Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Epilogue

Two moon cycles later…

“Leikavi,”Davik hissed, his tone warning.

I smiled, kneeling between his legs in the washing tub. My hand was already curled around his cock, which jutted from the water, throbbing and hot. I leaned forward, lapping at the head as my horde king’s groan reverberated around our voliki.

I had been teasing him for the last few moments, alternating between stroking him and suckling him. Our nightly bathing sessions always ended the same way…with me on my back or on my knees or straddling his hips.

But I enjoyed teasing him. Pleasing him. When I’d regained my strength after the Dead Mountain, we had been ravenous for one another…and that drive and need had not diminished in the weeks afterwards. It had only seemed to grow.

The thick column of his throat strained when he tilted it back. I licked his cock and I felt some of his seed land on my tongue, just a taste, just the beginning of what was to come. Some nights, he would let me suckle and kiss his cock until he released into my mouth. Other nights, he would spend the entirety of the evening with his head between my thighs until I had to beg him for mercy, for reprieve. And other nights, like this night, I knew my horde king was already on edge and wouldn’t allow me to tease him much longer.

And just as I knew, when I lapped at the slit of his cock, eager for more seed, he growled, leaping from the bath with me in his arms.

He didn’t bother to dry us off. He brought us close to the fire basin instead, dropping us both down onto the rugs lining our voliki, spreading my legs wide...

A shuddered moan tore from my throat when he thrust inside me. It was powerful and impatient and intense. I had teased my husband too long, it seemed.

My arms went overhead and his head dropped, tonguing my bared breasts, lapping at the water to dry them. A smile crossed my features when he pulled back to look at my face, his hips pumping ferociously between my thighs.

His eyes heated when he saw my grin. He kissed me, stroking his tongue against mine as a shuddered sigh escaped me, as he clasped my hands in his, bringing our bodies closer together until his chest was plastered to mine, until I could feel his heartbeat strumming across my sensitive skin, until I could feel his dakke humming against my clit.

“You like your pleasure, rei Morakkari?” he rasped against me, squeezing my hands in his. “You like when I slide my cock deep inside you, when I suckle on your breasts, and make you come for me?”

“Yes,” I whispered, my back arching. “You feel so good.”

His rough groan lit me up from the inside.

I heard every sound—every shuddering gasp, every slap of our flesh as he drove inside me harder and deeper, every whispered word he murmured in my ear, alternating between sweet words that made my heart throb and words that made my blood burn with desire.

Gods, I loved him.

His Vorakkar cuffs pressed into the golden markings around my wrist, the markings I’d received after our tassimara, after I’d become Morakkari to his horde and tied myself to him for the rest of our lives—after he’d become my husband and tied himself to me for the rest of our lives.

And I swore, as our hands were connected, as he looked deep into my eyes, and he slid deep inside me…I swore I felt something familiar, sparked by the love and awe I felt with every part of my being.

I swore I felt a sparking of energy, that familiar warmth tingling through my mind.

My lips parted but then it was gone. But I’d felt it return to me, albeit briefly.

Maybe it hadn’t been extinguished forever.

My orgasm caught me by surprise when I felt Davik’s pace quicken. His cock was beginning to thicken inside me as I squeezed around him. A guttural cry tore from my throat but I never looked away from him. I wanted him to see what he did to me. I wanted him to know.

My body pulsed, the intense pleasure coming in waves. My lips curled with it.

“Lo kassiri tei,” he rasped in my ear. “Vok! Take it from me, leikavi!”

He continued to piston his hips between my legs, elongating my own pleasure…and then he was bellowing with his release, a rough cry filling the voliki, as I felt jets of his seed fill me, mark me.

It felt sublime. As it always did with him.

Afterwards, he made certain not to collapse on top of me, ever worried about the life that was beginning to grow within my womb. I’d discovered I was pregnant shortly after our tassimara and though my belly was only just beginning to round, Davik already fussed over me like I would give birth any moment.

I knew his question would come before he asked.

“Did I hurt you?” he murmured, pulling me into his arms, our skin warming from the fire basin, drying up the last of our bath water.

“No. Never,” I told him, giving him a small, happy, exhausted smile. No matter how many times I’d told him that, he always asked. He seemed to fear his own strength, whereas I barely gave it a second thought.

We rested in silence as I cuddled into his chest, our legs intertwining, his tail wrapping around my ankle, keeping me anchored to him. One of his hands came to rest on my growing belly…and it was only in these moments, when we were together, lying peacefully, that Davik ever seemed to truly relax.

He always had a million things on his mind. He was Vorakkar to a Dakkari horde, after all, and it was almost time to leave the eastlands. The seasons were changing again, as they always would, and truthfully, I was eager to see more of my home planet, beyond the eastlands, beyond the shadow of the Dead Mountain. Davik had promised me he would lead his horde south, so that I could see the Trikki and the glorious waterfalls and lush valleys that dotted the region.

Now that I was pregnant, he worried even more. A part of me wondered if he regretted replacing the heartstone in the ancient groves—which we’d done before our tassimara, together—because to him, the heartstone represented safety for me and for the life growing inside me, just in case anything happened.

But that was my horde king. He had experienced tragedy and loss in his life that no being should have to experience…and it had marked him and would always mark him in some way. Now that I was pregnant, his fear and worry that I too would be taken from him had doubled because now he fretted over the life inside me, the life we’d created together, the life he already loved so dearly that sometimes it brought tears to my eyes just thinking about it.

