Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Thirty-Three

When I returned to my voliki that night, I found my leikavi washing in the bathing tub.

In a dizzying rush, I felt my cock thicken, a response that I should’ve been used to by now. She froze when I walked in but then her shoulders relaxed when she saw it was me. A primal satisfaction went through me as I gazed at her…as my eyes ran to the water that lapped at her pink, small nipples.

It felt different between us. I felt…changed. Not so much on edge. My mind didn’t feel as fractured and scattered as it usually did and my eyes didn’t immediately dart around the darkness of my voliki—they only looked at her.

When I walked to her, she regarded me as she stroked the cloth over her bare shoulder. I crouched in front of the washing tub, dipping my hand underneath the water, and was pleased that it was hot for her.

I had just come from the training grounds so I was in need of washing myself. I stood, stepping from my trews, watching as her lips parted when she saw how hard I was for her.

A shy look came across her face when she realized what I intended, a look that drove me mad in the best possible way. I’d done all sorts of wicked things to her body already and she could still look shy?

I climbed in behind her and she shifted uncertainly, sitting up straight as my legs went around her. The bared expanse of her smooth back met me but my jaw tightened when I saw the Ghertun marking just below her neck.

Branded. The sight pushed me towards the invisible edge of my mind.

She tossed her white hair back, to cover the mark as if she knew what I was thinking. I growled, pulling her towards me so she was cradled by my thighs, her back to my chest, and my arms came around her, my fingers lazily stroking one of her nipples.

A breathy sigh escaped her as the hot water began to loosen my tightened muscles.

Slowly, she relaxed as well, melting against me as I stroked my hands over her body. I realized I could be gentle with her. I liked to be gentle with her, for her. It filled me with pride, touching her this way.

Her arms rested against my thighs and I felt one of her palms wrap around the end of my tail. She’d always been curious about it but this was the first time she’d actually touched me there.

“You owe me a story,” I informed her, rasping the words into her ear before I nibbled on the soft flesh of her earlobe, making her shiver even in the steaming water.

“Can we skip stories tonight?” she asked, her voice going breathy as my fingers began to wander down her belly. “And just head to bed?”

I chuckled in her ear, the foreign sound not mocking for once, but genuine. I’d been gone the night before—meeting late into the night with my pujerak and the small council of my horde. When I returned to the voliki last night, she’d already been asleep and I’d left before she woke in the morning.

And so, we hadn’t mated last night. Nor had we spoken of her dream—the one she’d woken from in fright and sorrow.

“Eager for more play, rei leikavi?”

“Perhaps,” she whispered.

“Or perhaps,” I said, “you fear what I will ask.”

She sighed. “I know what you will ask. And you’re right…maybe I do fear it.”

Her honesty was refreshing.

“Let me pet you for a little while,” I told her after a moment. “Then you can wash me, we will take our evening meal, and then see what comes afterwards, lysi?”

She let out a shuddered breath when my fingers found her slit, when I brushed the back of my claw over the swollen bud at the top.

Vienne turned her face, seeking my eyes, her palm tightening on my tail. Then she rested her cheek on my pectoral, the tip of her nose pressing into my flesh.

“You always smell so good,” she whispered.

Affection bloomed, the emotion as foreign as my laugh.

“And with the exception of the first night I met you, leikavi,” I rumbled to her, hearing her gasp when I pressed the little bud harder and made little circles, “your scent always drives me mad.”

She huffed out a small laugh. “It was filth from the stream. Perhaps it was also meant to keep you away, though it obviously didn’t work.”

“How did you get into Dothik that night?” I asked, pressing my forehead against her, gritting my teeth when her hips rolled to meet my touch, when my cock rubbed against her backside.

“I will never tell,” she whispered. “It’s my secret.”

Maddening female, I thought.

That deep, raspy chuckle rose from my throat again. “You and your secrets.”

“You and yours,” she replied softly.

My chuckle died and I sighed, though I began to circle my fingers faster over her. A cry tore from her lips, her nipples tight against my arm.

“If I fit my cock inside you right now,” I whispered in her ear, “will I find you wet and ready for me?”

“Yes,” she replied, almost immediately.

“Do you still ache from two nights ago?” I murmured. “I wasn’t too rough?”

“I can take you,” she responded and I felt her lips curl against my chest.

“Oh, lysi?”

“Lysi,” she said.

My nostrils flared, lust riding me hard.

“You think to tease a Vorakkar and come out unscathed?” I growled in her ear.

She bit her lip and stifled a moan when I began to rock against her backside, grinding my aching cock against her.

“Nik, I want to hear your sounds for me. Your gasps, your moans, your screams,” I said. “Do not hide them from me. I own them. They are mine, Vienne.”

