Claimed By the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“Vorakkar.”

I blinked and focused my attention on my head warrior. When I looked at him, I couldn’t help but notice that the rest of the elders’ eyes and Vodan’s eyes were on me as well. I wondered how long he’d been trying to get my attention.

“Neffar?” I rasped.

“The Hitri pass,” the warrior said slowly. “The northern pass, specifically.”

“What about it?” I asked, straightening.

Ujak looked across the table at Vodan. My pujerak said, “It will be the most dangerous to navigate on our journey. We need to formulate a plan on how best to cross it. The wagons may be too large.”

He said it in a way that told me they’d already been speaking of this. Possibly for some time. And I hadn’t noticed. Not at all.

“With all due respect, Vorakkar,” one of the elders said, “we have been in discussions about our journey for almost two weeks now. And we are nowhere near as prepared as we should be.”

“You have been distracted as of late, Vorakkar,” another elder said quietly. “For the sake of the horde, we need your full attention if we want to be ahead of the thaw.”

When I said nothing, it was Vodan that spoke.

“Let us call the meeting for tonight. The hour is late,” Vodan said to the council. “We will reconvene tomorrow morning.”

The fire burning in the basin crackled loudly at my pujerak’s words. I felt a twisting bitterness in my chest for only a moment before I pushed it down. Deeper and deeper down, as I had done for the last two weeks.

“Lysi,” I murmured. “Enough for tonight.”

I didn’t miss the look the elders exchanged among one another. Nor did I acknowledge Ujak when he inclined his head and said his goodbye for the evening. The elders shuffled out after him, after pulling on their pelts, but I remained standing at the high table, staring down at the map of Dakkar, left alone with Vodan.

“Seerin.”

Turning away from the table, I pulled on my pelt. I didn’t want to return to my voliki, where I still smelled her on my furs, but I certainly didn’t want to be alone with my pujerak either.

“Seerin, I have never seen you like this,” Vodan said quietly, rooted in his place. “When will it end?”

It will not end, I thought, knowing it was the truth. I believed this was permanent. It certainly felt permanent…this numbness. Except for brief flashes of emotion, I was simply existing.

“Seerin!” Vodan growled.

Piercing and sharp, I felt another flash and turned around to face him.

“What do you want from me, Vodan?” I rasped.

“I want you to act like the Vorakkar you are! This cannot go on.”

“I have done everything you wanted,” I told him. “If you are unhappy with the outcome—”

“I did not ask for you to act like this,” he growled. With my fists clenching at my sides, I struggled to push my anger down now. Already, the emotions were packed too tightly, one on top of the other. Another would make me burst wide open, like a festering, unhealed wound. “It has been two weeks, Seerin. I thought that perhaps this obsession with the vekkiri would pass already.”

“Obsession?” I repeated softly.

He knew it was the wrong word to pick. Anger bled from me, thickening the air in the tent until it was almost suffocating. In the last two weeks, this was the first time I’d felt such raw, aching, fierce emotion. I could suppress it no longer.

“I love her,” I growled, though it was something he already knew. How could he not know? He knew me better than anyone. He knew I would not be this swayed by an ‘obsession.’

“Seerin—”

I took a step closer to him. “After I took her from her village, you asked me something. You asked me what she’d said to me. You asked me what she’d said to make me take her away.”

Vodan remembered that moment well. Nelle had been passed out from the pain, bleeding. He’d helped me clean her wounds.

“It wasn’t what she said,” I told him, holding his gaze. “It was what I saw. It was what Kakkari showed me through her. In her eyes.”

Vodan’s lips pressed together.

“I’ve felt Kakkari in me for a long time. I felt her when I first saw you. I know why she led me to you…because we created this. We built this horde together, as we were always meant to. She knew you would be a good and loyal friend to me,” I said, though my lips twisted as I said the words. “And I to you.”

He looked to the ground as I felt everything I’d dampened for the past two weeks emerge in one startling rush. All the grief and anger and loss and betrayal and longing. All the guilt for hurting her. All the self-hatred for betraying her trust.

