Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Eighteen

Mortification ran hot, trailing over my flesh. Mercifully, he decided to speak first.

“They are my Vorakkar markings,” he told me, turning slightly in the massive bath so that I saw the deep whip marks. “The last hardship of the Vorakkar Trials.”

Disbelief threaded through me.

“All Vorakkar wear them. Because if one does not, if they do not cover every part of his back, then he did not complete the Trials.”

I couldn’t believe what he was telling me. I had never given much thought to howVorakkar were chosen.

“And these Trials, you complete them all and you become a horde king?”

“Lysi.”

“How many are there?”

His grin made my belly heat. “Too many and not enough.”

“And…has a Vorakkar ever failed the last Trial?”

He began to scrub at his flesh, washing his body. “Nik. Because when you get to the last Trial, after them all, it is perhaps the easiest.”

“You think it’s easy to be whipped hundreds of times?” I whispered, aghast. I had thought that those scars had been the cause of the rage within him.

But now, I wasn’t so sure.

“Physical pain is fleeting, leikavi,” he said, his tone surprisingly…gentle. Like he was speaking of something else entirely more pleasant than having one’s back stripped of flesh.

And allVorakkars experienced this. They all wore the scars. I tried to think back, to the Dothikkar’s grand hall, when the other horde king had given me his furs, if he’d had scars too. But I’d been too frightened to notice much of anything.

“What would you endure if it meant you could have everything you have ever wanted?” he asked me next.

My brows lowered.

To be free of the Ghertun, to have my family safe and together again, to live a free life?

I would endure…anything.

“You wanted to be a Vorakkar that much?”

His red eyes glowed, water dripping down his cheek, over his scar.

“I wanted to right wrongs done against me and mine,” he rasped. “I wanted to return to wild lands under my own terms. Being a Vorakkar allowed me to do that.”

There was something in his tone that reminded me of how he’d fought off the jrikkia. An unparalleled and focused drive, unbending in its ferocity. Savage, even.

I wondered what wrongs had been done against him…and I shuddered to think what he’d done in retaliation.

“Now,” he said, water trickling as he rose from his quick bath. “Come wash while the water is still hot.”

His body gleamed golden in the light…and this time, I didn’t look away from him. Water sluiced from his skin as he reached for a large cloth to dry off with. Never had I seen a body like his…and I doubted I would ever see one like his again. He was different from me, from anyone I had ever known.

My earlier realization, that I had three and a half weeks left before the black moon, returned to me.

My adventure…my last taste of freedom.

I was away from the Dead Mountain, with fine food warming my belly, and a hot bath awaiting me. All the while, I hadn’t seen my family in weeks. And even then, we had only caught glimpses of one another in passing.

All the while, they suffered under the Dead Mountain—Viola most of all.

But even when I returned, would anything change? Lozza had promised to release my family from their sibi, to free us from his darkened stone city if I came back with the heartstone…but we didn’t know the effects of the poison. If there was a cure. If we would ever be truly free. Or if the vovic would simply rot us from the inside out regardless.

Lozza could simply be tricking me, lying to me. Maybe he never intended to let us go. All I had was his word. The word of a Ghertun king. It was more than I’d ever had before.

Water dripped down the horde king’s chest as he approached. His thickened cock swayed back and forth. My lips parted as I watched it.

You offered him whatever he wanted, I reminded myself. In exchange for his help.

What I hadn’t expected was to want him too.

What I hadn’t expected was for him to desire me.

But he did. Even in my inexperience, I recognized that. I didn’t know why he did.

He stopped in front of me, still completely naked, his cock jutting forward. There was a challenge in his gaze as I stared up at him.

When his cock twitched, I sucked in a soft breath and looked at it. My lips parted when I saw more seed had gathered at his tip. The Ghertun had always said the Dakkari fucked like beasts in heat—constantly—and a part of me wondered if there was some truth in that.

He reached down to help me stand. Then his fingers were on the laces of my own pants. They were so big on me that they slid down my legs and over my boots once he had them untied.

“Relax,” he growled gruffly when he saw my hands shake. “The only thing I mean to do in my furs tonight is sleep.”

Relief—and a weird sense of disappointment—made me sigh, which made his lips twitch. He knelt in front of me, stripping me of my boots and then my pants, leaving me standing in nothing more than a tunic.

When he rose, I couldn’t help but gather my power between us, feeling it tingle in the empty air.

I’m just curious,I told myself. His red eyes glowed, the corner of his lip twitching down slightly as he reached for the hem of my tunic.

When the energy had gathered fully, when the back of my neck prickled and it felt like an electric buzzing had started to trail down my arms, I pressed forward into his mind, softly at first, almost like a gentle stroke.

I shivered, my eyelids going half-lidded at what I found. He was the calmest I’d ever felt. The waves of his emotions were no longer a tumultuous storm, punishing and intense, but rather a calm lake, mirrored and glassy, with not even a hint of a rippling breeze.

Did he find peace among his horde? Was that the cause?