Her eyes blinked open, her gaze half-lidded as she regarded me, that tantalizing, familiar flush creeping up her neck.

Vok, I wanted her. I’d thought about her every spare moment of the day and when I’d seen her walking with Lokkaru this afternoon, all I could think about was dragging her back to my voliki and burying myself inside her until I felt the peace she’d brought me. I had never felt this consumed before. Not even by—

I cut my thoughts off before they took me somewhere I didn’t want to go, a place that made it hard to be gentle when I wanted to be for Vienne.

Growling, I took my hand from between her thighs and turned her until she was facing me, straddling my hips. Gripping my cock, I slowly fed my length inside her and I groaned as she wiggled down over me. She was still so fucking tight that every time I entered her, I needed to be careful. But eventually, she relaxed around me, letting me in, letting me stretch and fill her.

Her arms looped around my neck and I guided her hips over me, rocking against her, fucking her with short thrusts that got me deeper.

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to my brow. Then they trailed over my eyelids…down my cheek. My scarred cheek. My chest felt tight as she kissed me there and panic and warmth and desperation filled me—all those emotions pulling me in different directions—and above all, I thought that she was just so damned sweet. That I didn’t deserve to be with her, that I didn’t deserve her touches or kisses, that I didn’t deserve to be inside her body, or feel the peace that she brought me.

But vok, I wanted to deserve her.

It was a dangerous thing…these emotions that were beginning to build in my chest, stacking and filling all the empty spaces inside me. For the first time, I wondered if I could be whole again.

We came together in a dizzying rush, our cries and groans filling the voliki until she collapsed against me, keeping our lips pressed together, and I could feel the rapid thud of her heartbeat against my flesh.

She didn’t kiss me so much as breathe into me. And I was breathing into her, trying to calm the thundering boom in my own chest.

Afterwards, she pulled back, gave me that small, shy smile that made my cock twitch inside her, and I groaned.

She was playing with my hair, threading her fingers through it. Then her eyes drifted down and her lips thinned, her jaw clenching.

“Neffar?” I asked, my voice lazy. “What is it?”

She snatched her arms back from where they were resting on my shoulders.

“Nothing,” she whispered, placing her hands against my chest. I frowned but didn’t press. Then her stomach growled and her cheeks flushed, though I didn’t know why.

“Why are you embarrassed?”

“I—I don’t know,” she replied. “I’ve been so hungry lately. I feel like I’ve been eating so much.”

I wasn’t surprised. “You needed it.”

It had been almost two weeks since I’d first seen her in Dothik and even in that small amount of time, she looked healthier. Her frame would always be lithe and lean, but her ribs weren’t as prominent, her hips were softened…even her breasts appeared fuller.

I grunted, my gaze drawing down to them, my mouth watering for the peaked nipples, wanting to suckle and nibble and stroke them with my tongue. I felt just as insatiable with Vienne as I’d been when I was younger—tupping females in forests or in private places almost daily, wherever and however. Most Dakkari males went through some sort of awakening, when the need to mate became too strong.

Though I was tempted, my kalles needed food, so more play would have to wait. Quickly, though I was still wedged inside her, I washed with the discarded cloth and then pulled her off me gently, washing my seed away between her thighs, making her breath hitch and my eyes flare with want.

I dried us off and handed her a fresh, clean tunic, knowing she wouldn’t want to eat naked, my peculiar little vekkiri. I, on the other hand, had no such qualms about it and pulled her into my bare lap at the low table, feeding her bites of braised ungira, the meat soft and flavorful. Only once she was full did I finish off the rest of the meal, aware that she watched me intently as I did.

“Neffar?”

“Nothing,” she whispered, her cheeks flushed again. “I just like looking at you.”

I bit back a grin and my tail flicked to her outer thigh, dragging across her skin. Her eyes went down to it and she reached out. I watched as she touched it, feeling that touch at the base of my spine.

Then I froze, frowning.

Grabbing her arm, I pulled it towards me, turning it so that her wrist was exposed.

“What is this?” I asked, certain the black webbing of her veins underneath her pale skin hadn’t been like this before.

She went still in my lap as I traced them. They started at her wrist and had begun to crawl up her forearm.

“It’s nothing,” came her quiet voice. When I met her eyes, I frowned. “It’s—it’s an after-effect of my gift. Sometimes. When I use it too much.”

My frown deepened at her words. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” she said quickly. “But it stays a long time before it goes away. It’s nothing.”

I made a sound in the back of my throat before releasing her arm. She folded her hands and rested them against my lower abdomen, her flesh cold even after our hot bath and her filling meal.

Something prickled at the back of my neck, chilling me, and I turned my head, looking into the shadows—peering into them, afraid that they would peer back. But I found nothing and then the sensation was gone, allowing me to relax.