I did my best to reassure him but I knew that it would take time. I had faith that we would live out a very long life with one another, that we would watch our children grow—because there would be many—and that his fears were unwarranted.

I pressed a kiss to the scar on his cheek, pressing closer, holding him tighter. He was at peace now, that was what mattered.

“I saw Hedna with your sister today,” Davik murmured after a brief, comfortable silence had passed.

“Mmm, he is hopelessly in love with her, isn’t he?” I murmured, though I felt a little solemn at the thought.

And though I thought my sister returned Hedna’s feelings to some extent, it would be quite some time before she would trust the pujerak fully. If she ever could.

Hedna was a good male. He was everything I wanted for my sister—loyal, kind, hardworking. Sometimes, he even made her laugh, a sound I hadn’t heard for over a year. He would worship the ground Viola walked on if he could. But my sister’s abuse under the Dead Mountain had changed her. There was a hardened glint in her gaze that had never been there before, though I’d been pleased to see her smiling more in the last month she’d been at the horde.

My whole family had been doing that, as if they were finally beginning to realize that this was home now. That they were safe here. They were all finding a place within the horde in their own way. My mother worked with the bikku, cooking for the horde, something that kept her away for long hours but something she enjoyed doing. Maxen worked with the weapons master, the mitri, learning how to forge Dakkari steel. Eli worked with crops and the harvesting of them.

It was Viola that had surprised us all because she’d expressed her interest in working with the pyroki. She spent her days in the enclosure with them, helping the mrikro clean and feed and train the young pyroki. It was hard, grueling work most days. I would watch her work in the enclosure and admire her determination, seeing sweat dot her brow and her arms shake as she mucked out the pen. But it was with the pyroki that I had first seen her smile and I understood why she’d chosen them.

“And maybe one day, she will decide that Hedna makes her happy. Maybe one day, she will decide to take that chance on him, to trust him,” I whispered to Davik.

“He would be good to her.”

“I think Viola knows that,” I murmured. “Deep down.”

Davik pulled me closer, pressing a kiss to my hair. The memory of my dream from last night returned to me. And I knew that it would be a good time to tell him…when he was at peace and settled against me because I wasn’t certain how he would take it.

“Davik?”

“Lysi?”

I lifted my gaze to meet his.

“I—I had a dream last night.”

He blinked at my words, his muscles tightening against me ever so slightly. It would’ve been barely noticeable had I not been pressed so close to him.

“What was it?” he asked slowly.

“I’m not entirely certain,” I said truthfully. “It was jumbled but it felt calm. I didn’t see anything. It was more like I felt the dream, like how I used to feel others’ emotions.”

“And what did you feel?”

I took a small breath in and said, “I think it was Devina.”

Davik didn’t say anything, though I knew he was holding himself very still. He still saw the shadows of beings long dead. He always had and he always would. But ever since that night after I’d woken, that night he’d told me about what happened to his twin, he had never seen Devina appear to him again. Not in shadowed form, at least.

He knew that Lokkaru had come to me in a dream. I’d told him that was how I’d known where to find the heartstone. He knew that I’d dreamed memories of his and that Devina had given me her own memories as well.

Last night had been similar and yet different. Given that I’d sworn I felt my gift sparking inside me again, I wondered if the dream was another sign that my power was beginning to flicker to life.

“I felt her, the way I had when she’d appeared here, inside the voliki. Her energy was warm and loving. Happy,” I whispered, giving him a small smile. I was nervous, I realized, telling him this.

“Did…did she say anything?”

“Not directly. I didn’t hear her voice. But when I woke…”

“Lysi?”

My eyes had already begun to shimmer with tears. “When I woke, I knew. I knew what she had told me in the dream though she hadn’t spoken a single word.”

My hand settled over his, pressing it closer to my belly.

“There isn’t just one child,” I told him. “I know that there are two. A boy and a girl. To be born together.”

His pupils dilated at my words, his breath hitching in his voice.

“Twins?” he rasped.

“Yes,” I whispered, giving him a wobbly smile. Being pregnant meant I was an endless waterfall of tears and almost all of them were happy ones. “I didn’t know how you’d feel about it.”

He’d lost his twin after all and it had nearly destroyed him. I couldn’t imagine how strong that bond must be. There was a magic in twins, a special bond that couldn’t be explained.

And our children would share that bond. Even now, they shared it.

Davik kissed me, hard and thoroughly, making relief thread through me as I clutched him closer. He tasted my tears before he kissed them away.

“I cannot wait for them to come, leikavi,” he rasped, his voice shaking from deep emotion I felt even in me. “Though I enjoy having you all to myself too.”

I grinned.

“You will be a wonderful father,” I told him. I knew that as certainly as I knew there were two lives growing inside me. I kissed him again. My tone turned teasing when I whispered, “Think of all the stories we can tell them.”

He groaned.

“The story of a Vorakkar who stole a heartstone from an ancient tree,” I whispered.

“The story of a white-haired sorceress who brought a Ghertun king to his knees,” he rasped, quirking a brow. I chuckled.

“Or my favorite one,” I said.

“Mm, which one is that?” Davik asked, his eyes bright as he looked at me.

Leaning up, I pressed a kiss to his lips, feeling his grip tighten on my hips.

Against him, I whispered, “The story of a human girl who fell in love with a Vorakkar.”