Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Twenty-Two

Hedna’s stare was discomforting. The set of my pujerak’s jaw told me he was deep in thought.

It was just us on the training grounds. I sat with my back to the fence, cleaning his blood off my sword where it had cut him during sparring. The night was growing darker and darker. When I tipped my face back, I saw the moon, filling more each night.

Nothing had come from Dothik, no word from the Vorakkar of Rath Tuviri about his research into the heartstone at the archives. I had sent word through the sole thesper I kept among my horde. The winged creature had set off towards the city early this morning and would arrive soon, I imagined. If the winds were in their favor, thesper could travel at incredible speeds.

“And the kalles?” Hedna asked me. I had told him everything that had transpired in Dothik, our first moment alone after our sparring session, one I’d desperately needed. Well, I hadn’t told him everything. “Do you think she can be trusted?”

I thought back to last night.

Davik!

My name rang like an echo in my mind. I hadn’t heard it since…

I growled, turning my mind immediately away from that memory. Not even Hedna knew my given name. No one alive did…except for her.

“I intend to find out,” I told him.

“How?”

All I did was give him a grin that flashed my teeth in the moonlight.

He sighed, shaking his head. “I suppose I should be gladdened that you have finally taken an interest in a female.”

My hand paused in the cleaning of my sword.

“I have taken interest in females before.”

“For mating, lysi. This…this is different.”

His words made me uncomfortable. I stood from the ground, sheathing my sword.

“You seem calmer,” he noted. I braced myself for his next question. “Have you had any...occurrences?”

Not since before Dothik. Not since her. I wondered if her power had anything to do with that.

“Tell me, pujerak,” I said, changing the subject, “what you think of war with the Ghertun? Now that I have told you all that happened in Dothik?”

He let his question slide. Crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes raked over the encampment. Our horde had grown since the cold season. Three more children had been born and I’d granted the requests of four new families to join us out on the wild lands, two families from Dothik and two families from an outpost who had grown tired of settled life. The urge to roam would always be in a Dakkari’s blood.

“I think the Ghertun will keep pushing their boundaries until we give them reason not to,” Hedna said quietly. “They have terrorized the Killup, the Nrunteng, and the vekkiri. And last year, there were reports of missing Dakkari in the outposts. Given that we now know they keep slaves under the Dead Mountain, I wonder if they were responsible for that.”

Entirely possible.

“The kalles is our best plan. Forget the heartstone, Drokka. You might never find it.”

And yet, even Hedna did not know that Lokkaru had been born because of that heartstone. I had kept her secret these long years because it was not mine to tell.

“We need to use her,” my pujerak murmured, keeping his voice low.

I thought of the warmth in her gaze last night as she sat in my lap by the fire. I thought of the way her breath shuddered from her when I kissed her, the way her hands clutched me close, though she perhaps didn’t realize it.

Unease coiled in my belly.

“She needs to believe that she will get the heartstone,” I told him. “That is the only way she will ever trust us.”

“And in the meantime?”

I had been thinking about that. The Vorakkar in me told Hedna, “We learn everything we can about the Dead Mountain and its king. Then we send her back. Use her as a distraction, make Lozza think he will get everything he wants, and use that to our advantage.”

“Then we go to battle,” Hedna finished. “A quick attack when they are unprepared.”

Lysi.

So why did the thought of sending the leikavi back to the Dead Mountain fill me with apprehension when it would soon be under siege?

“Then what are you doing out here with me?” Hedna asked, thumping my back as he passed. “Go learn more about our most interesting guest. Seduce her with your infamous charm and make her tell you all.”

My brow rose and I gave him a dry look.

“And try not to scare her too badly,” Hedna added.

My lips curled.

* * *

When I reachedLokkaru’s voliki and ducked inside, it was well after dark and the home was quiet.

My chest gave an uncomfortable squeeze when I saw Vienne, perched on the floor next to Lokkaru’s bed of furs. The elder female was sleeping. The leikavi had been watching her.

Trays from their evening meal were laid out on the low table, all empty. Both goblets of wine were empty as well and when I regarded her carefully, her cheeks were a little flushed from the alcohol’s warmth.

