Claimed By the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Thirty-Five

Biting my lip, I eyed Seerin, who was sitting on the edge of the bed. I could see tendrils of blue morning light filtering in through the sliver at the voliki’s entrance. He’d already dressed, as had I, but he’d barely said a word to me this morning. Or last night, for that matter.

“Seerin,” I called, sitting next to him, pulling his hands into mine. He stared down at our entwined fingers before meeting my eyes. I felt like there was a stone lodged in my throat, like my body already knew there was something terribly wrong before he even spoke the words. “Tell me. Did something happen at the council meeting last night?”

He’d been quiet and distant since then. It made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

His nostrils flared.

“Nelle,” he said quietly. My brow furrowed because his voice was almost…pleading. He bit out a quiet Dakkari curse and pressed his forehead into mine, his eyes closing.

Fear infused my very bones. “Tell me what’s happened right now, Seerin. You’re scaring me.”

He pulled away. He pulled his hands from mine, his forehead from mine, and stood from the edge of the bed. I stood too, hesitantly.

“Please,” I whispered, furrowing my brow. “Just tell me. Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

“Nelle,” he said, his voice holding a hardened edge. “I have decided…I have decided that this cannot continue.”

I frowned. “What can’t continue?”

His eyes met mine. “Us.”

My breath squeezed from my lungs.

“What?” I whispered.

“We cannot continue this,” he said.

He said ‘this’ as though it was a simple thing. But ‘this’ was us. It was anything but simple.

“What are you talking about, Seerin?” I said, shaking my head, laughing, not wanting to believe it, even though my heart beat wildly in my chest, though nausea had begun to churn in my belly, acid rising in my throat. “You can’t mean that.”

“I told you even before I left for Dothik that I could not make you any promises, Nelle,” he said, looking at me steadily, his jaw set. “For this reason alone, that was why I did not want to make you a promise that I could not keep.”

Looking away, I saw nothing. Not the wall of the voliki, not the cabinet, nor the bathing tub or the bed, where we’d spent our long nights together. My mind simply couldn’t comprehend anything beyond his words.

He was serious.

He was serious.

“Last night, it became apparent to me that any future for us would be an impossibility,” he added quietly. “It was a fantasy, Nelle, and nothing more.”

“Why just last night?” I asked, though my voice sounded far away. “Just yesterday morning, you were talking of the Hitri mountains and giving me another gift. Was that…was that because you already knew? You were trying to make yourself feel better?”

I saw his fists squeeze, though the rest of his body was completely still. “The council confronted me about taking a Morakkari and it became obvious to me that…it cannot be you.”

It was then that hurt—hurt so painful and acute that my knees shook and my throat stung—penetrated my shock. Tears pricked my eyes as I stood there, staring at him because I couldn’t look away, no matter how much I wanted to. No matter how much I needed to.

It felt like he was ripping me in half. How could words hurt this much? How was it even possible?

“I see,” I whispered. Though I didn’t. I didn’t ‘see’ at all.

“Nelle,” he said softly, his eyes flickering. For a moment, I thought he felt the same amount of pain he was inflicting on me. Then he clenched his jaw, the look gone, and continued, “We cannot allow this to go on any longer. It is better this way, to end it now, before…”

Before what?

Before it was too late?

“I love you,” I whispered, tears spilling down my cheeks. “I love you, Seerin. It’s already too late. Please don’t do this. Please.”

That crack in his expression appeared again. He already knew I loved him—how could he not?

“Stop,” he growled. “Do not make this harder than it already is, kalles.”

“Is it?” I cried. “Is this hard for you, Seerin? Because it doesn’t seem that way. How can you be so cold about this? What are you even saying right now?”

His jaw clenched and those familiar grey eyes didn’t seem like Seerin’s at all. They seemed more like the horde king I’d first seen in my village, hardened and detached from everything around him.

“You will always have a place here, Nelle,” he told me, ignoring my questions. “You may remain in the horde for the rest of your life if you wish.”

Air was pulled from my lungs, whooshing out of me in a gasp of disbelief.

“You will never have to worry about a home, about food, about your safety again,” he continued, as if that softened the blow he was delivering. “You will be protected here.”

He blurred in front of me as tears filled my vision and poured down my cheeks.

“And when you inevitably take a Morakkari?” I whispered, unfathomable hurt spearing into my chest over and over again…until I couldn’t breathe. “You think I can just stand by and watch? You think I will be able to stomach you taking her to your bed? You think I will be able to withstand seeing you with her every single day for the rest of my life?”

“You must,” he growled. “It is my duty to take a Morakkari, thissie. For the sake of my horde, I will have to, and you will have to accept that.”

Disbelief made me stumble back, away from him. He’d said it so easily, so coldly that I wondered if I truly knew him at all.

“You’re cruel, Seerin. I never realized how much,” I said softly, glaring at him across the spacious distance between us. His expression contorted, ever so slightly. “You’re cruel if you ask that of me.”

He looked away, down to the rugs on the floor, where he’d made love to me numerous times over the last month. It hurt to think that another female would soon think of this voliki as hers, that another female would soon think of Seerin as hers. Would they share meals and baths together? Would he call her rei thissie too? Would he tease her and laugh with her and kiss her until the world spun?

Oh, this hurts, I thought, trying to breathe. Struggling to breathe. It hurt so much.

I’d been rejected all my life. By my mother, by Jana, by my village. Even by Seerin before. I should’ve known. I should’ve known he wouldn’t have wanted me. No one else had before, so why would he?

He’d made me believe differently, however—if only for a little while. I hated him for it…because now I knew what it felt like to be wanted.

What was wrong with me that made others discard me so easily?

“Nelle,” he rasped, approaching me.

“Don’t,” I pleaded, holding my hand out so he wouldn’t touch me. Because if he touched me, I would crumble completely. “D-don’t.”

He didn’t need to say anything else. His mind was already made up, I could see that. And it didn’t matter what I wanted. It never mattered.

“Did you ever love me?” I asked, voice trembling, though I kept it strong. A tactic I’d used with Grigg often, so he wouldn’t sense my fear. “At all?”

He said nothing. He met my eyes and said nothing.

And I felt like the universe’s most naive fool. A heartbroken fool.

I looked at him right in his eyes and I looked deep. Once, I’d been frightened to look too deeply because he’d been stealing my soul at the time.

I laughed, but it sounded too strange, even for me.

“Now it would seem we’re just two demons who possess one another’s souls, Seerin.” Finally, pain registered in his gaze, but it didn’t make me feel any better. It made me feel worse. Because even now, I didn’t want to hurt him. Not the way he was hurting me. “And believe me, I would give yours back to you if I knew how because I don’t want it. Not anymore.”

Turning, I walked towards the entrance of the voliki, numbness cascading over me.

“Thissie,” he rumbled, twisting the knife with that word. “I am sorry.”

I closed my eyes before wiping away the tears on my cheeks.

He didn’t want me. It wouldn’t be the first time someone felt that way. But I vowed to myself that he would be the last.

“I hope you find everything you’re looking for, Seerin,” I whispered, so quietly I wasn’t sure he heard me. “I truly wish that for you.”

Then I left without looking back. And I knew, right at that moment, as cold wind slapped against my still-wet cheeks, that I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t stay in the horde that I’d grown to think of as my home.

After all this time, I would need to return to my village. Because the pain that I would feel remaining close to Seerin, knowing that he would choose another that was not me, knowing he’d never truly loved me, was nothing compared to the struggle I would face returning to the only other home I’d known.

I needed to leave. Though it was the height of the cold season, I needed to leave.

If I stayed, it would destroy whatever was left of me.