Claimed By the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Forty

Three days later, Seerin still hadn’t left and my hardened determination had already begun to waver. Every morning, he came to my door, bringing with him skewers of cooked rikcrun and a fresh skin of water. The smell made my stomach heave in protest, though I’d always managed to hold down my nausea in his presence, but I could only eat very little.

At first, I told myself it didn’t matter if Seerin was in the village. It didn’t matter that I spent some moments with him. I had a plan to leave, my time in the village was only temporary, and I was numb enough to his words and his actions that it didn’t matter if he was near.

At least that was what I’d told myself. But I’d somehow forgotten that Seerin had always had a way of finding his way inside.

During the day, he stayed away, as if he knew I needed space. He told me he was sleeping in the Dark Forest with Lokkas, so I assumed that was where he went. The forest had a good view of the village, even a good view of my dwelling. I refused to acknowledge the wiggling ache of guilt, knowing he slept in the icy cold and snow when there was a relatively clean floor in my home. The forest might protect him from the wind during the night, but it certainly didn’t keep the wet sludge and chill away.

It’s his decision, I reminded myself. I told him to go and he will not.

Still, a treacherous part of me had a difficult time falling asleep at night, knowing he slept out there, unprotected, with Lokkas. He had barely come with any provisions at all, giving further proof to his story that he’d journeyed straight here after learning I had left. He had no furs, no food or water—though he hunted easily.

But he gives most of his food to you, a voice whispered in my mind.

At night, he would return again with more skewers of rikcrun. I wondered how the villagers felt about him coming and going with fresh, cooked food to my door. He’d mentioned on the second day that he’d given my uneaten morning portions to ‘the older male next to you.’ I assumed he’d meant Bard, my neighbor, and a part of my chilled heart warmed slightly at the prospect.

What worried me, however, was that at night, Seerin talked. He would watch me eat while he spoke of things that made me hate him and remember why I’d fallen in love with him in the first place. He spoke of things that made me remember my life back at the horde. It was only three weeks that I’d been gone, but it felt like much, much longer.

That night, he told me what had transpired in the last few weeks. That it was the pyrokis’ mating time, that a few of the nests in the enclosure had been accidentally destroyed and rebuilt because of it. That the mitri was receiving more requests for Dakkari steel bows from the warriors, even from a couple children. That a child had been born, that the mother was one of the bikkus and the father was a warrior.

“It is good to hear a baby’s cry in the horde again,” he murmured, sitting on the floor across from me, his back to one of the creaking walls. I’d said nothing to him since he’d appeared at my door that night, though I was ravenous and had eaten the rikcrun he’d brought me. All of it. “Most are born after the thaw.”

Because during the cold season, locked in close quarters, naturally keeping one another warm, what else was there to do but mate?I thought, pressing my lips together. It only served to remind me that I hadn’t told Seerin about the pregnancy. Not yet. Everything seemed like a constant reminder. We’d never spoken about children. Did he even want them?

“And once the thaws come, there will be a celebration. Much like the frost feast, though there will be no fresh meat. Just mostly fermented wine.” His eyes were steady, his voice even as he said, “For that reason alone, we will wait to celebrate our tassimara until we journey to the southlands.”

My brow furrowed. Tassimara?

“Our joining ceremony,” he murmured, seeing my confusion, and I swallowed loudly at his words. “We will track a hebrikki herd and make our new home close by. We will have the first of the fresh meat at our tassimara, in our new encampment, in a place that will grow warm and lush after the thaw. I know you will like it there.”

“Stop,” I whispered, closing my heart off to his words when it pumped too strongly with longing and desire. “There will be no tassimara.”

Though it was the first time I’d spoken to him all day, he didn’t hesitate as he said, “Then we will wait. Perhaps by the blue solstice, you will feel differently.”

Later that night, after he left to return to the Dark Forest, I lay underneath my fur and stared up at the dark ceiling, my hand on my belly. My back ached from sleeping on the hard floor and I marveled at how I’d slept in this very place for almost my entire life. When Jana had been alive, there had been a bed stuffed with cloth, but Grigg had offered to pay me twenty credits for it shortly after she died. I’d been in no position to refuse and in the back of my mind, I wondered if he still slept on that very bed. I wondered if he knew that was where Jana had drawn her last breath.

