Claimed By the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Twenty-Three

That night, I went to the training grounds. I was too upset to return to my tent. The idea of sitting inside, with Seerin’s words ringing through my mind endlessly, left me restless.

The training grounds were empty, as I suspected they’d be. The whole encampment was quiet. Only a crazy person would be out in the dead of night during the cold season, but the numbness I felt enveloping my body felt good.

I walked to the weapons rack and plucked off the bow and the quiver of arrows. As I walked, I inspected the Dakkari arrow of steel, memorizing the lines, the expert way the fletching tilted up, and wondered if I’d ever be able to make something so intricate. Would I be in the encampment long enough to learn how?

I frowned, feeling my chest pinch slightly at the thought. I thought of Seerin. I felt like my hand was still warm from his cock and I drew in a ragged breath, trying to ignore the hurt that burned in my belly.

One, I thought quietly, in desperate need of a distraction, the frostbitten mountains.

Two, the glow of the barrel fire.

Three, the blackened hide roof of the weapons rack.

I picked a different target since the post at the far corner reminded me too much of Seerin and his kisses and the bargains we’d made in the dark.

Instead, I leveled the bow at the opposite end of the enclosure, at a tall pole with a flag posted at the top. It was the image of a shield and a sword.

Holding my breath, I nocked the arrow. I adjusted my grip, though my fingers were beginning to tighten and freeze.

Exhaling, I released and the satisfying sound of the string snapping met my ears, followed by the satisfying thud as the arrow bit into my target.

Success.

I nocked another. It hit.

Another…it hit.

I emptied the quiver into the pole, stacking the arrows up high until I wasn’t certain I’d be able to pull them down.

A voice came to my right.

“You are an archer?”

I cried out, startled, and whipped around…only to find a familiar warrior standing within the shadows of the weapons master’s tent.

I relaxed when I recognized him. The brother of my lirilla. The warrior who’d tried to get me warm after the fence had collapsed.

My heart was racing from the sudden disruption and my exertion from the bow. I watched as he stepped closer to the fence of the training grounds until he was just on the other side.

“An archer?” I asked softly. “No, I’m not.”

He frowned, looking back towards the pole, at the ten arrows lodged into it. “Yet you have the skill of one.”

“I was a hunter,” I explained.

Hesitant understanding dawned in his face. He was young and handsome, I noticed, his features strong. His hair was black, trailing to his waist. His eyes were ringed in red. He looked like how I’d imagined his grandfather, the weapons master, would’ve looked in his youth.

“That was why the Vorakkar whipped you?”

“You know about that?” I asked quietly. At his words, my wounds felt tight, though the flesh had already healed over. Would I always feel them? “Were…were you there that day?”

“Nik,” he replied, his lips pressing together at the prospect. “But the Dakkarilike to talk. You will find that soon enough.”

“Then yes,” I said. “He saw me hunting and did what he had to do.”

I didn’t want to talk about Seerin, especially since I’d come out here to escape him.

“There are not many skilled archers among the Dakkari hordes,” he said further. “How did you learn?”

My skill meant I ate or I did not, I thought, slightly irritated by his question, though I didn’t know why. Perhaps Seerin’s darkened mood had rubbed off on me.

“It was necessary to learn,” I told him instead, walking over to the pole, pulling out as many arrows as I could. But the shafts were icy cold and slipped from my grip. There were three that were too high for me to reach.

“Do you mind if I watch you?” the warrior asked next, leaning his forearms against the fence, looking as if he had no intention of moving.

“If you want to,” I replied. I stood a little farther back than I did last time and asked, “Why are you out here, anyway?”

“Why are you?”

A surprised laugh rose from my throat. Obviously, I wouldn’t tell him of what happened with Seerin, so I said, “I just didn’t want to be inside right now.”

He shrugged. “It is the same for me. I enjoy the cold season. Most Dakkari like warmer temperatures, but I always thought it was more pleasant in the cold.”