At night, all I saw was the realization in her eyes the moment she knew I was pushing her away. And it haunted me to the point where I’d barely slept. It gutted me, watching her confusion, her disbelief, her heartbreak. She’d always been so expressive. I could read her so easily…and I’d seen everything. Every painful, disturbing detail.

“But Kakkari guided me to you. Back at the village, Kakkari guided her to me, as if Kakkari knew I would need her, as if I only needed help finding her. And what I found was a pure being, one who still believed in hope, though every last person in her life had failed her.”

Including myself, I thought, my chest squeezing so tight I could barely breathe.

“I found strength with her. I found happiness with her,” I said, swallowing. “And I pushed her away. I hurt her. For the horde, for you. Because I thought it was the right thing to do. Because if you were threatening to leave the horde, to leave me after everything we have been through, then surely I was blind to something you could see. I have always trusted you before.”

“Seerin, it was the right decision for the horde,” he said, shaking his head.

“Why do you look so hesitant then?” I rasped. “Why do I feel that it was the biggest mistake of my life?”

He went quiet.

“This will not simply pass, pujerak,” I told him, my shoulders slumping, hearing the truth in my words. I felt the emptiness of them, the stretching emptiness that would only grow as the days passed. Because my soul had left me and all I had left was hers. I was tired. So damned tired. “I do not know how long I can do this.”

Two weeks. Two weeks of staying away from her voliki, though every time I passed it, it was a new challenge to my already-crumbling will. Two weeks of avoiding the training grounds because I knew she worked with the mitri in the mornings. Two weeks of looking for her everywhere, of hoping to simply catch a glimpse of her, only to be denied. Two weeks of not seeing her, not touching her, not speaking with her…and it felt like an eternity.

She had not sought me out either. She had avoided me like a plague around the encampment and every day that passed made my need to see her grow and grow.

I had chosen my horde over my thissie. It was a hard thought to stomach, but it was the truth. She would likely never forgive me for it. I knew I would never forgive myself for it, but I’d seen no other way.

Arokan of Rath Kitala had, my mind whispered. He took his chosen Morakkari with no regard to his council or pujerak. He did it because he is the Vorakkar of his horde. He answers to no one but himself.

Iwas Vorakkar of Rath Tuviri, so why did it feel like I was not? Why was I allowing myself to be controlled by my council, by the elders, by my own pujerak?

I growled, looking away from Vodan. They’d threatened to leave me. If they left, it was very likely the horde would fall. But did it matter? Without my female, did anything matter? I thought it was the right decision, but now, seeing a future without her in it, all I saw was emptiness. Bleakness.

I need to see her, I thought, my chest burning with the need. Now that the numbness had lifted, letting harsh, biting, sharp emotions rise in its absence, I could not stop them. They consumed me, eating at me, punishingme.

Was my own failing that I didn’t believe I could run this horde on my own? Was my own failing that I didn’t believe I was worthy to? Because I wasn’t from an ancient family, because I wasn’t raised a certain way, because I believed I was only a Vorakkar because of my mother?

Nik, I thought, my fists squeezing at my sides.

I was a Vorakkar because I had survived the Trials. I was a Vorakkar because I’d taken a hundred lashes over my flesh, more than any other Vorakkar in history. I was a Vorakkar because I was the right leader for this horde, because I kept them safe, because I defended them when they were in danger, because I had the determination and the will and the strength to do so.

My heart was pounding out a fierce rhythm in my chest as I stared at Vodan.

“I should never have let her go,” I rasped, feeling weakened by the words. It was something I already knew. And I could blame it on the council, on Vodan, but in truth, it was I that had ended it. It had been my choice.

Just as it was my choice to risk the horde falling, in favor of my thissie. Because it was nothing less than she deserved.

“I have to see her,” I said. “I have to…”

Fix this? She wouldn’t want to see me. Not after what I’d done.

It didn’t matter. I had to try.

I turned to leave the voliki, turning my back on my pujerak, my heart pumping strong in my chest—

“She’s gone,” Vodan said, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear him.

My brows furrowed and I whipped around. “Neffar?”

“She left,” he said, his voice strengthening.

I froze, disbelief spreading through me.