My fingers traced the growing curve of my stomach underneath my belly button. I wondered why I had not told Seerin yet. It was not something that I could keep to myself now that he was here. Before, I’d never expected to see him again. Now, he was insisting on bringing me back to the horde and talking of things like tassimaras.

A small breath escaped me in the darkness. I knew how determined and stubborn he could be. He truly meant it when he said he wouldn’t return without me. He would sleep in the Dark Forest until he turned to ice. Only the thaw would save him then.

I didn’t dare believe in his perfect, pretty words. I didn’t dare believe that he loved me after all, that he wanted to make me his Morakkari, his wife, his queen, especially after he’d told me it could never be me. If I believed in him again and then he pushed me away…I wouldn’t come back from it. I wondered if this was how my mother felt after my father died. This heartache, this seemingly never-ending sadness.

But I was not like my mother. I was having a child and I would never abandon my baby like she’d abandoned me. I had to be strong. I had to do anything and everything in my power to protect him or her, to keep them safe.

I could find another horde, but even if I found one, there was always a possibility they would turn me away. Finding another horde was an uncertainty, yet Rath Tuviri was a certain thing. Seerin was here right now. He was demanding that I return with him. It would be so easy to give in…and yet, it would be the most difficult choice I would have to make.

This isn’t about me, I realized. It wasn’t even about us, about Seerin and I. It was about our child.

The baby deserved to know their father. They deserved to know their Dakkari blood, their culture, their people. They deserved to grow up in an environment that was safe, protected, and caring.

I know what I have to do, but I’m afraid to do it, I confessed to myself. Tears welled up in my eyes and leaked down my temples as I stared up at the ceiling. Wind whistled through the holes in the wood, as if in answer to my thoughts.

I couldn’t stay. The safest, smartest decision would be to return to the horde of Rath Tuviri with Seerin. It might even be the only decision at this point.

If my guess was correct, I was almost two months into the pregnancy. It was very likely Seerin had gotten me pregnant the night he’d returned from Dothik. I knew nothing about delivering and caring for a baby. I didn’t even know how long I would be pregnant for. I was scared and heartbroken and alone.

Except I didn’t have to be alone. I had friends in Rath Tuviri. They could help me if I needed it.

* * *

The next morning,before the sun even rose, I packed up the travel sack Avuli had given me. I rolled up the fur, deposited the dagger within, and carried it over my shoulder. It was significantly lighter than it’d been before, considering I’d eaten almost three weeks of rations from it.

I didn’t look back at my home as I closed the door behind me. At Bard’s door, I left the sack, knowing I wouldn’t need it, and then I turned and left.

It was still dark, the sky just beginning to lighten in the distance, and the village road that led to the gates was empty and quiet. My footsteps crunched into the snow, the sound loud against the hush. I marveled at how much had changed in the last three months as I walked from the village for the last time.

Once I was past the gates, I turned towards the Dark Forest. I knew it like the back of my hand and had explored every inch in my lifetime. I knew where Seerin would make his base because it had the best view of the village and of my little house. My instinct told me he would be there.

And he was. After I climbed the short incline of the ridge and weaved through the first layer of trees that stood like ancient guardians at the forest’s edge, I spied him propped up against a blackened trunk, Lokkas curled close beside him.

He was sleeping. Both of them were. In sleep, with those intense grey eyes closed to the world, Seerin looked less intimidating and almost peaceful.

Agony burst in me and stayed for a long moment as I looked at him. I held still and silent as tears blurred my vision.

Why did I have to fall in love with you? I asked silently. Why couldn’t it have been anyone else? Perhaps it would’ve been easier if it had been no one at all and then this aching sadness would disappear. I wished that three weeks could’ve erased the love that he’d built in my heart, but something told me it wasn’t as simple as that.

I hated that he slept out here. I hated that I couldn’t bring myself to offer my home, hated that being in his presence for too long brought worry and fear and longing into my heart. It was not long ago when I’d craved being with him. It wasn’t too long ago when I’d missed him even when he was still near.

My morning sickness rose, but the icy chill on my face helped distract me from the nausea. I walked towards Seerin and my movements roused Lokkas, who turned his eyes towards me. Seerin had always been a light sleeper. He woke at the smallest sound, so when I approached and he didn’t stir, it made me realize how exhausted he must truly be.

Guilt ate at me. He’d been sleeping out here for four nights now. He hadn’t eaten nearly as much food as his body needed. And he had no shelter, no protection out here from the elements.