“Even this cold?” I questioned, looking back at the pole, bringing my bow up. I tilted down slightly, trying to loosen my fingers when they curled too tightly.

He was quiet until I let the arrow fly. It hit, a little more left than I’d aimed for.

Then he said, “Lysi, this cold. It makes everything seem…quiet.”

“Then you must be sad when the cold season comes to an end,” I murmured, glancing over at him.

“Lysi, a part of me. But the end of the cold season also means traveling to a new home, so I look forward to it as well.”

I paused. I’d always figured the hordes moved around, following their game, but that was before I saw the massive layout of the encampment…the fences, the tents, the pyroki enclosure.

“Neffar?”

“It just seems like a lot of work to move this place somewhere else,” I told him, waving my hand at the encampment behind him.

“It is,” he said. “But during the cold season, we protect the encampment with the fence and build larger enclosures for the pyrokis’ nesting grounds. Once the cold season ends, it is not as much work. You will see for yourself.”

“I return to my village after the cold season,” I informed him, nocking another arrow.

“But the Vorakkar surely wishes for you to stay,” he said quietly, his voice dropping. “Lysi?”

My breath left me but I didn’t release the arrow. “Why do you say that?” I rasped, turning to him.

He shifted. “Like I said, the Dakkari like to talk.”

I frowned. “And what’s been said around the horde?”

“That he has taken an interest in you,” he explained, with only slight embarrassment. “Why else would you be sharing his voliki?”

“Because my own needed to be built,” I explained, feeling strangely defensive. “There were other tasks to finish first.”

“A horde child could build a voliki,” the warrior scoffed. “It would have taken a day at most.”

Yet I’d stayed in Seerin’s bed for much, much longer.

Well, of course, I thought after thinking about it. He wanted sex.

“It’s not like that,” I protested. “The Vorakkar has no interest in me.”

My words didn’t satisfy me, however. Just that evening, Seerin had told me if he was a human male in my village, he would have claimed me long ago. Had he meant sex or something else, something more?

“Rath Kitala’s Vorakkar took a human Morakkari recently,” the warrior said next. “Most are wondering if our Vorakkar will do the same.”

Shock held me frozen as longing and disbelief created a strange mixture of bubbling emotion in my chest.

“What do you mean? Another Vorakkar took a human as his wife?”

“Lysi,” he said, inclining his head. “You did not know?”

Of course not.

How could I have known? Seerin certainly hadn’t offered up that information.

I am not yours, Nelle. Do not ever think of me as yours.

His words felt like they’d punctured through my chest.

“I assure you,” I told the warrior, “that the Vorakkar has no interest in me for his Morakkari. That I know for certain.”

“So that means you are free to choose a mate?” he questioned next, something in his tone making my brows raise.

I surprised myself with my chuckle. His small, crooked grin caused embarrassment to rise within me.

“I’ve never considered it,” I told him. At least, not within the horde.

I’d always dreamed of having a mate, of having love, of having children. So many children. Family. But my yearnings always seemed so unattainable that I’d written them off as fantasies. Fantasies I visited whenever I got overwhelmed with loneliness, though they always seemed to make me feel lonelier…so I tried not to think of them at all.

Yet when Seerin had spoken of a Morakkari, when he’d whispered to me in the dark that I wasn’t alone as he kissed me, I’d felt that similar yearning, returning to me in full force as if it had never left. Only, in addition to that yearning, there’d been hope.

I cleared my throat when it felt tight. I was shivering, I realized. I walked a short distance away, replacing the bow and the quiver of arrows on the weapons rack.

“I hope I can choose a mate soon too,” the warrior told me with another shameless grin. For a moment, that grin made me feel better.

I chuckled again, though it felt like the last thing I wanted to do.

“Can I walk you back to your voliki?” he asked quietly, when he realized I was done in the training grounds.

“Yes,” I said, giving him a small smile. “I would like that.”