It was strange that it would happen now anyways. I’d gotten a lot of sleep and felt rested and centered.

Because of Vienne?

A silence stretched but it wasn’t uncomfortable. There was just an unspoken question between us, filling the space, and Vienne nibbled on her lip as she watched me.

“Just tell me,” I started, “if your dream was about me. If you saw another of my memories.”

I had worried over it since she’d woken two nights ago, terrified that she’d seen the events of that night…or perhaps when Mala used to fuck me and use me…or the night when I’d been covered in blood, a lifeless body at my feet deep in the Dothikkar’s woods, as my laugh boomed through the deadened trees.

Vienne’s grey eyes drifted down to my lips and she reached up to place a hand on my chest. She liked touching me. I liked her touching me.

“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s just that…I’m not entirely sure it was yours.”

“What does that mean?”

She went quiet, debating something in that mind of hers.

“Your sister was there,” she told me and I stiffened. “It was…”

“Did I…” I trailed off, licking my lips, my throat tightening. “Did I do anything terrible?”

She frowned. “No.”

Relief whistled through me at her confusion. So she hadn’t seen any of the memories I feared she’d see. And maybe she never would. Maybe if she stopped touching and connecting with my emotions, the memories would stop.

“I don’t want you to go into my mind anymore, Vienne,” I told her, keeping my voice low. “You said my memories are the first you have ever dreamed, so maybe they will stop with time…as long as I don’t feed them to you anymore.”

“Feed them to me?” she asked, her eyes flashing. “I’m not like a parasite, Davik. I don’t mean to see them. I don’t want to. It just happens. And besides—”

She cut herself off and I could see that my words had struck a nerve. I sighed. Whatever she’d been about to say was lost as her irritation rose.

“I am sorry, leikavi,” I murmured, apologizing to her for the second time in a handful of days when I truly didn’t remember the last time I’d apologized to anyone, though it had probably been to Devina…or my lomma. “I did not mean it that way. But there are things that I have done, moments in my past that I do not want you to see,” I confessed.

The anger in her tight expression began to soften. “Like what?”

I huffed out a small breath. “Moments of rage. Moments when I’ve killed. Moments I’ve...” I trailed off, trying to ease the tightness rising in my chest. My voice was gruff and hardened when I said, “They are moments I do not even want to relive again. I do not want you to either.”

Because then…she truly might understand what I’d told her weeks ago. That I truly was a monster.

And what would happen then?

She would fear me. She might recoil from my touch.

In Dothik, when I’d brought her into my personal chamber from the dungeons, I’d wanted her to fear me. But now?

It would tear at me if she did.

“Do not go into my mind anymore, Vienne. Promise me.”

“I don’t know if I can promise that, Davik,” she whispered.

My brows furrowed.

“My gift keeps me safe, no matter how much I don’t like to use it.”

I realized what she was saying. “I would never hurt you,” I growled.

“I know,” she said, her expression softening, which only added to my confusion. “But just like in Dothik, what happens if there comes a time when we want different things? What happens if there comes a time when I will need to make decisions for myself? I have my family to think of. I cannot be controlled. Especially by you.”

“So you will just control others?” I snapped. My heart was racing and I felt her press her palm harder against the angry thrumming, as if she was trying to soothe it.

“I’m trying to be realistic, Davik,” she whispered. “We—we both know that this is temporary. A small piece of time before everything else comes rushing back in.”

I cursed low under my breath.

“I can protect you,” I rasped, the words sounding stilted even to me.

She smiled but it was sad and that expression tore at me. Because I realized that she believed I couldn’t.

“Can’t…can’t we just enjoy this?” she asked softly. “Can’t we just enjoy this while it lasts?”

In her eyes, there wasn’t an alternative. And I realized that I couldn’t give her one without revealing our plans to her, without revealing that we never intended to give in to the Ghertun’s demands, which she believed. Without revealing that I’d been deceiving her, that I knew where the heartstone lay, that Lokkaru had told me its location long ago.

Give it time, came the voice. It didn’t sound like my own. It was much too calm, much too rational. Give it time and maybe soon, she will trust you. Maybe soon, she will realize that you can protect her, that she has nothing to fear…

“Please,” she whispered, leaning forward to brush her lips against mine. And I felt myself give in to her. Releasing a breath, I returned her kiss, cupping the back of her neck, pressing her into me.

“On one condition,” I rasped.

She pulled back, wariness in her gaze. “What is it?”

“Tell me what memory you dreamed.”

Her parted lips closed.

“On one condition,” she said back.

My brows rose.

She swallowed, her eyes flickering back and forth between mine.

“You tell me about your sister.”