Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Five

My body was beginning to waken from its frightened stupor.

I was sitting on the stone in the dark dungeon, gripping the fur cloak around my shoulders like it would be pulled away from me. It didn’t help that I was completely naked underneath it, my shift dress discarded.

I was sore. I was exhausted. I wasn’t hungry—though I hadn’t eaten anything in two days—only thirsty. And even with the furs, I was cold, shivering.

Had it been hours already since I’d delivered the message to the Dothikkar? Had night fallen?

The door to the dungeons echoed as it opened, but I paid it no mind. It had opened and closed countless times in the past few hours. Guards changing posts, perhaps. I huddled deeper into the cloak.

Long moments passed but then I felt a prickling on my neck. When I lifted my head, I froze.

Glowing red eyes peered down at me from the other side of the bars. I would’ve cried out in surprise had my throat not locked up, had my tongue not swelled in the cavern of my mouth.

It was him.

The Vorakkar.

With a quick flip of his fingers, I heard metal scraping and the door of my cell swung open.

“Come,” he said, his voice nothing but a growl. I was rooted in place, staring up at him. I wanted to stay in the dungeon. I didn’t want to move again.

Slowly, I rose on shaking legs. My lips felt dry. My tongue felt like it was coated in sand.

“Wh-where are you taking me?”

He didn’t reply—only watched me with his eerie gaze—and I swallowed, wondering if this was when I would die. Had I failed my family? Maman, Viola, Maxen, Eli? Would they remain under the Dead Mountain until they passed from this life?

My eyes were blissfully dry for once. I didn’t want him to see me cry. Not again.

Given no other choice, I stepped from the cell. My left leg twinged, muscles and tendons giving out from underneath me. Before I hit the hard ground, the Vorakkar caught me in his arms and, before I knew it, swung me up until he carried me against his broad chest.

My limbs went still, my body tense, my leg throbbing. He walked from the dungeon as my eyes flickered around. The guards stationed there simply looked the other way as we emerged into the familiar darkened hallway.

I didn’t speak as he walked us up the endless staircase. The staircase that had winded me until I was gasping didn’t even raise his heartbeat. I could feel its steady, strong rhythm against my arm, whereas mine was fluttering like a caged beast’s.

Instead of heading towards the throne room when we made it to the first landing, he continued up the staircase, rising, rising. We emerged on the next story of the keep, a lavish, carpeted hallway appearing when he exited left.

When we passed an open door, I saw there were rooms, private quarters. When we passed a closed door, I heard a moan echoing behind it and then the sound of skin against skin. Rhythmic sounds, animalistic groans followed.

Realization hit me.

My breaths came out quicker as panic took hold. Just like last night, I came to the conclusion that the Vorakkar could do whatever he wished with me and I would be powerless against him. I knew my own strength. I hated how weak my body was. And I’d felt his desire pressed against my belly last night.

The Vorakkar walked to the end of the hallway and nudged opened the last door on the right. Once he crossed the threshold of the room, he kicked the door shut with his booted foot and it slammed against the frame, the loud sound making me jolt.

“Skittishkalles,” he murmured, his voice soft. “When you were so brave before.”

Surprise whistled from my throat, a pathetic breathy noise.

“Brave?” I whispered.

“What else frightens you, I wonder?” he asked next. I gasped when he set me down on a raised bed. A padded bed, like a cushion. It gave a little under my weight. His hand came to my hair. Tingles exploded across my scalp, running down my spine when he stroked his hand through the long strands.

I pulled away, leaning back, casting my eyes around the room wildly, looking for something. Anything.

It was a spacious, comfortable room with lavish adornments, including the padded bed. The floor was carpeted with the softest rugs and tapestries. There was a golden basin in the corner, a fire crackling within it, warming my bones. I watched the flames dance for a brief moment before continuing my scan. A low table was in front of it, two cushions on the ground on either side. The table was filled with platters of food, but my eyes caught on a golden goblet, on the liquid glimmering inside.

There was a travel sack stuffed in the corner of the room and an open wardrobe next to it, filled with furs.

“Looking for a weapon, leikavi?” he asked, his tone almost amused.

The horde king stepped away from me, shedding the furs that stretched across his broad shoulders. When he turned to throw them over a rack by the door, I sucked in a sharp breath, my eyes widening at the sea of scars decorating his back.

He still wore criss-crossing straps across his chest, making an ‘X,’ and I saw two daggers strapped within them at his back. But he wore nothing underneath, allowing me the full visual of the wreckage of his skin.

I recognized the patterns to know he’d been whipped. Endlessly. The scar tissue was thick. The wounds had healed poorly, raised up from his flesh, winding all the way from the tops of his shoulders down to his trews, to where his tail protruded from them.

Was this the source of the darkness, of the pain and anger I’d sensed within him? It had to be. How could one endure this level of violence and malice without losing a little bit of their mind?

“Pretty, are they not?” he rasped and when my eyes met his, he gave me a dark grin, revealing sharpened teeth. The scar on his face was cast into shadow from the flickering fire but I knew it was there, only adding to the fearsome image.

I’d been right. He was insane.

“Why…why am I here?” I asked, my eyes snagging on the daggers sheathed into the straps on his ravaged back. I remembered when Maxen had tried to teach me how to wield a knife but I’d forgotten much of what he’d said.

