Claimed By the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Seventeen

Throughout the quiet night, I slept restlessly beside the demon king. My dreams were filled of strange things, of warped memories, and when I woke, I was sweating and a throbbing, dull pain was radiating from below my abdomen.

The demon king was still in bed when I came awake.

Seerin, I corrected myself quietly. Seerin of Rath Tuviri, whose kiss made the whole night sky spin.

I let out a small breath when I cramped and breathed through it. I hadn’t missed this when I’d stopped bleeding, but now I remembered the pain well.

“What is it, thissie?” came his husky, sleep-roughened voice.

“Nothing,” I replied, not daring to meet his eyes. Something had changed last night. A line had been crossed that I couldn’t come back from.

I wanted more. I wanted to run. Whatever happened last night, I had the strange sense that it was only a matter of time…

Before what though?

I didn’t know. Yet time ticked by in my head regardless.

I sensed him shifting in the bed, moving furs. When his hand tilted my face up, his eyes narrowed on me, his features sharpening.

“You are in pain?” he asked, his voice losing its drowsy edge. “Where? I will call the healer.”

Could I hide nothing from him?

“It’s nothing,” I insisted, gritting my teeth. Jana had always told me to hide my bleeding time from men, though I didn’t know why.

He scowled. “Tell me now, Nelle.”

I let out a small, even breath as my cramping peaked again. His voice was sharp, the same tone he used with his warriors, the same tone that was both a warning and a command.

I swallowed and chanced a look at him. When my eyes strayed to his lips—remembering that now I knew the feel of them—I said quietly, “It’s just my bleeding time. It will pass.”

His shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, his muscles shifting under the expanse of his golden skin. I saw him daily, slept next to him during the nights, and somehow I always managed to forget how big he was.

“Why did you not just say?” he rumbled.

“Because…” I whispered. “I’m supposed to hide it.”

“It is natural, kalles,” he murmured. “There is no shame in it.”

I didn’t answer him as another wave of pain came and went. He rose from the bed, going to his cabinet on the far side of the tent. I couldn’t help when my eyes perused his body, glancing over the plethora of dark scars on his back that did nothing to hide the evidence of his strength and physical power.

I watched as he mixed together something in a goblet, filling it with the pitcher of fresh water that was always present in the voliki, before he brought it over to me.

“The kerisa left it here for you, if you felt any pain,” he explained, returning to me. I recognized the black liquid in the goblet and I took it from his hands, sitting up in the bed.

“Thank you,” I said quietly and drank it down. My eyes met his as he took the goblet away and set it beside the bed. I cleared my throat and asked, “My voliki will be ready today?”

His expression didn’t change. “Lysi.”

I nodded. He stood from the bed and began to dress.

The sudden silence between us felt different, charged and thick, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. To fill it, I asked, even as I began to tap on my wrist, “What is it that you do all day?”

“Today, I meet with my pujerak and the elders again,” he told me.

“About what?” I asked, grasping onto my curiosity as more cramping clenched my abdomen.

“I ride for Dothik soon,” he informed me, casting me a glance out of the corner of his eye as he shrugged on a fresh, thick tunic that molded to his flesh.

“What?” I asked, shocked, my fingers stilling. “But…but it’s the cold season. Surely you can’t travel now.”

“Worried for me, thissie?” he rasped, giving me the full weight of his attention.

I stilled under that gaze, pinned.

I licked my dry lips then I was reminded of his own. How they were impossibly soft yet firm, how I’d felt his heat through those lips. How his growl and his groan had reverberated inside me and awakened something fierce and aching.

Clearing my throat, I asked, “Why are you going now?”

“The Dothikkar requests his Vorakkars’ presence in the capitol when the moon is full,” he told me.

That was in less than two weeks’ time. Depending on how far away Dothik was, he would leave within the week.

“Are you taking the warriors with you?”

“Nik,” he said, fastening his pelt over his shoulders. “I go alone.”

I didn’t know what was bubbling up inside me—all I knew was that I didn’t like it. Biting my lip, I told him, “It’s foolish for you to go. It’s dangerous.”

“I will not be gone long,” he told me, studying me closely as he approached. “I will stay in Dothik for as long as I am required to be there and then return.”

Something sharp in his voice made me look more closely at him.

“You do not like Dothik?” I asked.

His eyes narrowed on me.

“But you grew up there, didn’t you?” I questioned, shamelessly trying to pry.

The corner of his lips quirked, but I sensed there was no amusement behind his smile. His expression was fierce, watchful, and dark.

“Do you like where you grew up, kalles?” he threw back, his voice mocking.

I sobered, but didn’t let him deter me. “What’s it like? The capitol?”

“Full of beings who only worship their gold, a stiff drink, and a good fucking,” he replied easily.

“Careful, Seerin,” I murmured, watching him, so strangely fascinated by his words that I didn’t even realize I’d used his name for the first time, “or else I might think that you’re bitter.”

“If you live in Dothik long enough, rei thissie,” he murmured, reaching out to brush my lips with his claws, making my breath hitch and my scalp tingle, “you are nothing but bitter.”

“Then I am glad you left,” I told him, the truth soft in my voice, “and sad you must return.”

His lips quirked again, but this time, I was relieved to see a familiar softness. His fingers left my lips and he pulled away. When he stepped towards the entrance of the tent, my shoulders sagged and my breath left me in a rush, released of his eyes.

It took me a moment to realize my heart was pounding in my chest and my pain seemed lessened.

The demon king ducked his head out, but then paused. He turned to look at me and then ordered, “Come here, kalles.”

Curious, I rose from the bed, feeling blood soak into the cloth between my legs underneath my clothes. I clutched at Blue’s feathers around my neck as I approached him.

He pulled back the flaps of the tent ever so slightly and my eyes widened.

The first frost.

A sprinkling of white shimmered over the land, not yet the blanket of heavy snow and ice that would come later. The air was dry and frigid. Even then, I felt it sting my cheeks.

Another cold season had come, but looking out over the land right then didn’t fill me with as much dread or fear as it had before.

I knew why he was showing me.

A reminder. Of our first wager, the one I’d lost. That with the first frost, my duty as his alukkiri would begin, though I was still uncertain what that meant.

I will find out, I thought.

“I will see you tonight, rei alukkiri,” he purred.

Then he was gone.