I tilted my chin back and she nodded, rising slowly. When I looked over at the table where Lokkaru made her candles, I saw wide, blue-colored columns and I huffed out a small breath in amusement.

Before Vienne followed me out, she threw another brick of fuel onto the fire to make certain the voliki remained warm for Lokkaru. There was an…ache in my chest at that. Something unfamiliar I didn’t like.

I met her outside and when she emerged from the entrance, a cool breeze made a strand of her hair whip across her face. She closed her eyes, taking a deep lungful of the night air into her, her lips curling into a small, pleased smile…and even that made me hard for her.

Vok.

I drew her to me, acting on my instinct to have her near. Her hands settled against my chest in surprise. When I leaned down, I smelled something mixed with her scent. Something sweet and intoxicating.

“You smell like kuveri,” I murmured, burrowing my nose into her hair.

“I—I’m not surprised,” came her whispered voice. “We used so many for the dye. Truthfully, I think I’ll smell this way forever.”

“That would be most pleasing,” I purred.

I spied the vein in the slim column of her throat beginning to throb harder. After last night, I didn’t know if it was from fear…or something else entirely.

I led her away from Lokkaru’s voliki, back towards my own.

“I thought that maybe I would be staying with Lokkaru tonight,” came her soft voice.

My brow furrowed. “I said I would return for you.”

She didn’t say anything in reply. I peered up at the night sky. It was late. The encampment was nearly silent.

“I was sparring on the training grounds. I did not expect to be there long but there was much to discuss with my pujerak.”

I was unused to being accountable to anyone for my actions, yet I didn’t find it as irritating as I’d thought it would be.

“Your pujerak?” she asked.

“My second-in-command,” I told her. “He takes over responsibility for the horde when I must be away. He also acts as my advisor.”

Her booted feet treaded roughly over the dirt. I needed to see about getting her more suitable coverings, ones that actually fit. I frowned when that realization sparked unease within me. Like guilt.

“And what did he advise you about me?”

“Seduce you into submission.”

A sudden intake of air whistled through her nostrils, but she was saved from answering when an echoing hiss in the distance reached the encampment. A soft shrieking cry followed.

I noticed that she took a step towards me as she asked, “What was that?”

“Ungira.”

Her eyes darted up to mine. I wondered why she suddenly looked so…pensive.

“Nothing to fear,” I told her. “Ungira are more active at night. They are sensitive to the light. There are no nesting grounds nearby. I ensured that before we began to make base.”

When had I ever reassured another to assuage their fear? And yet, I didn’t like to see her frightened of anything.

She relaxed, nodding, but she stayed close.

We continued towards my voliki, which was at the base of one of the only mountains in ungira territory. There were deep fissures dissecting the mountain, however. Perhaps due to the earthquakes that had once plagued this region. The fissures led nowhere. All of them were dead ends, ensuring that we wouldn’t be ambushed from the back of the encampment.

However, near one of the fissures, close to where the pyroki enclosure was, I spied movement and shadows. I stilled, stepping around a darkened voliki, wondering if my mind was playing tricks on me again.

“What is it?” Vienne whispered, noticing my sudden tension.

Relief made me sigh when I heard a sharp moan, which cut off abruptly. Huffing, I noticed my palm was gripped tight around the hilt of my sword and I released it.

“Come see,” I murmured, pulling her in front of me, staying close to the voliki. “I know you like to watch.”

“Watch wh—”

She cut herself off with a soft gasp.

“And they obviously wish to be seen,” I rumbled, stepping closer to her.

Catching a couple mating was not an uncommon occurrence among the horde. Dakkari had always been taught to revere mating and sex, that it was a healthy need.

One of my darukkars—Uqon was his given name—had a female pushed up against the stone of the mountain. They were deep enough into the shadow of the fissure that they weren’t too noticeable—and yet, they were not deep enough.

I recognized the female. She was a bikku. She worked with Arinu, helping to cook and prepare the food, an honored and difficult task. It was no small feat to feed an entire horde and it was no surprise that the female was still dressed in her working wear, even this late into the night.

Uqon had approached me about taking a mate shortly before I left for Dothik. I’d granted him the honor to take one after the first hunt last year, when he had taken down a wrissan singlehandedly. Was this to be his chosen bride?

