Claimed By the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Forty-Three

Pushing away the list of names of those that would leave after the thaw, I rolled my stiff neck and groaned at the ache that throbbed in my back. I’d been hunched over the table for most of the day and my body was finally rebelling against me.

Twelve was the official number my horde would lose. Not as many as had previously threatened to leave, but I was relieved to see two of the council elders’ names among that list. The head warrior, the third elder, and Vodan chose to remain.

Before, seeing such a loss to the horde would’ve been devastating news. Now, I saw it as an opportunity. I would lead the horde through the Hitri mountains and settle us in the southlands. If the hebrikki herds were as plentiful as I suspected they’d be and if we chose to base beside a river, I could journey to Dothik or the outposts and open my horde to twice as many as we would lose. Growth was the key—growth was the goal. The most successful hordes on our planet had grown into permanent outposts settled around Dakkar like markers of history and prosperity. That was the mark I wanted to leave. An outpost of Rath Tuviri. It was where I wanted to rest, once my time as Vorakkar was over.

Behind me, the entrance to the council’s voliki—though there was no more council, so I supposed it was simply mine now—pushed open.

As I turned, I stilled when I saw it was Nelle who’d ducked inside.

“Your pujerak said you’d be in here,” she said, her eyes flickering between me and my surroundings. The voliki itself was nothing exceptional, so there wasn’t much to see.

“You have been speaking with my pujerak?” I asked, still surprised that she’d come to seek me out. We hadn’t spoken for two days.

“Yes,” she said. “He’s actually quite pleasant once you get past the scowl.”

The sound I made wasn’t quite a laugh, but rather an acknowledgement of the truth of her words. And those words were so inherently Nelle that I felt my heartbeat triple in speed, wondering if she was finally loosening her guard around me.

Then she bit her lip, her eyes dropping to the floor for a brief moment, to the thin rugs that were maroon and gold in color.

“Is there something you need, kalles?” I asked, keeping my voice soft in the quiet of the voliki. It was late and dark outside. I’d been inside longer than I’d anticipated, but I found the work kept my mind off the female standing in front of me.

“Yes,” she said. “I was wondering if you have time to come to the training grounds with me. I…I have a proposition for you.”

My heart thudded until I thought it would beat from my chest. Swallowing thickly, not wanting to raise my hopes, I rasped, “A proposition?”

“A bargain,” she amended. “We like bargains, you and me. Isn’t that right?”

My breath left my lungs in a rush and I said, “Lysi, we do.”

When she turned to leave, I could only follow helplessly. All she had to do was look at me and I’d do anything she wanted. The power she held over me was humbling and frightening.

The training grounds were a short distance away. We didn’t speak as we entered. In the far corner of the enclosure, the target that the mitri had made her was still standing. Many warriors even used it now, not just her.

We stood only an arm’s length away. The setting was so familiar to me that it squeezed at my chest, yet everything had changed since the last time we’d been here together, making bargains.

Nelle looked up at me. We hadn’t spoken since two nights ago. The emotions from that night still felt raw inside me.

“You did hurt me, Seerin,” she said softly. “You hurt me and I was blindsided by it.”

I found myself holding my breath, not daring to breathe as I absorbed her words and the way they cut me all over again.

“You hurt me and a part of me wanted to hate you. I needed to if I was ever going to survive it and even knowing that, I couldn’t,” she said.

“Nelle—”

“And I don’t think that you’re a monster,” she said. I realized what she was doing. She was finally responding to me, when I’d begged her two nights ago to tell me something, anything about her state of mind. “And I think that if our paths had never crossed, I would have simply drifted away by now. I was on the verge of becoming completely numb to life before you came. It was a big fear I had. And I think your goddess sent you to me. I think you were always meant to wake me to this life, to the beauty of it. Though perhaps I needed to remember the pain of it first before I could rebuild myself.”

Stunned, I could only listen, her words wrapping around me like a vice.

“Your pujerak told me what the council threatened you with that night,” she said after a brief pause.

My jaw ticked in response.

“It wasn’t just a choice between your horde and me, Seerin, like I thought,” she said. “It was a choice of your oldest friend and the loyalties you had to him, of the dreams you’ve always had for this horde from the beginning, of the expectations placed upon you as Vorakkar, of the pressures you faced because of that. It was a choice between all of that and me.”

I couldn’t deny her words.

“And in the end,” she murmured, “you still chose me. Why?”

Brow furrowing, I rasped quietly, “You know why, thissie. You have always known why.”

“Because you care for me?”

“‘Care?’” I repeated. “‘Care’ does not even begin to describe what I feel for you, Nelle.”

She hesitated, drawing in a small breath. “Because you love me then?” she amended, her expression vulnerable and open.

