Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Six

“Icame to say only what I told the Dothikkar,” the human kalles said softly. “I can say no more.”

“Under this Ghertun king’s order?” I asked, leaning back in the chair, spreading my legs wide until I was comfortable.

“Lozza?” she whispered, her gaze shuttering. “Yes.”

“You will tell me everything,” I said, trying to keep my voice soft but failing.

I lived on the harsh and unforgiving plains of Dakkar. I trained horde warriors, I protected my people, I kept my gaze away from the shadows, and I fucked when the need grew too great. That was my life. I knew few comforts and certainly could not offer any to this wisp of a kalles, one so delicate she seemed like she could float away at any moment. I had been made into a horde king, forged in rage and sculpted by pain and hatred. It was all I knew.

I didn’t think I could be gentle or soft, even if I tried.

And this leikavi, this white-haired beauty with sad eyes…I feared I could destroy her without meaning to.

“Are you loyal to this king?” I asked, watching her closely, rubbing at the edges of the scar on my cheek.

She remained silent on that subject, but I spied the tightening of her lips. Nik, not loyal. Fearful.

“Were you…were you ordered to interrogate me for your Dothikkar? Is that why I’m here?” she asked, making my brows raise and my tail flick near my ankles. Her eyes strayed to the tip of it and she couldn’t hide the morbid curiosity in her gaze as she watched it twitch. “You—you could have just kept me in the dungeons. You didn’t have to bring me up here.”

“Asking me questions now?” I grinned at her and heard her small intake of breath. “There is the brave kalles I spied before. The same one who struck me across the face without thinking about the consequences.”

Her gaze dropped to her lap. A servant’s gaze, I knew. A slave’s gaze. One crafted from submission and, more than likely, punishment.

If I needed to scare her into giving me the answers I needed, I would. Undoubtedly. If the message she’d brought was true, Dakkari lives were at stake. Hundreds, thousands of lives could be lost if a war came to Dothik, not only lives in the capital, but across the hordes, across the outposts.

The Dothikkar would call them all to war if necessary. And they were duty-bound to answer. I needed to determine if the threat was legitimate or not.

“Trust me, leikavi,” I murmured, standing from my seat, watching her tense, “when I say that there will be consequences if you do not give me the answers I seek. You have never seen a Vorakkar before so perhaps you do not know the lengths to which we will go to protect our hordes. And the news you bring? The message you bring? It is a threat against us all.”

Her chest was heaving. She still never looked up from her lap.

I dropped down onto the cushion across from her. I snagged the goblet of brew and pressed it to her lips. “Drink, kalles.”

Her eyes went wide but her lips parted. When she had a healthy swallow, I removed it and set it down close to her trembling hand, which was pressed against the table. The brew was watered down, but it could still be quite potent and I needed her tongue loosened.

Vienne’s expression wasn’t quite a glare and my eyes lingered on her lips, where she licked a drop of the brew away. More blood rushed to my already hard cock. Not for the first time, I cursed myself, knowing I should’ve returned to the brothel last night after I’d left her. When had I ever reacted to a female like this? Never. Even when I was younger, when desire and lust had ridden me hard.

But vok, that little fire in her gaze made me restless. It made my trews tight and my dakke, the firm bump above my aching cock, heat and swell.

My jaw ticked and I asked, “You came all the way from the Dead Mountain? To Dothik?”

Her chin lifted, ever so slightly.

“You did not,” I said. “Not wearing only a cloak.” I reached underneath the table, ignoring her gasp, and I traced the soles of her bare feet with the tip of one claw. I felt blisters and sores, hardened callouses there, but not as many as there would have been had she traveled all the way from the Dead Mountain. They’d be ravaged raw. “And no protection for your little feet.”

She tugged her foot away and I let her.

“Nik, the Ghertun brought you here. Or close. Where?”

Her gaze dropped again, down to the table of food. I felt a twinge of pity that I had not let her eat more before I began my questioning. Then I ignored it.

A small flush was beginning to make its way up the column of her neck. The brew was no doubt warming her belly quickly, especially if she hadn’t eaten in a long while.

“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “I can’t say anything more. He would know.”

“Lozza?” I chuffed. “Do you see him here?”

She didn’t trust me. Not one bit. I made her wary, on edge, like I did most beings. After she’d left the great hall, after the Dothikkar had stormed from it shortly after her departure, no doubt wanting to sink his frustrations and fears into one of his concubines for the evening, the Vorakkars had been left alone to speak.

With the exception of Rath Dulia—who would climb up the Dothikkar’s rear end if he could—we were all in agreement that the vekkiri needed to be questioned. We needed to know if the message was a serious threat and, more importantly, how great an army this Ghertun king truly had. We’d all heard the reports from the scouts. The Ghertun’s numbers grew rapidly. They fucked and bred like nekkisau in heat. It was reported they birthed in litters.

Rath Tuviri and Rath Kitala had wanted to question her, seeing as how their Morakkaris were human. They believed they could put Vienne at ease.

Only, I’d gotten to her first and I only wished I could see Rath Kitala’s face when he ventured down to the dungeons later this night to find her gone.

I told myself it had nothing to do with the fact that I wanted to see her, to speak with her again. I told myself I was doing my duty as Vorakkar, to my horde, to the Dakkari I had sworn an oath to protect. I didn’t trust anyone else.

Vok, I didn’t even trust myself.

