Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Two

What have I done?

Stunned, I looked at my hand, frozen in the space between us. My strike had barely made the hulking Dakkari male flinch, however, and when his glowing red eyes cut to me, they were shards of ice. Crisp and cold.

I couldn’t help what I did next. I didn’t mean to. But my fear made me panic. My gift was not something I could explain and sometimes, it was not something I could control.

Between us, I sensed the tendrils of energy gathering. I pushed forward with my mind, pushing, pushing, breaking that hidden barrier into him. And I almost gasped at what I found.

Turmoil. Hatred. Darkness.

So potent it slithered up my arms, crawling into me, consuming me.

Run, my instincts told me. His grip on my hip had loosened when I’d struck him. Before I could think better of it, I broke the connection from his mind, ducked, and darted away, favoring my left leg. The crumbling slipper on my foot tore and slipped off.

The streets were quiet. I could not seek help, not that I would find any. Not here. I was weak, hungry, aching from my journey. A throbbing headache was beginning to bloom after I delved into his emotions. A mistake. But the fear inside me overrode everything else.

A strangled cry tore from my throat when the male caught me. Easily. He hauled me back within the alley, pressed me against the wall, his thigh slipping between my legs to keep me still. His palms pinned both my wrists down.

Then he snarled in my face, in my language, “Who are you?”

Words stuck in my throat as I stared up at him. I could feel the hot tears leaking down my cheeks. My brothers had always teased me for crying too easily. Though I knew they’d said it in affection and in jest, I’d always been shamed by the unwelcome reaction. I couldn’t help it. I cried more than anyone I knew.

The Dakkari male was terrifying. I hadn’t seen a Dakkari since my father’s death and now one had me in a dangerous position…in his possession. Alone.

There were wide, glinting gold cuffs around his thick wrists. They felt hot against my flesh. Behind him, his long, powerful tail was curiously still. Thick straps of black hide made a criss-cross pattern across his bare chest, partially shielding the golden tattoos and numerous scars that decorated his flesh. A fur cloak was draped around his shoulders. It trailed past his hips, where there was long, sheathed sword attached to his tight hide trews.

His red eyes were unblinking and narrowed. Long, ink-black hair hung loosely over his shoulders, some tendrils in knots or wrapped in gold beads.

My eyes alighted on the deep, curving scar that tracked down his left cheek, starting just below his eye, slashing over his high cheekbone, and ending underneath his angled jaw. His bronzed, dark flesh was puckered around it. I began trembling in his hold all over again.

The Dakkari male saw me staring at it. I sucked in a breath when his clawed hand came underneath my chin, tilting my gaze up and away from the ugly, deep scar. I didn’t know if I was more surprised that his touch was gentle or that his voice was quiet when he asked again, “Who are you?”

There was no mistaking the authority in his tone. He was a male who expected to be answered.

“No one,” I whispered.

The way he was looking at me was a reminder that just moments before, he’d looked at me in a way I’d never experienced or expected. It was the way males in our village had looked at my sister, at my widowed mother, but never at me.

“N-no one,” I repeated, hating that my voice shook. My throat was as dry as the Dead Lands. “Hanniva. Please let me go.”

Footsteps reached my ears and I stifled a gasp. The male’s gaze cut to the left, shifting us further into the darkness of the alley, and then pressed more fully against me, until there was no space between us.

The footsteps paused. Two male voices followed, echoing towards us. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I knew the Dakkari male could feel it. I heard a chuffing laugh from the end of the alley.

One of the males that had come across us called out in Dakkari but I didn’t recognize the words. Well, no, I recognized vok, which I knew meant fuck.

The male pinning me to the wall stiffened and then snarled out words back, his grip tightening around me. Whatever the males heard in his voice, they wisely backed away from the alley and their footsteps faded, their voices retreating.

He…shielded me from them?I wondered, my wild gaze tracking up to his face. Those red, darkened orbs were on me. My gulp was audible, cutting the quiet between us like a blade, the space that had once been charged with pinpricks of energy. I was tempted to press into his mind again, if only to try to persuade him to let me go.

