Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Fifty-Three

“What are you thinking of, leikavi?”

Davik’s quiet voice pierced the silence that had built between us.

After he’d told me of his sister, we’d returned to the voliki. Davik had held me against him in the washing tub, though I’d already bathed earlier, and though my arms had shook with the effort, I’d helped him wash his hair and scrub his skin clean. His eyes had been on me the entire time, careful and observant.

Now, we lay in our bed of furs, my cheek pressed to his chest. I listened to the solid thump of his heartbeat as his clawed fingers trailed down my naked back. I’d lost a lot of weight during the week. I felt my raised bones meeting his touch.

We had hardly spoken in the bath. I was still struggling to process the horrific tragedy that had fallen upon Devina—and his mother and father—that had fallen upon him.

As he asked the question, I heard the hesitation in his voice.

It only occurred to me then that my silence might have been misinterpreted as discomfort or wariness.

“Davik,” I breathed, knowing what he thought. As if on instinct, I tried to gather the energy of my gift in front of me, only to feel my heart throb in memory that it was gone.

“I had wondered if it would change the way you saw me,” he murmured. “Knowing what I did to them.”

“Well, it doesn’t,” I rasped, sitting up in bed, clutching the furs to my naked breasts. “How could you think it would?”

Davik sat up too, his golden tattoos swirling in the firelight that filled the voliki.

“You have known death. You have seen violence,” Davik told me. “What I did went beyond that though. That night, the ones that came after, Mala—”

“Don’t say her name here,” I whispered.

He blew out a breath, but continued, “Those nights were the ugliest, most monstrous part of me.”

“I think you think that,” I told him, reaching out to take his hand. “But I don’t. Maybe that is wrong of me but you rid this world of two terrible beings, in a way they deserved. Does a part of me wish that they were rotting away in the Dothikkar’s dungeons right now? Thinking about the horrific things they did to an innocent female and her family? Knowing they would die in darkness and filth? Yes. But I don’t think you could move on, knowing they breathed, knowing they still lived. I would never think less of you for that, Davik. Their lives were yours, to do with as you pleased, the moment they took your family from you.”

Davik was staring at me in surprise.

I licked my lips. “Whatever happened to her? Is she gone too?”

“I do not know, nor have I ever tried to find out,” Davik said quietly. “If she lives, she would never dare to show her face to me now. Undoubtedly, she heard that I am a Vorakkar now.”

“Is it terrible of me to wish she is dead?” I whispered. “Is it terrible for me to wish that, knowing what she did to you? And if she is not, then I wish I could wield the heartstone’s power all over again to end her life.”

We had barely spoken of Mala. After he’d told me of her, the Ghertun had been near the encampment and Lokkaru had died that same night.

His forehead touched mine.

“My female is perhaps as bloodthirsty as I am,” he murmured.

“Then maybe we are perfect for one another,” I told him.

I let out a shuddering breath against him, feeling his warmth against me deflating some of the sudden rage burning hot in my breast.

“I love even the ugly parts of you,” I whispered. His eyes flicked to mine. “Don’t doubt that, Davik. Promise me.”

“I promise, leikavi,” he murmured, touching his lips to mine, and my eyelids fluttered closed with that sweet kiss, so at odds with what we’d just been discussing. I clutched at his shoulders as his tongue stroked mine. Despite my exhaustion, I felt my blood begin to heat. I pressed closer.

He growled, pulling away, running a hand over his face. “Nik, not for some time, Vienne.”

I knew he was right. My body was in no state to take him, to take his strength.

Still, I sighed when he pulled me close again, my skin humming.

A thought occurred to me then—making me tense—brought forward by our conversation.

“Where is the heartstone, Davik?”

“Here,” he murmured.

I assumed he meant in the voliki, likely hidden away where I’d stolen it from in the first place.

“You took it from the tree,” I murmured. “Why?”

“Wasn’t it obvious?” he rasped. “When I found you at the tree…you were writhing in pain, black veins all over you. I was terrified that you were dying and I was very determined that that would not happen. I was always going to use it, if I found Lozza had no cure for the vovic.”

My hands trembled, remembering that dangerous power. “I am thankful that you didn’t.”

He hesitated.

“Davik?” I whispered, feeling his hesitation prickle at the base of my neck.

“I did try,” he admitted.

I froze, tensed, my heart skipping several beats.

“What?”

I struggled to face him again, my gaze darting between his eyes.

“Two days ago. You were not waking. I feared…I feared you never would. So I tried to use it,” he murmured. Dread pooled in my belly and I was only marginally relieved when he said, “It did not work. I think the power was still depleted. It barely glowed.”

“Why would you do that?” I cried softly. Suddenly, I felt that anger that he’d told me about. He had tried to use the heartstone for me…but if I had woken up only to find he was gone from this world, it would have destroyed me. Now, I finally understood the magnitude of the fear and fury Davik had felt when he’d seen me under the Dead Mountain. “Gods, Davik. Why?”