“Lysi,” I affirmed. “I do. I love you. And even those words feel as though they are not enough. Simple words cannot describe this feeling, thissie. They never will.”

“I know,” she whispered and my breath hitched.

Suddenly, she walked the short distance to the weapons rack and plucked off the same bow and the same sheath of arrows she’d used for our previous bargains.

When she returned to me, I asked, “Do…do you feel that you can love me again? Can we heal from this?”

“Maybe that’s where the bargain comes in,” she said after a moment. My lungs squeezed, my eyes darting to the bow and arrow. “What do you want if I miss, demon king?”

I was filled with longing and memory at the familiar title, but also with dread knowing her skill with the bow.

“You will connect with your target, thissie,” I said. “You always do.”

“What do you want if I miss, Seerin?” she repeated, setting the sheath of arrows at her feet.

“If you miss,” I started, “I want you to promise that you will never love me again. I want you to swear that you can never see a future for us, that you will never be my Morakkari in this life.”

All the possibilities were almost too painful to say, but only served to highlight that I knew she would not miss.

“I could miss on purpose if I wanted those things,” she pointed out softly.

Fear squeezed my heart. I realized that too, but at the very least, I would have my answer. I was so wrapped up in my fear that I only watched as she nocked her arrow, steadying the bow not at the mitri’s target, but at the far post that had served as our original target, in the darkened corner of the training grounds.

I was so wrapped up in that fear that I didn’t realize she didn’t specify what she wanted if she hit her target. Until it was too late.

Her arrow whizzed from the bow, perfectly formed Dakkar steel cutting through cold air. I watched it travel, briefly, and in another moment, its short journey was over. It embedded itself into the far post, right in the middle, a perfect shot.

My relief was short-lived.

At the very least, she didn’t miss on purpose, but her success meant she could ask for anything she wanted…even my promise to stay away from her, to forbid me from pursuing her further, to make me swear that the only thing we would ever share in this life was our child. Not a future, not our love, ever again.

A part of me expected it after what I had done, after the hurt and grief I’d put her through.

The words stuck in my throat, but I forced myself to ask them.

“What is it that you want from me, Nelle?” I asked quietly.

I didn’t think I moved a single inch. My body felt frozen, suspended in time at that very moment because I knew that whatever she said, it would change us. It would change everything. But time was merciless and it moved us forward, regardless of if we were ready.

Her bow hung from her grip. Her eyes consumed me but I had nothing left to give. She had everything.

“I want a kiss, Seerin.”

The words floated between us, calm and simple and beautiful. They poured into me and wrung the breath from my lungs. They sped my heartbeat and sparked disbelief and blinding hope in my chest. They made my fingers curl into my palms and then I was stepping forward, closing the distance between us.

“Is that all you want?” I rasped, sliding both of my hands into her soft, dark hair.

“For now,” she whispered. Then, though it started small, a shy smile spread across her features and I saw her eyes shimmer in the darkness with tears. That smile was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. “We can talk about what else I want afterwards.”

I didn’t hesitate.

Bringing my head down, I caught her lips and kissed her the way I yearned to. Deep and passionate and thorough. It was frenzied and full of need. Her bow dropped to the ground and then I felt her arms wind around me. Our teeth clattered together, but I tasted her tears and felt her smile and I thought it was absolute perfection.

I broke the kiss to embrace her, to bury my face into her neck, feeling the fur of her pelt brush my cheek.

“I love you,” I rasped into her skin. “I love you so much it hurts, rei thissie.”

“And I never stopped loving you, Seerin,” she whispered in my ear. I was bent over, she was on the tips of her toes, but somehow we fit together perfectly. “I’m sorry I ever made you doubt that.”

I groaned, hardly able to believe that this moment was real. It was all I’d dreamed about for the last month. She was all I’d dreamed about since I first felt her taking my soul.

“Enough,” she whispered to me. “Enough now.”

They were the same words she’d said to me the night I returned from Dothik, very possibly the night we’d conceived our child together.

I knew what she was telling me, in a way that only Nelle could.

We would move forward. We would put this behind us. She’d once told me, long ago, that she didn’t hold grudges. When she forgave someone, she forgave them.

What she was offering me was complete forgiveness, a fresh start. For us both.

“You are certain?” I asked, pulling back to look into her eyes, cradling her cheeks in my palm. “Certain of me? Of this?”

I saw her answer in her gaze before she even replied. “Yes, demon king. I am. Are you certain?”

Vok, I loved her. And though she offered me a clean slate, I would still spend the rest of our lives together thanking her, worshipping her, loving her for it.

What had I ever done to deserve someone like her? This beautiful, pure, hopeful being who constantly humbled and surprised and amazed me?

“Lysi,” I said, capturing her lips in a soft kiss. “I have never been more certain of anything in my life, rei thissie.”