Vienne was hovering in front of me. Her long hair swayed down her back as she pressed for a closer look and my lips curled into a dark smirk, my cock thickening with her eagerness.

Uqon had the female’s dress tugged up around her waist, had her bent over a boulder, her palms flat against it. He was fucking her from behind, his clawed hands gripping her wide hips. A shaft of moonlight speared them and I saw the female biting her lip, her eyes half-lidded, trying to hold in her moans. It only made Uqon drive his hips into her harder. A dangerous game. He wanted her to scream for him, yet she didn’t want to be caught.

Too late.

My gaze, however, was drawn to the kalles in front of me, a far more arousing and tantalizing sight.

Her lips were parted, her cheeks were even more flushed than they’d been before from the wine she’d drunk with Lokkaru, and her chest rose and fell quickly.

I straightened, my nostrils flaring. Vok, she was getting aroused. Very aroused. The look on her face reminded me of that night in the ancient forest, her gaze greedy and hot as I pumped my seed onto the ground before her, like an offering.

I tried to remember my unease with her. I tried to call forward all the reasons why I should be wary of whatever power it was that she possessed.

And yet my tail curled around her ankle, wrapping tight, anchoring her in place.

As if breaking out of a trance, her desire-filled gaze came to mine, just as the female finally let out another moan. Vienne’s pupils dilated when I heard the darukkar’s victorious growl.

Pulling her so that her back was against my chest, I faced her forward again, my arms wrapping around her waist. Her warmth was against my skin, her kuveri-perfumed flesh making my mouth water.

“Is that what you want, leikavi?” I purred in her ear, brushing aside her starlight-colored hair. “Are you wondering what that feels like? For a male to be deep inside your aching, needy cunt?”

Her shuddering breath told me her answer. I felt her nipples against my forearm, felt her legs shift and squeeze together.

“You want to know what it feels like, that need, that desire? You want to feel that divine pleasure, building and building, until it explodes inside you, breaking you into a million pieces? There is nothing like it, leikavi.”

She let out a small whimper and I almost groaned.

The darukkar quickened his pace. The rhythmic slapping of their flesh together reached us. His hips began to jerk.

“You see that?” I growled. “He’s losing control.”

Unable to keep myself from touching her any longer, I pulled her tunic out from where it was tucked into the waistband of her trews and slid my hand up. Teasingly, I traced my claws up her belly, delighted when she bit her lip to hide her gasp.

“He’s going to give her his seed. Her cunt feels too good. She’s clenching around him, squeezing harder and tighter like a vise.”

Her body jerked when my fingers found her peaked nipple, when I gently stroked the budded flesh. Her body tightened, her eyes falling shut when I pinched it, rolling.

“Does that feel good?” I rasped in her ear.

Vok, she needed to be fucked.

Every instinct I had as a male told me this. She was a female who had never experienced pleasure before, who was shuddering with need at the smallest touch. I believed I could make her come just from petting her nipples.

With a huff, I tore at the laces of her trews. When her knees trembled, I reached inside. Her whole body jolted, a soft cry tearing from her throat when the pad of my finger found the bundle of nerves between her legs.

“Vok,” I cursed, running my fingers down her slit, careful of my claws. “You are soaked through, leikavi.”

My little sensual creature liked dirty things whispered in her ear and liked watching others fuck.

Blood was rushing so loudly in my ears that when she whispered something, I didn’t hear it.

“Neffar?” I rasped.

She shivered when I pinched her nipple again. Her hand stroked my other arm, which was deep inside her trews. Her gentle touch made seed push from the tip of my cock—and I didn’t understand it. Not when before I’d always needed it rough to get off. Yet, she stroked me like a lover…and it only made me want to fuck her more. It made me crazed for her.

“I w-want to feel it,” she whispered again. I froze when she tilted her head back to look at me. She was frightened, but I saw something else in her eyes. Determination. Fierce determination, so surprising and arousing that it briefly left me without a single thought. “I want to feel what it’s like. At least once before…”

She trailed off.

Before she returned to the Dead Mountain.

“Please.”

I had her off the ground before she could say another word, swinging her up until she was forced to wrap her legs around my waist.

Striding to my voliki, I promised in her ear, “I will give you much, much more than once, Vienne.”