Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Twenty-Three

The sound of my name on his lips did strange things to my body.

The tingling between my legs grew more intense as the horde king ducked under the entrance to his voliki.

“You—you know my name?” I whispered, eyes still half-lidded. The sound of that horde warrior’s groan was still ringing in my ears.

Then I remembered. I’d told him my name…on our first meeting in Dothik. The night when he’d shielded me from patrolling guards, when he’d told me to leave the city or else I would be discovered.

Only I’d needed to be discovered.

“Oh, I remember now,” I murmured before he could say anything. “I told you that night.”

Davik had remembered my name. That moment had seemed like weeks ago.

“Lysi, kalles, you did,” he growled. “And now your given name is mine.”

Then does that mean his name is mine too?A little voice whispered in my mind.

“Vienne is not my full name,” I told him.

His eyes narrowed at that—with determination, I realized. My lips parted. He wanted all of it. And now he was determined to uncover it.

He tossed me back onto his furs before wrapping his hand around my ankles and pulling me to the edge. My tunic rode up, exposing my abdomen, but he tore it off a moment later. My boots and trews quickly followed—until I found myself blinking up at him, wondering how exactly he’d gotten me naked so efficiently.

Davik ran a hand down his face, as if…as if he couldn’t believe the sight of me. Shaking his head, he leaned back, raking his reddened gaze down my exposed body.

My skin felt overheated, like I’d been in the sun too long—but I relished that feeling. When I’d been in the dark, under a mountain, I craved this feeling. This feeling of being frightened and trembling but excited and impatient. Alive.

And gods, the look in his eyes? I shivered with that look. I’d never felt coveted by a male in my life. With the exception of Kyl—for those brief moments in the forest next to my village—but after that moment, he’d never met my eyes directly again. He’d gone back to gazing longingly after Viola, as if he’d tried to replace her with me and found me lacking.

But Davik?

A part of me knew it didn’t matter that this was fleeting. I would return to the Dead Mountain regardless, empty-handed or not…or else I would die. It was simple.

Until then, however, I wanted to feel. I wanted to feel desired and coveted. I wanted to feel pleasure. I wanted to feel wonderful, new things before I went back to the darkness.

I had a feeling the Mad Horde King, who was looking down at me with possession and lust, whose eyes promised me everything I wanted, would show me everything.

I didn’t want to be scared anymore. I’d felt enough fear to last me an entire lifetime. For once, I wanted to be brave. I wanted to be bold and take what I wanted for once. I had the power to, with him, here in his place, away from my life as a Ghertun slave.

In fact, I’d never felt more powerful as the Vorakkar knelt between my spread legs on the floor next to his bed of furs. He’d pulled me to the edge and his palms gripped my ankles before sliding up my thighs. I felt sparks over my skin wherever he touched me.

Tension filled the voliki. Davik was…intense. Focused entirely on me, as if he would kill anyone right at that moment if they got between us. A part of me knew that he might relish it…and strangely enough, that realization didn’t disturb me. It should have but it didn’t.

“First, I’m going to lick you here,” he rasped, brushing his fingers over my sex, making my back arch up from the furs at the fleeting contact. His voice had changed. It was deeper, darker, animalistic. Maman had always said the Dakkari had beasts within them. And Davik’s? I had a feeling he’d let it out from its cage.

He wasn’t smiling but I could tell he was delighted with my reaction. There was a glint in his gaze that promised me wicked, wicked things…

“Do you want your first orgasm to be upon my tongue?” he growled. “Or around my cock?”

Wetness flooded between my legs and his eyes darted there.

“Vok,” he hissed, leaning forward eagerly, like he couldn’t wait a moment more.

All at once, his hands were gripping my thighs, squeezing, pulling them wider until I was obscenely exposed to him…

And then I felt the long, hot stroke of his tongue between my legs.

“Uhhhn,” I cried out, my hips bucking, my eyes rolling back into my head.

Nipples tight, body tingling, I could do nothing but feel the sensation of him lapping between my legs.

“You will come on my tongue,” he decided, his tail flicking up to stroke my ankle. It was rigid, yet soft, just another petting from him, another way he could touch me. “Because, leikavi, you will not last long enough. You are already there.”

I wanted to see him, I wanted to see everything. So, even though my arms shook, I pushed up on my elbows and I shivered when I watched his dark tongue flick out, when he licked a droplet of my arousal.

My breath hitched. He was right. I was so close to something. And I bit my lip to keep from smiling because I knew that I would finally feel that elusive pleasure tonight.

Davik saw me watching. His eyes narrowed and, probably for my benefit, he slipped that long tongue into my opening. My whole body jerked and I moaned. He was pushing, merciless.

He made a rough sound between my legs and then he pulled away. Before I could protest, he’d leaned up, capturing my lips in a sinful kiss that made my head spin.

“Taste yourself, Vienne,” he growled. His Vorakkar command. “Taste how much you want me. Taste how much your body needs to be mated.”

That sweet musk covered my tongue and I eagerly searched for more. It felt like such a wicked thing to do…but I liked it. I wanted more.

“Delicious,” he purred, pulling away much to my disappointment. His eyes were bright, practically glowing in the hushed darkness of his voliki. Only a small flame flickered in the basin.

My body acted on instincts I didn’t even know I possessed. Because when his head dipped, I arched my back, trying to draw his gaze.

Now, he did smirk, those hooded eyes knowing. “You want to be kissed here too, leikavi?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

I didn’t have to wait long. He nuzzled my breasts, brushing his lips over the hardened peaks. They were sensitive and I nearly jumped from the furs when he drew one into his mouth, suckling hard.

