle the realms in the morning.”

That sounded like the wisest course of action. She crawled into her bed and was snoring in moments. At least tonight she wasn’t dreaming of sex. Likely because she’d already had plenty of it.

No.I didnotwant to think about that. Instead, I practiced deep breathing, and my thoughts finally began to drift…

At first, I got only flashes. Brief glimpses, as though I wove in and out of consciousness.

I hung suspended in the air—it took a few moments to realize I was stretched with my arms and legs spread, held that way with manacles at ankles and wrists. Chains ran from them to fasteners on the ceiling and floor.

Adrenaline surged, and I wanted to fight, to struggle. Yet I didn’t seem to have any control over my body. It was as though I were viewing through another’s eyes.

A tall form appeared, and I stared. With his long white hair, I almost mistook him for one of Cara’s people, but his features were nothing like a Bellati’s. As tall as a Dragon shifter, but almost skeletally thin, with features that could have been carved by a hatchet—razor-sharp cheekbones over sunken cheeks and an angled jaw. His eyes were tilted upward at the corners, with irises an eerie shade of crimson, and when he smiled, his teeth were sharp and black.

“I hope you are having a good time,” he said. “Because I am.”

“He’s much more fun this way.” A female voice, and when my head turned, I saw her—and this time, the resemblance to Cara was unmistakable.

She gestured to another. Not as tall, with white-streaked blonde hair, the woman sidled up to me, slid her hand to my groin—and grabbed hold.

The reaction—part panic, part pleasure—that shot through me was connected to an appendage that I had only recently become familiar with. Something exquisitely sensitive… But the arms stretched on each side of me weren’t Dire, and they were both longer and had more muscles than I usually possessed.

I wasn’t Dire, so how could I be male? Was I transformed in a different way? Or was I imagining myself as Marcus? My assumption didn’t seem quite right—the muscles were too lean, hugging the bones.

---