Underneath the calm stillness, however, I sensed something else. His want. His desire. And when he tugged the tunic over my head, leaving me standing bare in front of him, that desire surged and compounded until I was left shaking, until my cheeks were flushed and my eyes were bright.

Clumsily, I pulled out from his mind, suppressing my gasp. I swallowed, confused once more when I felt his arousal and peace linger in my own mind. This had never happened before. I never took on the emotions of others, not even my family’s.

So why was it different with him?

I didn’t know what it meant but it was possible that my gift was changing again, strengthening perhaps. Just like it had done when I was younger, when seemingly overnight I’d been able to change emotions instead of just observe them.

My temple throbbed with the small intrusion but not as terribly as before. It was manageable…and worth the cost.

“Kalles,” he rasped, his eyes stroking down my body. He didn’t touch me, only looked.

“Yes?”

I’d never been naked with a male before. My nipples were hardened into stiff peaks, my belly warm from his lingering desire. My sex throbbed when I saw his cock bob between us.

“Your bath grows cold,” was what he growled.

Sliding my gaze past him, I saw the water was still steaming but I rounded him nonetheless, choosing to break the tension thrumming between us.

My inner thighs still felt tender as I walked but when I slipped into the washing tub, I sighed in contentment and pleasure. My wounds stung briefly before they were soothed by the heat.

As I got my body back under my control, I carefully avoided the horde king’s gaze, but I knew he was watching me. In my periphery, I saw him occupying the place where I’d been sitting.

I scrubbed my skin with the wet cloth draped over the edge until my skin was pink. Then I washed my hair before dunking underneath the water completely. When I resurfaced, my hair hung in translucent strands around my shoulders, some sticking to my cheeks and my neck.

Attempting to steer the conversation into tame territory, I asked, “How long will we be here?”

His home, his voliki as he’d called it, was spacious and expensively furnished with plush rugs and carpets lining the floor. It was domed, supported by thick beams of black metal in the center, poles that surrounded the mess of exquisite furs that comprised his bed. Behind the bed was a shadowed area that the fire’s light didn’t reach, but I thought I spied chests and storage. The washing tub had been placed close to the entrance and close to the low table where the food was. A weapons rack with glimmering blades and swords was mounted onto one of the curved walls.

Saving the Dothikkar’s keep—and not the dungeons—it was the nicest and most comfortable place I’d ever been. I was surprised. I’d always had this image of Dakkari hordes as…barbaric. I knew they were nomadic, following game across the planet, wherever they might lead.

Remembering the sight of the horde as we passed through the walls, seeing all the Dakkari faces peering up at us, the carefully spaced voliki, the training grounds I’d spied, the crops, the resources that had been gathered…I came to the realization that hordes were just like small cities. Organized, well-kept, disciplined, efficient.

“As soon as Lokkaru tells us something of value, we will depart,” he murmured.

My gaze cut to him, lips parting. “You just told me her name.”

“She would have told you it regardless,” the horde king said. Save for the golden cuffs around his wrists and the gold tattoos inked into his flesh, he was still naked, though mercifully he’d thrown a fur shawl across his thighs. Sitting on the cushion at the lower table I’d been occupying, he was sprawled comfortably, leaning his back against one of the stabilizing beams for support.

I watched as his tail flicked across the rugs and the gold on his wrists cast beams of light across the walls.

“I thought the Dakkari didn’t like to give out their names.”

“They do not,” he said. And suddenly, with a burning need, I wanted to know his. Would I ever know it? “But Lokkaru does not care about such things. She is a terun. An elder. She does not have much time left.”

Fear and dismay went through me.

“Do you think she still remembers anything about the heartstone?” I asked softly.

“It is difficult to say. Her mind comes and goes. So pray to Kakkari that she remembers something.”

And if she doesn’t?

But I let that fear go unspoken.

“I’m sure she will,” I said, wanting to remain positive. She has to.

There was still time left. But we couldn’t delay long.

“Will we meet with her tomorrow?”

“Lysi,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving me. I didn’t need to push into his mind to know what he was thinking. His gaze trailed down to the surface of the water and he frowned…as if frustrated that it blocked his view of me.

Heat bloomed between my thighs once more and I pressed them together to stifle it, even though it put pressure on my pyroki burns.

“Come out from there, leikavi,” he ordered once I was done washing.

“What will I wear?”

There was that feral, untamed look in his eyes and I envisioned that that glassy, still lake in his mind rippled. Just slightly.

“I will keep you warm,” he promised, his voice dark and husky.

Though the water was still hot, I shivered in its depths. “I can wear the tunic I was wearing before.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat. Not what he wanted?

“Shy now, kalles?” he mused. “When I first encountered you, you were wearing a shift so sheer you may as well have been wearing nothing at all.”

Even still, he rose from his position, going into that shadowed darkness behind his fur-mounded bed.

“That dress was made of Ghertun skin,” I informed him. “Their moltings. Of course it was sheer. They do not want to spare their valuable resources for us.”