“What are you saying?” I asked slowly. “That she’s not among the horde?”

“I thought you sent her away,” he rasped. “I thought…”

Dread and panic made the voliki sway. “Nik. When? Where did she go?”

“Two weeks ago. She left at dawn with a warrior. The seamstress was—”

I was already striding through the entrance of the voliki, my heart pounding in my throat, before running towards the back of the encampment, towards Nelle’s voliki.

Nik, nik, nik, I thought. Vodan was mistaken. He had to be.

When I reached her voliki, I pushed inside, praying to Kakkari that she within.

But the moment the cold touched my skin, the moment my eyes adjusted to the darkness inside, I knew Vodan spoke the truth. There was no fire, no warmth, no light.

She was gone. She’d left.

On her bed, something glinted in the blue, stale light and I snatched it up. Turning it over in my palm, I saw it was the necklace I’d given her from the deviri. It was icy cold. The sight of it gutted me because I knew what it meant. She’d thought it a gift of pity and had left it, left me, behind. And my thissie’s pride burned bright when she was wronged, rightfully so.

Vodan said a warrior had taken her. Odrii, I knew. I’d seen him a few days ago, however, so he must’ve guided her back to her village and then returned himself. Just now, I remembered the darkened looks he’d speared my way, but I’d been so mentally detached that I hadn’t given them a second thought.

Worry and fear washed over me, but I was already pushing out of the voliki, making my way towards the pyroki enclosure. Vodan had followed and caught up with me just as I reached it.

“What are you doing, Seerin?” Vodan hissed under his breath. It was dark, the encampment quiet. “You cannot leave.”

I clenched my fist around the necklace. All I could think was that my thissie had willingly returned to her village, where she’d been half-starved for most of her life and almost raped. A place where no one had claimed her, protected her, loved her, as she deserved.

The thought that she would rather return there than stay in the horde was cutting enough.

And why would she stay? I thought bitterly. I told her I would have to take another as my Morakkari, that she would have to accept that.

If our positions were reversed, would I be able to stand aside and watch as she took another? Would I be able to withstand knowing that she took him into her arms, into her bed?

Nik, it would’ve killed me.

I growled, pushing past Vodan, jumping over the fence enclosure.

I’d been callous and cold to suggest such a thing to her. Like the monster I’d always known I was. The same monster that had ordered her whipping, that had pushed her away when she’d only ever wanted to be mine, that had knowingly hurt her with my words. She deserved better than me. Much better.

“Lokkas,” I called, heading towards my beast’s nest. I didn’t care if it was the dead of night. I needed to go to her. It had been two weeks already. What if something had happened to her? What if she’d been hurt—what if her village had turned her away? “Lokkas!”

Her village was a two-day ride away. I could make the journey even quicker if I didn’t stop.

“Seerin,” Vodan said, following me into the enclosure. Lokkas emerged from his nest. “You are not thinking clearly.”

“I am,” I growled, jumping up on Lokkas’ back. “For the first time in two weeks, I am thinking clearly.”

Vok, all the wasted time!

Fool, fool, fool!

“You already made your decision,” Vodan argued, holding Lokkas in place when I tried to steer him from the enclosure. “Do not make this mistake.”

“It was a mistake to let her go,” I told him. “It was a mistake to allow the council to steer my decisions as Vorakkar. Now stand away, pujerak.”

“Seerin—”

“I will bring her back,” I promised, staring down at him. We had known one another so long that he heard the fierce determination in my words. “Inform the council. Leave the horde if you must. Lead the others who do not wish to stay back to Dothik.” His lips parted in disbelief. “From now on, I make my own decisions. She is what is best for the horde. I only regret it has taken me this long to realize that.”

Without waiting, I pulled Lokkas away before kicking him up into a sprint.

A horde was only as strong as its Vorakkar. And a Vorakkar was only as strong as his Morakkari.

She is the strongest of us all, I thought, regret and grief mingling with my need for her.

I didn’t care if I had to beg. I would go to her on my hands and knees, though a Vorakkar kneeled for no one.

This Vorakkar will kneel for his Morakkari, I thought, determined.

I would win my thissie back. I had to.