I gasped when he switched to the other. When he lightly grazed the sharp points of his teeth on the tips, my lips parted, my head lolling around my shoulders. The little pain added to my pleasure and I didn’t know why. There were so many things I wanted to explore.

Did I have enough time to explore them all with him? What could he show me?

“Soon,” he rasped, reaching forward to roll one nipple between his fingertips, his claw pricking me, “I will see if I can make you come, just from playing with you here.”

He gave a low curse at whatever he saw reflected in my gaze.

“The things I will do to you, leikavi,” he told me. A warning. A promise.

I watched as he brought two of his fingers up to his lips, watched as he neatly bit off the sharp points of his claws, dulling them.

“But right now, you will come for me,” he growled, dropping back between my thighs, taking the position he’d been in before. “I want it on my tongue.”

Excitement burned with my arousal.

He set upon me like a starved beast, licking at my sex once more. So quickly and thoroughly that I felt like his tongue was a million places all over my body.

A moment later, I realized why he’d dulled his claws because I felt pressure at my opening. When I looked down, he was slowly pushing into me, back and forth, the friction wonderful, the sensation new.

Deeper and deeper he went until his fingers were stretching me, filling me so much I began to tense.

“Relax, leikavi,” he grunted before resting his scarred cheek on my thigh, licking that sensitive bud at the top of my slit, making me moan. “Vok, you’re tight.”

Too tight?I wondered, dismayed at the possibility that we simply wouldn’t fit.

His fingers curled and my thoughts scattered, my hips jerking against him. That pressure had turned into exquisite pleasure, a full-body tingle beginning from my sex and blooming across every inch of my skin.

“Ohhhh!”

“There, leikavi?” he rasped.

“Yes!”

The pressure intensified, the tingling growing when he gently suckled my clit between his lips. My breath tore from me, ragged. I gasped when I couldn’t get air, when every part of me was focused on his lips and his tongue between my legs.

“Come for me now,” he growled.

Something was happening. My body was rocking against him, with a mind all its own. That pressure was building, my inner walls had begun to tighten around his fingers, a deep clenching inside me that was about to…to…

“Oh gods,” I whispered, my eyes widening.

Davik’s fingers curled again.

His tongue laved and lapped mercilessly against my slit.

That pleasure burst within me, careening me over an unseen edge.

Finally, finally, I thought desperately.

I fell back on the furs, back arching, my legs tightening around the male between them, wanting to keep him there forever.

It felt like an explosion had gone off inside me. Tingling pleasure pierced me, snatching the air from my lungs as I gasped. I may have screamed, cried out—but I couldn’t be certain. I was hovering in this place of unfathomable sensation and feeling…and I never wanted to leave it.

All too soon, it began to fade. All too soon, I could breathe again.

Light returned as I watched shadows flicker across the top of the voliki above me. My sex clenched rhythmically around his fingers, which I realized were still inside me. Every inch of my skin felt sensitive. When I brushed my fingers across my breasts, I almost gasped.

That was what I’ve been missing, I thought, my lips curling up into a smile. That wonderful, dizzying, uncontrolled pleasure.

And I wanted more.

When I looked down at Davik, my lips were still curled into a grin.

Already, I felt that tingling return, that warmth spread. So soon?

His expression hit me as…undone. He growled, those eyes flashing, and I sucked in a breath as he stood, as he ripped through the laces of his trews like they were made of parchment.

In another moment, he was nude in front of me. As he’d been last night. My gaze ran over him, unapologetically. Over the golden raised scars from his battles, over the swirling tattoos adorning him, Dakkari words I desperately wanted to learn, words I wanted to whisper into his skin as I traced the gold of them with my tongue.

Ridged slabs of unyielding muscles greeted me. Somehow, he appeared stronger, bigger. His body was made for war, for killing. And yet, I got the strangest sense that it was made for me. For this.

His cock was engorged, the head shining with the beginnings of his glossy seed. The tip was rounded like a bulb.

“Ahh, vok, leikavi,” he hissed. I watched his cock jerk, more seed dripping from the little slit. “When you look at a male like that, he gets very wicked, dark ideas.”

When I looked up at him, I think he saw just how much I wanted to explore those ideas with him.

His jaw clenched so much that the edges of the scar down his face pulled. I wondered if it hurt. I wondered how he’d gotten such a scar.

He crawled over me, his movements graceful, silent. Like a predator stalking its prey.

His cock rested on my belly and I sighed when he licked and sucked the juices from my orgasm off his fingers.

Wicked, magnificent male, I thought.

In the back of my mind, I knew I didn’t recognize this female. This Vienne that I had become. I felt like a stranger in my own skin as I looked up at him, delighted, waiting…and yet, I’d never felt more like myself.

Freed.

His weight dropped over me, his hands bracketed on both sides of my head. His hair fell forward, just like last night, curtaining us from the world until I only saw his red, glowing gaze that promised me everything.

His scent was…addictive. I swore I spied a little blood on his side—he’d told me he’d come from the training grounds—but he smelled fragrant, like rich earth, and warm. I pulled him into my lungs, wanting to memorize that scent.

“You liked your orgasm, leikavi?” he rasped, leaning down to trace his nose down the column of my throat. It seemed he liked my scent too because he drew it in deep.

Liked?

That didn’t seem like an adequate enough word, but I whispered, “Yes.”

He pulled back, locking his gaze with mine again. I remembered when he had told me that no one was allowed to meet a Vorakkar’s gaze as a sign of respect.

Yet, I thought it would be a tragedy if I couldn’t. Especially since his eyes made me feel shivery and wanted and a little on edge.

“Now,” he started, his voice deepening into a purr, “I want another. This time, it will be on my cock, lysi?”