“Why are you here?” he rasped, his voice slithering down to me. I was on edge. The darkness, the madness, the unraveled and strangled emotions I felt burning from him were carefully concealed under the even, stoic mask of his face.

What else is he hiding then?

“I—” I paused. Could he help me? “I have come to speak with the king.”

His head tilted. His dark grin was disarming, his sharp teeth flashing in the low light.

“The Dothikkar cares not for the problems of the vekkiri. Try your luck elsewhere, kalles. Perhaps one of the hordes or the horde outposts.”

The horde outposts?

His words seemed to amuse him.

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him this was not about humans. This was about the Ghertun.

“Will you let me go now?” I asked, swallowing.

“Nik,” he murmured. “You feel good right here.”

Goosebumps broke out over my flesh. His voice had dropped low, making my ears twitch.

Holding my breath, I chanced a peek up at him. Maxen, my eldest brother, had always told me to never break a male’s gaze if they threatened me. My sister had needed to use that advice more often than I, but I remembered it now. He’d also taught me how to wield a weapon but I’d always been clumsy and unsure with it. Not that I had a weapon.

Well, except one, but it is unpredictable at best, I thought.

If he forced himself on me, I would have to use my gift, after all. The pain afterwards wouldn’t matter.

His claws trailed down the column of my neck. He judged my reaction, his face remaining impassive, those red eyes flickering back and forth between mine.

I gathered up the energy, imagining it filling the space between our breaths. It tickled my flesh and gently, so gently, I pressed forward. A warning. A necessary preparation.

His expression shifted as if he could feel the strange sensation, though I knew it was impossible.

“You struck me.”

His tone was soft but his accent morphed the words into a warning all his own.

“You frightened me,” I accused. With my power at the ready, my tongue loosened. My power made me feel confident but it came at a price.

“I was searching for weapons,” he told me. With a soft growl, low in his throat, he finished, “I found a gift instead.”

My shoulders tightened. Underneath my cloak, I wore the nearly transparent shift that all the Ghertun’s female servants wore. It had shamed me deeply in the beginning but I’d grown so used to it now that I’d almost forgotten it entirely.

“I am human,” I said, grasping for the words. Surely the Dakkari didn’t lay with vekkiri.

Or were the rumors true?I wondered. There were whisperings that there were human queens among the hordes, whisperings that had even reached under the Dead Mountain.

My heart was throbbing, thrashing around like a wounded animal in my chest. When the Dakkari male leaned forward, he pressed his nose just underneath my jaw, inhaling deeply.

My spine tingled as his breath whistled in my ears. My eyelids fluttered and I frowned, confused, shamed by my reaction.

He grunted. “You smell like rotting flesh.” My eyes snapped open. His fingers snagged a strand of my hair, rubbing it between his fingers. They came away dark and his eyes narrowed. “What is this?”

Filth from the stream.

Our eyes locked. Through the rushing of blood in my ears, I heard the quietness of the alleyway. I heard the steady rise and fall of his breaths. I heard a gust of wind whistle down the empty street I’d stumbled upon. I heard something small scurry along the wall opposite us.

We continued to stare. I had the strangest feeling of calmness, the longer I looked up at the frightening, intimidating sight he made.

“Will you hurt me?” I asked quietly.

A slow blink. “Nik.”

“Will…” I swallowed. “Will you rape me?”

The reaction that rippled through his body was shocking. A flash of anger, of rage, came, so potent that I didn’t even need to reach forward into his mind to feel it. It filled the space around him, darkening his features, pouring from his flesh.

His hands dropped from me. They delved into his hair as a short bellow tore from his throat.

I whimpered when he hit the wall behind me with such force I felt it vibrate across my back.

His teeth were bared, his red eyes glowing more brightly in the darkness. A demon’s gaze.

I’d been right to fear him,came my frantic thoughts. He’s unpredictable. Like a wild beast, an animal.

He hissed, “Never ask me that or I will give you something to fear.”

