Claimed By the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Fourteen

When I woke the next morning, I knew where I was the moment I opened my eyes.

I knew that I was naked, flushed and warm, my lips and fingertips tingling, wrapped in the demon king’s arms. My cheek felt raw from where the rope had whipped me.

My first coherent thought was, He is still here?

Usually when I woke in the mornings, he had already left, gone to seek out his duties for the day. Usually, I only saw him again after nightfall, when he returned to the tent, which I now knew was called a voliki in Dakkari.

The night before returned to me in an instant. The winds, the fence crashing, the ensuing chaos in freezing rain, the hides ripping up from the tents as families rushed to save their homes.

And then what happened afterwards…

The icy coldness that spread through my body after hours of being exposed outside. Any ounce of warmth was immediately sucked away. I remembered the demon king taking me inside, stripping me, placing me in the bathing tub of hot, painful water as heat prickled through my limbs. I remembered his gentleness…I remembered him calling me brave.

My limbs were all around him, clinging to him. Legs between his own, one arm draped over his abdomen, my face pressed into his warm neck, my breasts pushed against the massive barrel of his chest.

It embarrassed me. But I was warm, that frightening coldness banished from the night before.

When I dared to pull my head away and braved meeting his eyes, I found that he was already awake. I found those eyes on me, half-lidded from sleep, yet somehow still alert.

The need to say something, anything, made my throat tighten, but a single sound would not emerge.

It was him that broke the silence between us.

“I think I wish to keep you in my bed, thissie,” he rasped, his voice dark and rich. “I thought it was I warming you, but it was you warming me through the night.”

My face went hot but when I went to pull away, his arms tightened around me, keeping me in place. One of his arms was underneath my head, cradling my neck, the other was draped over my hips. I felt his palm grip me there and my skin had never felt so hot before.

Though he held me in place, I didn’t feel the fear I’d felt before. For a strange reason, I knew he would never touch me, or try to take from me, if I did not wish for it. I felt that truth deep in my gut.

I think I surprised myself with that realization because I frowned, my brow furrowing together.

His grey eyes flickered between mine and he asked, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” I replied quickly, not wanting him to know the direction of my thoughts. “I’m quite warm now,” I informed him, hoping he would take the hint to let me go.

“I know.”

“Why are you still here?”

“Because I wanted to be certain that you were alright,” he replied, his expression changing from slightly amused to serious. “You made me worry last night, thissie.”

His words made my hands curl into his chest unexpectedly. No one had ever worried about me before and I didn’t know how his admission made me feel.

“I’m alright,” I assured him softly.

“And this?” he asked next, bringing his hand from its place on my hip to gently brush over the rope mark on my cheek. “It will bruise.”

“I’m alright,” I repeated, swallowing thickly at his touch. Because I felt an uncomfortable sensation building in my chest, I asked him, “What does thissie mean?”

“That reminds me,” he murmured, not answering my question for the hundredth time. “I have a gift for you.”

Why was it that the prospect of a gift made my breath hitch and excitement flood my belly? I was discovering that I liked gifts very much—my new clothes, my dagger, and my rock most of all—and I wondered in the back of my mind if I should be embarrassed about that. Jana would tell me I was being greedy.

His fingers moved at the nape of my neck, sliding up into my hair. My scalp tingled pleasantly as my treacherous and curious tongue asked, “What is it?”

The demon king seemed content to look at me for another long moment, his eyes tracing over my face. But then he shifted and rolled away from me, pushing up from the bed. His sculpted backside met my eyes as chilly, frigid air rushed forward to take his place.

Wrapping the furs tighter around me, I watched as he moved to the three chests lining the opposite side of the tent. I’d never seen him open them before and I’d often been tempted to snoop inside, though I’d denied that curiosity.

Still, it didn’t stop me pushing up and sitting on the edge of the bed, craning my neck around him to try to catch a peek.

The horde king lifted the lid on one and took something from within it. I spied silks and sheer things, something glittering gold and blue, before he closed the chest again.

His expression was knowing when he turned back to me and saw me trying to look into the chest.

“You cannot help yourself, can you, kalles?” he murmured, his lips quirking.