Quiet came from the darkened side of the voliki before he murmured something in Dakkari. It sounded like a curse. I heard a chest open and then boom closed. When the horde king emerged, that fire was back in his gaze.

“They made you wear their sheddings?” he growled.

“I suppose it was better than nothing,” I said softly, watching him warily as he approached. Waves were beginning to rise in that calm lake of his. “Right?”

“Wrong,” he rasped. He was irritated. Why did the thought of me wearing Ghertun skin upset him? “Stand.”

I did as he asked, stepping from the bath, but stilled in surprise when he dried me off himself. His touch was gentle as he swiped the dry cloth across my flesh. The material rasped over my nipples, which he lingered on, wanting to make sure they were very dry. When he trailed the cloth between my legs, I jolted as tingles raced up my spine. He stroked there, once, twice…before I grabbed his wrist, my hand wrapping around the hot gold cuffed there.

I imagined my eyes were pleading with him…but for what, I didn’t know. His mercy?

Or more?

A muscle in his jaw jumped as he tossed the cloth away. He gave me a sand-colored tunic, fresh and clean…and smelling of him.

As I pulled it on, he returned to the low table. The hem reached my upper thighs, not as long as the one I’d been wearing before. And the material was quite thin and light. A part of me wondered if he’d picked this particular tunic on purpose.

When I met his eyes, his maddening smirk told me as much. His gaze dropped and when I followed, I saw my wet hair had already made the material transparent where it draped over my breasts.

His voice was rough as he said, “Come sit with me as I eat. You still have a story to tell me. Do not think I’ve forgotten.”

Dismay spread.

When I approached, meaning to sit on the opposite cushion, he reached out and snagged my waist, pulling me down until I was in his lap once more. He tucked my legs on both sides of his hips, until the position was identical to the night in the Dothikkar’s keep.

My heart was hammering in my chest, especially when I looked between us and saw his cock right there. It brushed the hem of my tunic every time it bobbed. And yet…I’d been in his lap so much in the past three days that oddly, it didn’t seem that strange to be sitting this way.

He leaned forward, the tip of his nose pressing to that space underneath my ear. His inhale made my eyelids close, tingles spreading across my scalp.

Is this how he treats his lovers?I wondered. Because truthfully, it wasn’t a terrible thing to be kept by him. Overlooking his volatile emotions, of course, that tumultuous storm that hovered constantly.

The Vorakkar leaned back before reaching around to grab the small plate of what looked like meat. I watched as he ate, his jaw flexing, the scar on his face pulling.

“Why are you called the Mad Horde King?”

The question slipped from me before I thought better of it. Briefly, his chewing stopped, his eyes flashing.

Then he relaxed again.

The other Vorakkar had called him that after bursting into his room in the Dothikkar’s keep. Did he remember? He must.

“Because sometimes I see beings that are not there,” he answered. My breath escaped me in a rush. “And sometimes, I like killing too much. Sometimes I crave it.”

If he’d meant to unnerve me…it had worked.

“But we are not speaking about that this night,” he said, his voice almost like a purr, soft and deep.

He saw beings, people, that weren’t there? Like…spirits?

I wanted to ask him the many questions that arose from his admission but I knew he wouldn’t answer. In addition to unnerving me, he’d also meant to intrigue me. And he’d succeeded.

“Push your hair over your shoulder, will you, leikavi?” he murmured. I frowned, hesitantly brushing it back…before I remembered. He threw another chunk of meat into his mouth and his gaze went half-lidded as he gazed at the obscene outline of my nipples against the wet material of his ridiculously thin tunic.

A small scowl crossed my features, which I think surprised him because he laughed, loud and deep as I maneuvered my hair back to the front, making certain it draped across both my breasts.

“Oh, come now,” he murmured. I swore he pouted. “Surely telling you why the Dakkari call me the Mad Horde King earns me a nice treat. It may make me more amenable to other questions. I would become so distracted I might not realize what I let slip.”

I blew out a small breath, regarding him carefully. He was a strange male, that much was certain.

But he was a male nonetheless. And I’d watched Viola tease the boys in our village enough when we were younger to know how to react. I’d been jealous of her then.

Slowly, though my belly tingled with the dizzying forbidden rush of it, I brushed back the hair covering my right nipple as a compromise. Did my spine straighten as I did? Did I purposefully present my breast to him, like an offering?

I couldn’t be certain. However, I admitted, silently to myself of course, that I…liked his gaze on me.

“Ah, how you please me, leikavi,” he rasped, his eyes glimmering with the shadows and highlights of the fire burning in the basin. “I cannot wait until you let me suckle them.”

My breath hitched, his words immediately conjuring dozens of images in my mind. I wondered what that would feel like.

“Now, tell me what I want to know,” he commanded with all the high-handed authority of a male expecting to be answered. The command of a Vorakkar, one who’d been whipped endlessly, one who looked at me with fire in his eyes, one who saw people that were not there…

How could I deny him anything?