When I neared Lokkas, I reached my hand out to stroke his snout. He pushed his scaled nose into my palm and made a chirring sound. It was that sound that woke Seerin, whose eyes flashed open. When he sensed someone near, he stilled, his hand going to his sheathed sword at his side.

When he saw it was me, standing there in the Dark Forest at dawn, he murmured, still drowsy from sleep, “Kassikari, what are you doing out here?”

I wondered what kassikari meant. He’d called me it before, many times. Another name he had for me that made my chest pull with memory.

Seerin had always woken easily, yet slowly. How many times had I watched him wake, how many times had his bleary eyes come to me immediately as he rasped something out in Dakkari, his words husky and warm? How many times had I teased him about his love for long mornings in our bed? How many times had he silenced me with his drugging, mind-spinning kisses?

“Nelle,” he murmured, trying to catch my attention.

“I’m pregnant, Seerin,” I said, my voice soft but tormented from wonderful memory and my thoughts.

Air whistled through his nostrils as he inhaled a sharp breath. His eyes flared and he pushed up from the blackened trunk until he was standing within arm’s reach of me. Lokkas stood with his master until I was small again beside them both.

“I will return with you for the sake of the child,” I said, craning my head to look up at him. “I was not planning to stay here regardless but now that you’re here…I know it’s the right choice.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” he rasped, his eyes like flint. “I have been here four days and you tell me this now?”

His anger stemmed from his own past, I knew. He’d never known his father and I knew from our past conversations, though he’d never said it outright, that he’d wanted to. The knowledge that I was pregnant, that I had kept it to myself until now, resurfaced old wounds within him. I knew that, but I was not afraid of his anger.

“I never thought I would see you again,” I told him truthfully, “and certainly not here.”

“Did you know you were pregnant when you left?” he asked.

“No,” I said. Even as hurt as I’d been, I wouldn’t have left if I’d known I was pregnant then.

He went quiet, looking past me towards the village, trying to process what I’d just revealed to him. When he brought a hand up to rake through his tangled, damp hair, I saw that it shook. A sharp pang went through me at the sight.

“It is why you would not eat in the mornings,” he said. “Because you were sick.”

He cursed under his breath and Lokkas shifted beside me, sensing his master’s emotions.

“What do you mean you were not planning to stay here?” he growled out next. “What were you planning to do exactly?”

I inhaled a long breath, knowing that what I would say would incite more of his anger. I refused to feel guilty about it, however, as I told him, “I know that the Vorakkar of Rath Kitala took a human Morakkari.” He’d never told me himself. I’d learned it from Odrii. Looking back, I realized Seerin never wanted me to know. Because he thought it would give me hope for a future with him? “I thought it was very possible she was also pregnant or had already given birth to a child. I was planning to seek them out after the thaw.”

His nostrils flared. “You were planning to brave the wild lands pregnant with no knowledge of where his horde was?”

“Yes,” I said, lifting my chin.

“Do you know how foolish that is?” he growled.

“Yes,” I said again. “Believe me, I know. But I felt I had no other choice. I would not raise my child in this village. I would not subject him or her to hunger and cold and contempt.” His lips pressed together and I watched his throat bob with his heavy swallow.

“Our child, Nelle,” he corrected.

“Oh, yes,” I said, my hurt finally making an appearance. “You would rather have me raise our child in your horde. You would rather have me watch you take another as your Morakkari, to endure as she bore you your heirs while I raised our child. I believe you told me I would have to accept it because it was your duty.”

My bitter words hit him but his small flinch didn’t make me feel any better.

“I was wrong to say that to you, thissie,” he murmured. “You will never know how sorry I am. But the wild lands are punishing and dangerous. To think that after the thaw, you were going to…”

He shuddered, his jaw clenching, and he looked away. A sharp wind whistled through the trees and I shivered, waiting.

“What about us?” he finally asked, his voice guttural and husky.

Carefully, I told him, “This doesn’t change anything between us, Seerin. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now, I can see why you did what you did. The choice you had to make.”

“Thissie—”

“But right now, my only priority is the child,” I finished, cutting him off, straightening. “Nothing more.”

His jaw ticked again. He wanted to argue, I could see it just as I saw his decision to leave it for another time. He’d gotten what he wanted. I would return to the horde with him willingly.

“Very well, rei thissie,” he murmured. “I will accept that.”

For now. It went unspoken, hovering in the air between us.

He knew that and I knew that.

“We will return to the horde.”