My eyes darted to his closed fist and I said, distracted, “No.”

When my gaze caught on his cock, still hard and erect and bobbing as he walked, I felt my belly tumble, though it wasn’t…unpleasant. It was the opposite, in fact, and I didn’t know how to feel about that either.

He stopped in front of me, drawing my eyes away from his cock, and I tilted my neck back to look into his eyes. He reached for me and helped me stand as I clutched the heavy furs around my body.

Whatever was in his hand, he looped it around my neck and I felt something familiar settle just above my breasts.

When I looked down at his gift, I sucked in a shocked breath, my nose tingling with tears as unexpected emotion flooded my chest.

My vision went blurry as I gently reached for the pendant of the necklace he’d given me.

They were Blue’s feathers. Cleaned and soft and shining. The bases of the whitened, pointed shafts were embedded in a spherical gold clasp, keeping them secured to the chain of the necklace.

I’d thought them burned, gone forever, but he must’ve taken them from my old clothes when I’d been sick with fever.

“Now you will not lose them,” he said.

A tear fell down my cheek and I dashed it away with the back of my hand before I looked up at him.

“I would have given them to you sooner, but they were brought back to me just yesterday. There is an older female in the horde, one who crafts jewelry and trinkets. She made it.”

I smiled up at him, overwhelmed that he would give me such a precious thing. When he saw my smile, something in his expression changed.

“Thank you,” I whispered, delighted and happy with the gift, reaching out to take his hand, lightly squeezing his palm. Before I pulled away, he threaded his fingers between my own and kept me close until the furs I had wrapped around me brushed his chest. “I thought they were gone.”

“Why are they so important to you?” he asked softly, his eyes flickering to the feathers.

“She was my companion for a few years,” I told him. “I found her in the Dark Forest with a broken wing, fluttering on the ground. I took her back to my village and fed her and cared for her for a long time. I named her Blue because of her feathers. She couldn’t fly anymore, but I think she was happy and so was I.” I looked down at the pendant, feeling his fingers tighten briefly. “Then I woke one morning and found her dead. I don’t know why. But I took some of her feathers to remember her and then buried her in the Dark Forest because that’s what we did with Jana when she died.”

His hand came to my cheek and he tilted my face back so I met his grey, stormy eyes. It was then I realized I was growing used to his touch. It was then I realized I could easily grow to crave it, to need it.

“Thissies prefer the mild seasons towards the south, so it is very abnormal to find one so far east. But perhaps you were meant to find your thissie. Perhaps Kakkari wanted you to.”

My lips parted as realization hit me. “Blue was a thissie?”

He inclined his head.

“But why do you call me one?”

“Because I saw you that first night in the woods outside your village. I saw the thissie feathers on your arrow and thought that you were very much like one. Watchful, rare, and beautiful.”

I’m not beautiful, I wanted to inform him. But then I realized I didn’t want to. If he thought I was beautiful, then I would allow him to continue thinking that. It made a strange thrill race down my spine at the prospect.

A strong desire to know his name entered my mind. “Does this mean that we’re friends now?”

His lips quirked. “You wish to be friends with me, thissie?”

My bare toes curled into the rug underneath my feet when he said that word. Because now I knew what it meant and why he called me it.

“Yes.”

“Very well, we can be friends.”

“So that means you have to tell me your name,” I informed him as his fingers began to stroke over my own. “That’s how it works, right? That’s what the seamstress told me.”

His laugh was husky and warm, contrasting against the bitter temperature in the voliki.

“Relentless,” he murmured gently. “Nik, kalles, I quite like our games. But since we are friends now, I will give you another chance with the bow once the winds die down. Lysi?”

I was eager for the bow again and I nodded, looking back down at Blue’s feathers, admiring the pendant and the chain, only mildy disappointed I wouldn’t know the demon king’s given name that morning.

“I won’t miss again,” I told him. “I’ll have your name when the winds are gone. I am quite determined.”

“Then I may just have to raise the stakes to deter you,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

He laughed again and I felt it all the way to my toes. He pulled away and began to dress.

“You will find out, thissie.”