Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“You’re insane,” I gasped out. “This is the first time I’ve actually thought you’re insane, Davik.”

His jaw flexed. “Nik. Actually, for the first time, I think I am completely sane. For the first time, I am thinking clearly when it comes to you.”

I tore away from his grip—nearly stumbling over the ripped trews encircling my ankles before I kicked them off. At the sudden movement, a rush of wetness flooded from my sex. His cock slipped from me as his seed trailed down my inner thighs.

Davik glanced at it, his eyes flaring hot and primal and satisfied, while I felt panic spiral within me.

“You will be my Morakkari, Vienne,” he said.

“You cannot simply make me your Morakkari, Davik,” I said, trying to rein in my disbelief, my bafflement.

I was still reeling from what had just happened between us—the intensity of the sex, the roughness of it and how I’d craved it, the realization that Davik was frightened for me, and the knowledge that I was dangerously close to…to loving him completely, with every part of myself.

I shook my head, pressing my fingers to my temple. I’d been angry at him, hadn’t I? Before he’d stalked into the voliki. So why was it so difficult to recall that anger?

“Lysi, I can,” he replied, stepping towards me, capturing my shoulder with his palm to keep me still when I began pacing again.

I froze, gasping because I realized I was still inside his mind.

No, no, no.

When I tried to release him, I felt resistance, as if he’d tethered me to stay. His brow furrowed, as if he felt me trying to retreat.

Then he snarled when I finally broke the connection, tearing from his mind almost violently, which made my breath come out quick as pain bloomed at my temple.

“Vok, leikavi,” Davik rasped, pinching the space between his eyes, as if it had pained him as well. “I felt that.”

“I—I don’t know what’s happening,” I said, my voice shaking. “You’re…you’re not thinking clearly, Davik.”

I didn’t need to be inside his mind to know that his determination was still a solid, unyielding thing. It shone from his glowing eyes. It was pressed into the hard line of his mouth, in the utter stillness of his tail behind him.

“As my Morakkari,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken at all, “you will have the protection of my horde. Of my darukkar, of their swords. And as a Morakkari of Dakkar,” he said, emphasizing the name of our planet, “you will have the protection of allVorakkar who ride in the wild lands. You will have the protection of their swords. You will even have the Dothikkar’s protection.”

“Davik—”

“The Ghertun will never touch you again. They will not get close to you unless they wish for their own deaths.”

He didn’t understand. I would be tied to the Ghertun for the rest of my life, however short it may be. The vovic ensured that.

If he tried to prevent me from returning, he was killing me himself.

“That protection,” he said, his voice dropping low as he stepped towards me, “extends to your family.”

Thatmade me pause.

Then more pain came, though it had nothing to do with my headache. For a brief moment, I remembered my daydream. Of my family, safe, here. Among his horde. They were happy in that dream, content with their lives. As for me, I had dreamed I was happy with him, in his furs, at his side…and he at mine.

In another reality, that may have even been possible. Now, that daydream only taunted me with what could have been.

“I will not rest until they are returned to you,” Davik murmured, reaching out to touch my cheek. My lips parted when I saw affection in his gaze. Warmth. For me. “That will be my promise to you, Vienne. A vow to my wife that you will have them back. They will be safe here.”

Tears filled my eyes but he’d seen me cry so much that I wasn’t even embarrassed by them. His words felt like a punch in my gut. So sweet and tantalizing. A dream that was just within reach but would slip further and further away the closer I came.

“You can’t promise me that,” I told him.

He frowned, his eyes narrowing. “You think I cannot bring them to you?”

I didn’t doubt that. I doubted that they would live long enough to ‘be safe here,’ as he claimed.

This was exactly what I’d feared.

And I feared I would have to use my gift on him one last time in the coming week. The need to flee the horde was buzzing underneath my skin now, no matter how much the thought cut me. I didn’t want to leave this place.

I didn’t want to leave him.

Soon, he might not give you a choice, my mind whispered.

A sense of calm washed over me because I knew what I had to do. I’d always known that this was temporary. That he was. A small, exciting, gut-wrenching, wonderful blip in my life.

I’d never been in love before. I’d never experienced the kind of warm, settled, nourished love that my parents had. But once, my mother had told me that when she’d fallen in love with my father, just looking at him made her heart ache with pain while also making her feel like bursting with happiness.

I’d never understood that until now. How someone could make you hurt while also making you incredibly happy…

I think Maman ached when she’d fallen in love with my father because she knew that one day she’d have to live without him.

Like Devina, maybe she’d had a feeling, a knowing, of what was to come.

I didn’t have the gift of foresight but even I knew what would come next.

“Just give me time,” I whispered. I was a coward. I couldn’t tell him ‘no.’

His eyes darted back and forth between mine, trying to read something in my expression that wasn’t in my words.

“This…this is a lot to take in right now, Davik,” I said, hoping that he would understand. “After everything that’s happened tonight…”

I still felt his seed leaking from my body. I felt marked. I felt changed.

He thought I was talking about his roughness, his intensity during sex tonight and I saw a flash of shame cross his features. But since I was a coward, I didn’t correct his assumption.

“Very well,” he said, inclining his head. His eyes were still flickering between mine. He knew something was wrong…but he couldn’t figure it out. “We will discuss it more in the morning.”

I nodded, though I had no intention to.

“Let us sleep,” he murmured. Then he glanced down. “Or would you prefer to bathe first?”

“Actually,” I said, stepping around him, “I want to check on Lokkaru. To make sure she’s okay after the commotion earlier.”

Davik frowned.

