Free Centaur Rivalry (Touched Series Book 3) by Nancy Straight

asked Katherine, “So, you said you weren’t in any danger from Centaurs.  How are you so sure?”
    Even without seeing her face, I knew she’d rolled her eyes at him.  “Any Centaur who so m uch as looked at me cross-eyed would be punished severely.  Yer lucky I le’ you win tonight.”
    Punished severely?  Was she some sort of deity?  I had a clear view of Brent:  he looked confused.  “Let me win?  Oh, no, you were the big talker.  I beat you.”
    Katherine ’s playful tone shot back, “Ya did no such thing.  I was lulling ya inta a false sense a security.  The next hand was mine and so were all the winnings.”
    Brent shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly, “I guess we’ll never know.”
    “You’re right, Centaur.”   The way Katherine said it, “Centaur” was not some mystical race she revered.  It was as if we were beneath her or something.  Jessica’s words, “ Hide before he sees you.  Katherine can’t protect us both, ” echoed in my mind.
    What had Jessica meant by “Katherine can’t protect us”?  All my senses told me she was human. How could a human protect a Centauride?  Especially from a Centaur who was following orders from Zeus?  I hated trying to put puzzles together while I was missing pieces.
    Daniel, whose mouth was always moving at full-speed, remained suspiciously quiet.  I didn’t want to listen to Katherine and Brent argue over who was the poker master.  I hadn’t had a chance to catch up with him, and we had some time on our hands.  “So, why didn’t you go back to California?  Why stay here?”
    Daniel wrapped his arm around me as we walked.  His familiar touch felt like home.  Given everything that had happened so quickly, I should have been a nervous wreck – I wasn’t.  It felt good to be with Daniel again – like a huge piece of me had been missing and I’d just found it again.
    “Pops was pretty pissed when Beau and I took his plane.  He’s never been your biggest fan,” Daniel wrinkled his nose and gave me a smirk, “and he didn’t want me mixed up in any of it.”
    His relationship with his dad had always been stiff, but I hated that I was the reason he didn’t go home.  “I’m sorry, Daniel.”
    “Don’t be.  I like it here.  More solitude, things are slower.  The only traffic jams are caused by tractors on the highway, not ten thousand cars all going to the same place.”
    “So that’s it?  You’ve defected?”
    Daniel laughed one of his hearty laughs that I hadn’t heard in months.   He stopped walking and wrapped both his arms around me.  I hugged him back, ignoring the angry stare from Brent.  When I let go, we were walking quite a ways behind Katherine and Brent.  Daniel asked in a low voice, “I’m not staying for long.  So, I take it you found lover boy?”
    I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice, “Drake, his name is Drake.  Yes, I found him a couple weeks ago.”
    Daniel’s arm was still draped over my shoulder.  He squeezed my shoulder and asked, “So why is Brent your escort tonight?”
    What could I say?  Could I tell him the truth?  If there w ere anyone on the planet who knew me, really knew me, it was Daniel.  I’d never kept any secrets from him my whole life.  “Drake. . . wasn’t feeling up to it.”
    Daniel’s arm still stretched across my back, h is hand glided to my waist, “You know he’s not good enough for you, right?”
    “He’s good enough.  There’s a lot you don’t know about Drake.”
    “And I’ll probably never know.  That crap he tried to pull after you’d been kidnapped – I’m still pissed.”
    “There were circumstances he didn’t share with you.”
    “Really?  Circumstances, like what?”  Daniel’s gaze was accusatory, but it wasn’t my place to tell him about Drake’s transformation.  He’d chosen to become half a horse to protect me.  After the attack at Cameron’s house, his choice was the only reason we were still together and