“Because I love you, Vienne,” he rasped, as if it wasn’t obvious to me already. His hands were shaking when he took my face in them, holding me still. “I would have done anything to help you. Your family…they need you. I watched your mother cry over you for days. I thought that as long as you had them—”

“I need you,” I cried. I was so grateful that it hadn’t worked, that maybe the heartstone’s power was depleted or needed significant time to recharge. “Let’s make a deal, Davik.”

I cupped his hand, which was on my cheek.

“When I am stronger again, let’s return the heartstone to the ancient groves,” I said, my voice trembling. “We are the only ones alive that know where it is. Let’s keep it that way.”

“There are those that know of its existence now, leikavi. Rath Kitala. His darukkars. My darukkars. We cannot keep the heartstone a secret any longer. Word will reach the Dothikkar eventually.”

“I don’t believe that,” I murmured. “I think Rath Kitala saw how dangerous it was. I don’t believe your hordesmen would betray you, just as I don’t believe Rath Kitala’s would either.”

Davik took in a deep breath, thinking over my words.

“Let’s return it to the tree,” I whispered. “And never speak of it again. We will never tell a soul about it, just as you’d always intended. Let’s make it lost again.”

His red eyes glowed in the darkness.

He inclined his head.

“Lysi. When you are stronger, we will go.”

Relief threaded through me. My eyes couldn’t help but stray towards the chest where I believed he’d hidden it again.

He turned me so I looked at him. He must’ve seen something in my expression because he rasped, “What is it, leikavi?”

“I’m alive,” I whispered.

His gaze shuddered. “Kakkari spared you though you used her power. I feared that she would ask a price.”

“She did,” I told him quietly, saying the words that had been building up since I’d woken. Davik had been the first I’d thought of telling. Because he would understand. Even my family wouldn’t understand like he would.

His brow furrowed. “Neffar?”

“My gift is gone,” I said. His pupils dilated, his frown deepening. “That was Kakkari’s price. That is why I’m still alive.”

“Completely?” he rasped.

I nodded.

“Leikavi…”

“I don’t know how to be without it, Davik. My gift was like a flame. Once it was sparked when I was young, it continued to grow more and more powerful until it burned bright and raged inside me,” I whispered.

I’d always felt it evolving over the years. But the last month…that had been its most powerful.

Perhaps for a reason, I realized suddenly. Perhaps because I was meant to help those under the Dead Mountain. Maybe Kakkari had always meant for me to use her heartstone. Maybe everything had worked out as it was meant to.

Like…like my fate had already been written.

“Now it’s been extinguished. It’s empty inside me, I can feel it. And I don’t know if it will spark again or if it’s gone forever…but either way,” I whispered, looking at him, giving him a soft, wobbly smile, “I’m all right with this. You cannot receive something without giving something in return. There has to be balance. Lokkaru’s father understood that. And he paid a much steeper price than I had to, so I am grateful that this was all Kakkari asked of me. Because it means I get to be with you. With my family.”

I had wielded the ultimate power and then all my power had left me. A balancing to the universe. It had been necessary. It had been inevitable.

Something settled within me.

It was acceptance.

There were things beyond us all, things we would never understand, and this was one of them.

Davik was still frowning at me, concerned, but I gave him a smile, which softened his severe features.

“Everything worked out the way it was meant to,” I told him, pressing my hands to his chest, cuddling into his warmth. He made me feel safe and protected. He made me feel cherished. “Now, I’m excited to look forward, not back.”

The past would forever remain unchanged. In all of its ugliness, in all of its sweetness, it did not matter. But this was now.

Things were changing and shifting. They always would. And I wanted to be at Davik’s side as they did.

He tipped my face up to kiss me. Soft and slow. A kiss that made my skin tingle and my belly warm with happiness.

“I did not ask before,” he murmured against me, pulling away so he could look into my eyes. “I simply demanded.”

“About what?” I whispered, confused.

“I told you once that I never intended to take a Morakkari,” he continued and realization made my lips part. “I did not think myself worthy of one.”

My heart squeezed in my chest because I knew he spoke what he believed to be the truth, even though it was the furthest thing from it.

“And I know that I do not deserve you, Vienne,” he rasped, “but when I saw you in Dothik, you called to me. This small, beautiful creature had suddenly come into my life and I think even then I knew that something was changing. That something was being set into motion and I was helpless to stop it.”

He stroked my face, the expression in his eyes one of awe…and if I’d ever doubted what he felt for me before, I only needed to look at him now to know the unparalleled truth.

Because the Mad Horde King had fallen in love with a white-haired human slave turned sorceress.

“I will spend the rest of our lives proving to you that I am worthy of your love, leikavi,” he promised. “So I will ask you now…will you be my Morakkari? My mate, my queen to the horde, my wife?”

I’d cried more times than I could count in my life, so it was no surprise when the tears fell down my cheeks now.

“You have nothing to prove to me, Davik,” I told him. “I will love you regardless. And I will love you as your Morakkari. Until the end of our days.”

His voice was gruff when he asked, “Promise?”

I didn’t need my gift to feel his relief, his happiness, his love.

“I promise.”