“We can protect you,” I murmured, keeping my voice low until it sounded like a purr. “You do not have to return to the Dead Mountain. You can be free. We can return you to your village. You do not have to fear him.”

A laugh erupted from her, throaty, raw, and desperate. My nostrils flared with that laugh, my body tightening. I swore I felt hot, searing seed rising up my cock, the heat of it making me growl.

With a laugh like that, I almost believed the Dothikkar’s worry to be true. That she was a sorceress, that she’d been sent here to end us all. End me.

“You wish to protect me?” she whispered after her laugh died down. The pain in her voice was evident, cutting. “Then help me get a heartstone and return me to the Dead Mountain. I must be back before the black moon.”

The black moon would come in four weeks.

“Or what?” I growled.

She sucked in a whistling breath through her nostrils and she lifted her gaze to meet mine. Her eyes were wet and wide, but beneath their glassy surface, I saw determination.

Tendrils of heat curled low in my belly. That same possessive instinct, the one that wanted to claim her, burst in my chest once more.

Her hand curled around the goblet of brew and she brought it up to her lips, chugging down the liquid in one swift motion. I watched as she set it back down, licking the remnants from her lips. Underneath the table, I wrapped my hand around her slim ankle and her only reaction was a soft, audible swallow.

“I need to return by the black moon,” she repeated, holding my gaze. “Will you help me?”

I leaned forward, brushing my thumb against the soft flesh of her ankle. The inside of it felt like cool silk.

“And what price would you pay for the help of a horde king?” I taunted, a small smirk appearing. “What would you give me in return?”

Her chest heaved. Her eyes flickered in recognition.

“I would give you anything,” she replied, soft and determined, though her voice trembled as she said it.

A dark sound rose from my throat, wicked fantasies tearing at my mind. She knew exactly what I had meant. She knew exactly what she offered to me so freely.

“Lysi?” I rasped. “I am not a gentle male and I do not fuck like one.” Her ankle twitched in my grip. “You believe you could satisfy my desires?”

Her gaze burned into mine. Her brows lowered until I felt her small glare. She wanted to slap me across the face again but she was too frightened to.

“I—I would try.”

The room felt thick, the fire burning too hot. This was a dangerous game I played. I’d only meant to place her on the edge of discomfort but I feared it was I who suffered for it.

That was when I felt it again. The strange electric buzz around me, prickling the back of my neck, making me tense. My eyes never left hers and I watched them widen, watched her throat bob with her swallow. I knew it came from her. Three times now, I’d felt it, and only with her. I didn’t know what it was, or what it meant, but she was the cause.

I let her have her secrets, however, because she pushed to her knees, my hand releasing her ankle in the process. She came over to me, kneeling at my side. Warmth poured from her and when she slowly reached out to put her hand on my chest? She seared me.

Her fingers brushed a scar over my pectoral. Softly. Delicately. Like she feared hurting me. The thought would’ve made me laugh had I not tensed, my entire being focusing on that simple touch. All the blood that wasn’t diverted to my cock seemed to rush towards it, blooming under her fingers.

Acting purely on instinct, my hands shot out, curling around her slim waist and dragging her forward until she was in my lap, her thighs straddling my hips. Leaning forward, I angled my head and heard her startled gasp when I bit at her neck, hard. My tail wrapped around her leg, like I was afraid she’d pull away before I had a taste of her.

A part of me was tempted to take what she offered. Because right then, I would’ve liked nothing more than to bury myself in her hot cunt, to spend the seed boiling in my deva into her. Vok, I needed to!

“You do not know what you tempt, leikavi,” I growled, suddenly furious with her. Her scent wrapped around my mind, dulling my senses. No longer did she smell like rot and filth from whatever she’d used to hide the color of her hair. She smelled soft and warm, like a female in heat, and her scent made me crazed.

My hand wrapped around her white hair. It was like silk in my grip as I tugged her head back, exposing her throat, and I glared down into her widened eyes. Her throat bobbed with her swallow, her lips parted, a red mark from my teeth adorning her delicate flesh.

Like this, the sight of her almost made me come in my trews, especially when I saw her tightened nipples pressing into the hide of her tunic.

“Vok,” I cursed. Potent anger, mind-numbing desire, and that familiar hatred that swarmed my veins when I saw her hesitance rode me hard. I lashed out with, “You would whore yourself to a Vorakkar for this Ghertun king?”

She flinched and something faded from her eyes.

“I—” she started, her nostrils flaring.

I held her in an uncomfortable position, her back arched slightly, her chest straining towards me, the column of her neck exposed. She was vulnerable, completely at my mercy. And she knew it.

“I would do whatever it takes,” she whispered, suddenly as furious with me as I was with her.

She held my gaze as she spoke the words.

My jaw clenched. Then I asked her the one question that had been on my mind since she delivered her message.

“Why did he choose you?”

Why would a Ghertun king send a weak, malnourished, fearful little thing like her from the Dead Lands with an insurmountable task of infiltrating Dothik and delivering a message to the Dothikkar?

Before she could answer—not that she would, I knew—a fist slammed hard on the door of the room and it didn’t stop.

After a moment, the telltale sign of the lock being crushed vibrated the wood. And a moment later, a furious Vorakkar stepped through, his sword drawn. My sword was on the opposite end of the room and I cursed my own lack of foresight.

Rath Kitala leveled his blade at me and growled, “Release her now, Rath Drokka.”

My only response was a grin I didn’t feel.