He pulled the daggers from their places. The blades were gold, sparking reflections on the stone walls, and he placed them into a chest and locked it, slipping the key into a small pocket in his trews.

Next, he took off his sword. Thankfully, I could no longer hear the moans and gasps from a couple rooms over but I was still on edge, watching him.

“You look as if you expect me to devour you,” he commented, propping up the sword, still in its sheath, next to the locked chest.

Wouldn’t he?

“You look as if you have never seen a Dakkari before,” he said, cocking his head to the side, turning to face me fully, approaching me.

“I have,” I said.

He made a gravelly sound in his throat. “Then perhaps you have never seen a Vorakkar before.”

I licked my dry lips. Could he hear the thundering of my heartbeat? Could he see the way I shivered under the fur cloak?

“N-no,” I whispered. “I have not.”

Though a Vorakkar had ordered the attack on my village when I’d been young, though a Vorakkar had ordered my father—and many men in our village—to be killed for hunting, I’d never seen him. He’d waited outside the walls while his riders carried out his orders.

I wondered if this was the Vorakkar who’d been responsible for my father’s death. And if it wasn’t, I wondered if that Vorakkar had been in the throne room earlier this evening. My father’s murderer.

His clawed finger tucked up underneath my chin, the motion quick and frightening because his hand had been nothing but a blur. When he tilted my face up, forcing me to meet his eyes, he said, “We are going to discuss many things this night. But first, you will eat.”

My eyes widened. It was not what I’d expected him to say. A part of me had expected him to undress me, rip the furs away, and…and…

“Stop looking at me like that, kalles,” he growled, embers of his familiar rage firing in his gaze. “I already warned you once.”

Last night, I’d asked him if he would rape me. And he’d grown so enraged I’d used my gift on him as a precaution. He’d warned me with, “Never ask me that or I will give you something to fear.”

I dropped my gaze away when he walked to the wardrobe, pulling out a well-crafted brown tunic made from animal hide, buttery soft and smooth. He threw it over my lap before his hands began to pull at my furs.

Warm air brushed my skin and my nipples tightened almost painfully when I was exposed once more. I sat, still, with my head down, naked on a plush bed in the presence and possession of an insane Vorakkar.

My power was tapped out. I didn’t know when it would build again. I could escape, but only when I had it back…and I might need to use it on the Dothikkar instead.

His hand came to the shackles on my wrists and with a disturbing amount of ease, he crushed the lock and plucked them away from my skin.

Then he went still. I heard his soft exhales somewhere above me but I kept my gaze down in my lap, shifting my scraped, raw wrists until they covered my exposed sex from his view.

I don’t know what possessed me to do it but my gaze rose to meet his. Hesitantly. Slowly. Those red eyes were locked onto me and his nostrils flared when I peeked up at him. I could feel my heartbeat throbbing in my throat and I swallowed when the tips of his claws brushed the sensitive flesh there, down the column of my neck.

I felt it then. My power shifted inside me. It wasn’t strong enough to change his emotions but I sensed just a whisper of his anger. That same dark anger I’d felt before. Beyond that, though, I felt his desire, thick and potent, choking the air around me. The room seemed to change. The warmth turned to heat and another shiver raced down my spine. I wasn’t entirely certain it was from fear.

Lingering on the outskirts of that desire, I felt his confusion. His puzzled bewilderment. That I didn’t understand.

His touch lifted from my neck. The connection was lost, severed. Desperately, I sucked in a breath, as if I’d been held underwater for too long.

I was shaking, suddenly fearful, looking up at him with rounded, wet eyes. I’d never felt my gift respond that way before. But when I felt my belly tingle, when my body felt warm, I realized with panic that his emotions had become my own. Had he casted them into me?

The air felt thick and foggy between us. I felt a prick at the back of my neck, the tendrils of his throbbing anger. Then the reddened heat of arousal, of wicked desire, made me dizzy as it lingered, as it touched and caressed me.

And his eyes…those eyes were making me drown as desperation crawled its way up my throat. I was about to beg him to stop whatever he was doing, whatever he had done.

With a rough growl and a curse, he shoved the tunic over my head, pulling my arms through. I noticed he was careful not to touch my flesh and only when I was covered did he bite out, “Go eat.”

I rose on shaking legs, eager to retreat, limping over to the table in a hushed daze. I’d never met another being that could do what I did. I’d never given my gift much thought because it was something that I’d always had. Were there others with similar power? Was he one of them?

It certainly felt that way as I lowered myself onto the cushion, blinking down at the food, confused by how I’d gotten there.

The food looked decadent. I’d never seen so much in my life, all laid out in one place. Even the wealthier sibi under the Dead Mountain did not eat this much.

Across the room, in the corner, within arm’s reach of his sword, I saw the Vorakkar take a seat in a wide chair. It creaked under his weight and bulk as he rested his forearms on his knees, regarding me. The fire was warm on my back as I reached forward, selecting a cube of something unidentifiable. It was beige, however, and I’d eaten a lot of beige food in my lifetime.

When I popped it into my mouth and chewed, my eyes widened as flavors burst on my tongue. It was smoky and soft. Delicious. I had never had anything like it before.

I reached for another, just as the Vorakkar rasped, “Leikavi, we need to talk.”

The food turned to ash in my mouth.