His words were filled with such hate, with such malice, that I reacted on instinct. I pressed the small gathered energy into his mind, swallowing back the bile that rose in my throat when I felt the depth of the darkness boiling inside him. Never had I felt anything like it, even within the Ghertun.

With a sharp slice of pain that threatened to split my skull in two, I pushed back that rage and, in its place, I planted peace. Or, at least, I tried to. The rage was so pure that I could only momentarily soften it, sculpt it into something less fearsome, if only for a little while.

His body slackened, his head dropping a fraction above me so that I felt his dark hair trail across my exposed neck.

Nausea roiled within my belly and I pressed my trembling hands to the wall behind me to steady myself. The stabbing pain behind my eyes was blooming, spreading like spilled ink across parchment.

The Dakkari male’s heat reached me. His bared chest radiated it in rolling waves. He smelled rich and earthy, like the fragrant, dark soil I’d delved my palms into back at our village before the Ghertun had come.

“Who are you?” he rasped again, his voice quiet. When I managed to lift my head to look at him, I saw he looked…drained. Exhausted. I almost felt pity take root inside me, but I extinguished it. He was dangerous. He didn’t need my pity.

What he really meant was: what are you?

Though I knew the Dakkari were strange about names, humans were not, and I hoped it would distract him.

“Vienne,” I told him, clenching my jaw through the pain. I wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep it off. I would be useless for the night. I would find the Dothikkar in the morning. Already, my vision looked fissured, cracked and wavy. “I am Vienne.”

His jaw clenched. His firm, full lips pressed together.

The heavy thud of footsteps were coming down the stone stairs just outside the alleyway. Only this time, I heard the tinkling of metal, of the plated armor that the Dothikkar’s guards wore. There were two of them, making rounds on their patrols. I’d already managed to slip away from them before, twisting my leg in the process. Would I be so lucky again? Especially when the pain made it hard to think, to breathe?

The male heard them too. His gaze flickered and then he commanded, roughly, “Leave. Go back to where you came from. Before the guards find you and throw you in the Dothikkar’s dungeons. I promise you will not like it there. You will not find mercy in the Dothikkar.”

My gaze dragged up to his, pausing for a moment. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him for help, but I knew better. I would not be able to influence his emotions again until the pain passed, perhaps even for days, and I would not risk it.

“Go,” he growled, “before I decide to keep you for myself.” Shock rippled through me. “I will distract the guards.”

Before I could say anything more, he pushed away from me, leaving a rush of cool air to take his place.

I didn’t hesitate. As he intercepted the guards, speaking to them in Dakkari, blocking them from sight with his wide shoulders and broad back, I slipped from the alley, sticking close to the shadows, scurrying away like a rodent in the night though my feet felt sluggish and my mind felt like it was cracking wide open.

When I was far enough away, I slipped between two tall buildings, clenching my jaw as a wave of dizziness pulsed through me. I hunkered down among a stack of dirty barrels that smelled like piss, pulling my cloak around me tightly, squeezing my eyes shut.

When my vision faded, when my body went slack, it was a welcome mercy.

* * *

Rough hands wokeme and I cried out immediately, thrashing and hissing like a spooked, feral animal.

My hand struck armor. Gold armor. When my eyes adjusted to the filtered grey dawn light, I saw there were two guards and one of them had me tight in his grip while the other looked on with a peculiar, disturbed expression.

Desperately, I tried to gather my energy but it was depleted. I only felt the whispered rasp of pinpricks across the back of my neck, followed by a sharp pain, before it was smothered and the energy faded entirely.

No!

I was caught. My power was depleted.

“The Dothikkar,” I bleated desperately, my voice hoarse. “Hanniva.”

Their expressions never changed. They didn’t speak, only exchanged glances. The one who had me in his grip pulled my hood up roughly, almost tearing the material, but it shielded my face from view.

He pushed me forward. I almost fell to my knees with the force.

“You wish to see the Dothikkar?” the guard growled, his eyes hard like steel. “Then it is the Dothikkar you will see, vekkiri.”