I wiped up his seed still trailing down my thigh with my torn, discarded trews, knowing I would need another pair. But for now, I merely shoved my feet in my boots and grabbed Davik’s fur cloak, knowing it would cover me all the way down to my ankles.

“You sleep,” I told him. “I’ll be right back.”

His jaw was tight and he followed me outside when I stepped from the voliki. The encampment was quieter than it’d been before the Ghertun but darukkars were still milling around. It seemed as if Davik had posted more nightly patrols but still, as I made my way towards Lokkaru’s voliki, I felt his eyes on me the entire way.

The knowledge gave me a lump in my throat but I swallowed it down. When I reached Lokkaru’s home, there was only a small glow flickering from underneath the entrance flap. I ducked my head inside, only to find the older Dakkari female sleeping in her bed.

I stepped inside and breathed in the sweet scent of kuveri. I thought I would be sick of it by now, since we’d made dozens and dozens of blue candles with the berry, but it was comforting. Familiar.

It was warm inside the voliki so I briefly shrugged out of Davik’s furs, my tunic hanging just above my knees. My gaze trailed down to my wrist, my lips pressing together when I saw more veins had blackened and were continuing to trail up my inner forearm. When I pressed my fingers into my flesh, I felt a throbbing ache. From experience, I knew it would turn into burning, shooting, teeth-gritting pain.

Once, I’d displeased my sibi under the Dead Mountain. I’d stayed out late on an errand. I’d been trying to sneak into the mines because I knew that sometimes my brother, Eli, worked there. I’d desperately wanted to see him. I’d returned, however, disappointed, only to realize that I’d forgotten the food my sibi had sent me out to get.

They didn’t hit me. They didn’t yell at me. They didn’t withhold my meager rations. Instead, they’d done something far more cruel.

They’d withheld my dose of vovic. Slaves usually received one every two or three weeks, days that I used to count in my mind silently, anxiously. Though we could survive without a dose for a month, the pain by the end of that month was usually too debilitating. My sibi knew that. They’d kept me in withdrawal for three days. Useless to them, spread on the floor where I slept, sweating, my bones feeling like they would break, the blood in my veins burning like it was on fire.

The pain had been so severe I hadn’t been able to call upon my gift. I had never felt more helpless.

I’d been so grateful to them when they finally gave me my dose. I’d worked extra hard to please them in the following weeks, the knowledge of which made me sick to think about now. Because I was a coward. I was a spineless coward.

I was staring, unseeing, inside Lokkaru’s voliki. My vision was wavering, watering, and I dashed away the tears that ran down my cheeks, angry. I was angry.

I was angry with Davik, for trying to give me everything I wanted but could never have. I was angry at him for not finding me a year earlier, before I’d ever taken that first dose of vovic between my lips. I was angry at him for using that body on me, because now I would come to crave it, miss it. I was angry at him for showing me he wasn’t the cruel monster I’d believed him to be that first night in Dothik because I’d already begun to fall in love with him.

I was angry that my father had died. I was angry that my beautiful, beautiful sister was abused and raped by her sibi almost weekly. I was angry that the few Ghertun underneath the Dead Mountain who would look at me in shame and apology whenever I crossed their paths had done nothing to help us. I was angry that I was too weak and too cowardly to help us.

My breath came hard and quick. I was staring at Lokkaru, who held my future in the fractured, glittering remnants of her mind. I needed to breach it, to find the lost heartstone.

Without that heartstone, I had no power.

Lozza had promised me freedom and safety—a life free from vovic—when he’d sent me from the Dead Mountain. I’d entered his mind as he promised me that. And while I couldn’t read thoughts, I could read emotions. Lozza had been amused. There had been deceit in his mind, naturally, but whether it was a lie about a possible antidote, or a lie about releasing my family and me…I didn’t know.

The only way forward was to have hope that there was an antidote. When I returned to the Dead Mountain with the heartstone, I would use my gift on Lozza, in front of all of his council, in front of his wives and children, in his darkened hall. I would force him to give me the antidote, the antidote that would free us from vovic’s clutches forever.

His council, his family, might think it was strange that he would give it over to me, a lowly slave. But it wouldn’t be as suspicious as if I had forced him to give it to me at any other time. In their eyes, we would be settling an agreement we’d made. I would hand him a heartstone as he handed me the antidote, after all.

No. There was an antidote. I had to believe that. Or we were as good as dead.

I could only rely on myself. No one else. Not even Davik, who’d promised me everything I’d wanted while taking my choices away.

With that thought in mind, I strode forward and crouched at Lokkaru’s side. If entering Davik’s mind multiple times gave me his memories then perhaps with Lokkaru it would be the same. I could harvest her memories and if I was lucky I would find the one I wanted. But it was better than doing nothing at all. It was my only chance.

I gathered my power in front of me, building it in the space between myself and the older Dakkari female. It came easily. So much more easily than it normally did, more evidence that it was growing stronger, more powerful.

Then I pressed forward…

Into coldness. Into nothingness.

A ragged gasp tore from my throat like a sob and I stumbled back, nearly toppling over the fire basin that was burning low in the voliki. My back hit her workbench, rattling my spine, toppling blue columns of candles around me, which thudded to the floor.

Horror and disbelief kept me sprawled, the icy tendrils of that brief intrusion into her mind crawling over my skin.

“Lokkaru?” I whispered, afraid. Nausea built up in my belly.

Oh gods.

Then I was scrambling up from the ground, throwing more fuel onto the fire so it roared to life.

So I could see.

And when I looked back at Lokkaru, I saw what I feared. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly curled in a secretive smile, one she’d worn earlier just that afternoon.

But her chest didn’t move with her breaths. When I touched her hand, lying stiffly at her side, it was cold.

Oh gods.

She was dead.