Claimed By the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Four

Time blurred and I was in and out of consciousness in flashes and waves. Every time, I woke to pain. The searing pain of my back and then the new pain between my thighs. That pain frightened me at first, until I realized it was due to riding the Dakkari’s black-scaled creatures, the hard flesh chafing my own, a new soreness taking root.

My eyes stung and my lids felt heavy as I looked over land I didn’t recognize. It was dark. Endless black plains that would be frozen over soon met my gaze, though I spied the shadows of mountains and heavily shrouded forests in the distance.

Every thump from the creature’s gait jostled my fresh wounds but I bit the sides of my cheeks to keep from wincing.

“You wake,” came his voice behind me. I felt his hand tighten at my hip, where he kept me steady, and when I glanced down, the golden cuff around his wrist flashed in the low moonlight.

There was something thick on my back, covering the wounds. When I tried to reach around to investigate, he squeezed my hip in warning and I stiffened.

“Nik,” he said. “Leave them, kalles.”

I couldn’t look over my shoulder to meet his eyes. It twisted my back when I tried, but I did crane my neck as far as I dared and in my peripheral vision, saw his golden hair in the darkness.

A wave of dizziness hit me and I clutched at the creature’s neck as I steadied myself. I kept my head forward from that moment, feeling nausea rise, thick saliva coating my mouth. To distract myself from it, I stroked the creature’s scales, tracing the edge of one. It was as hard as metal, yet warm like flesh. I felt its power, its unbridled strength, as palpable as its master’s behind me.

My breath hitched, eyes widening, realizing what was missing.

“Blue’s feathers,” I rasped, looking down at my lap, as if I’d find them there. “Where are they?”

His hand moved from my hip. I didn’t care about the pain from my back as I dove my fists into my pockets, searching, fearing that I’d lost them—her—forever.

Relief sagged my shoulders when the feathers appeared in my line of sight, held out by his clawed fingers. I snagged them quickly and clutched them to my chest, swallowing.

“You took me from my village,” I whispered, another wave of dizziness hitting me from my sudden physical effort. I looked down at the feathers before placing them safely in the pocket of my torn tunic.

“Lysi.”

I remembered that moment, before my whipping. I’d felt like I was out of my own body, floating feet above the ground. I felt that way now, like none of this was real. My mind was fuzzy, my head felt heavy. I felt warm and chilled.

Was this real? Was he real?

The throbbing in my wounds told me it was. The nausea, the dizziness, the tiredness told me it was. Surely if I was dead, I wouldn’t feel this much pain.

Reaching down with one hand, I curled my stinging palm around the black-scaled creature’s nape, right where its long neck met its back. Perhaps this was what shock felt like.

Cold wind slapped against my face, but tendrils of it slid over the heat radiating from my back. It felt nice, but also terrible.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“To my horde.”

“Isn’t this your horde?” I asked, remembering the Dakkari warriors spilling into the walls of my village. Just thinking about them made me tired, made me want to fall back into that dark place of sleep, where I felt nothing at all.

“A part of it, lysi.”

There were more?

My eyes slid shut, but my head swam when they did, spinning and spinning in circles. My stomach felt like it was filled with acid.

I was going to vomit. The pain made the nausea worse. Bile rose in my throat and I sucked in a lungful of air through my nostrils before my stomach heaved.

At the last moment, I turned my head and managed to miss vomiting all over the creature we rode. I heard the horde king curse and pull at the reins, slowing the beast to a halt.

I had nothing to throw up, not even water.

When I touched my forehead, I realized I was sweating, which explained the chill.

Something was wrong.

I felt him dismount and then he was standing next to his creature, looking up at me.

Fear struck me in that moment, a ridiculous reaction considering I’d just been speaking to him without it. In a flash, I remembered the bite of the whip and I flinched away when he reached for me.

The horde king frowned, a scar on the edge of his lip pulling down slightly. He ignored my flinch and pressed his clawed fingers to my cheek. I hadn’t been touched in so long that I froze, staring down at him.

“Vok,” he said under his breath. “You are burning.”

“Don’t touch me,” I whispered, turning my face away, fingers reaching for an arrow that wasn’t there. “Please.”

He growled, low in his throat, but his hand retreated. Instead, he jerked something away from the harness around the creature’s flank. It was a flask of animal hide. “Drink,” he ordered, thrusting it into my hands.

“What is it?” I asked, suspicion tinging my tone, even as another wave of nausea rose. Black spots appeared in my vision and I swayed.

“Water.”

I sniffed it before I took a sip. It was clean and fresh, possibly the cleanest water I’d ever had. I took a greedy mouthful, then another, feeling it soothe my scratchy throat.

When I realized that I had drained the whole skin, I gave it back to him and managed to meet his eyes.

Nik, nik, he’d murmured, right before the whipping had stopped. He’d looked at me like he’d seen an old spirit. I’d thought him cold and detached, but his expression then had been anything but, hungry demon that he was, bent on consuming my soul. He was still doing it, right then. I felt it. What would happen when there was nothing left of me?

My vision went black for a moment. I heard him curse, I felt my body slide.

Then everything went dark.

* * *

The next time I woke,I smelled something strange. Pungent. Earthy.

My back was on fire. Twisting, I cried out, bucking like a frightened animal, feeling a foreign weight on me. I sensed others, wherever I was, and heard the Dakkari language, rasped in roughened tones, just above me.

“Be still, kalles,” came his voice. The demon horde king.

I was lying on my front, on a bed of soft furs. My ripped tunic had been torn away, my bare breasts pressing into the bed.

When I lifted the heavy weight of my head up, I saw him kneeling by my right shoulder, grasping both my wrists in a firm hold, restraining me to the furs.

Panic and pain lit my veins. Despite the fogginess in my head, I was lucid enough to realize I was half-naked in the presence of Dakkari males, being held down by their brutal horde king. And I’d heard the rumors of the Dakkari. Barbaric, dark things that were whispered about from village to village.

I thrashed against his hold harder and felt a rush of warmth on my back, followed by a sharp pain.

Then came a female voice, urgent and firm. My brows drew together just as the demon king said, “Cease. You are reopening the wounds.”

Not caring about the burning sensation from my back, I craned my head so I could look behind me. A female was there, kneeling next to my hips. In her hand was a needle and thread. Another male—the one that had first spoken to me in my village—stood a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest. Other than that, no one else was there. No trace of the horde warriors that had flooded into my village.

“What...what are you doing to me?” I rasped, my throat and mouth dry. The female glanced at me. A Dakkari female. I’d never seen one before.

But she didn’t reply. Her gaze dismissed me when she bent her head and lowered her needle to my back.

“She is suturing your wounds closed, kalles,” the demon king said, his voice rough and dark. I hated his voice. It made fear saturate my belly and rise up in my chest.

“Why?” I asked, hissing when I felt the coolness of her needle pierce my hot flesh.

He didn’t answer. I saw his jaw set, I felt his hold tighten.

Then I closed my eyes. It was easier.

I drifted back into sleep again.

* * *

Later,it was quiet, except for the crackling of a fire.

My eyelids felt heavy and my back felt numb. When the fire popped, my breath hitched, my gaze tracking over to it. The fire was encased in a raised metal disc and I watched sparks fling out from its center.

It was warm and it was so quiet. My skin felt damp, but my mind floated in a painless haze.

A dream?

My cheek was pressed into soft, tickling furs and I worried about Blue’s feathers because I no longer wore my tunic.

A hissing sound met my ears and I looked up slightly, across what looked like the inside of a domed tent. It was richly and warmly furnished. Piles of clean and plush furs, thick red rugs with golden swirling accents, heavy chests lining one area of the tent, a low table with cushions on the opposite side. A yellow glow of oil lamps and candles made the inside gleam, yet cast other places in deep shadows.

It was in one of those shadows that I saw him.

He was sitting with his back to the wall of the tent, his golden sword in his lap. I watched as he ran what looked like a black stone across the blade, creating that sharp hissing sound, before flipping the sword to run it across the other side.

As if he sensed me awakening, his gaze darted to mine. The hissing sound stopped.

His grey eyes looked frightening in the shadows, like a creature of nightmares. He was bare-chested and the markings across his chest and shoulders seemed to glow bright yellow in the darkness.

I swallowed. But just like with the men in my village, I did not want to show him my fear.

“Where am I?” I whispered, because I didn’t trust my voice not to shake.

“In my horde,” was what he replied.

He wasn’t that far from me. In fact, I could see that he’d recently bathed, his blond hair damp, his skin scrubbed clean.

Frowning, my eyes flitted, looking for a bathing tub, and I saw one near the entrance of the tent, tendrils of steam still curling from the surface.

I didn’t remember the last time I’d bathed.

My gaze flickered back to him when I sensed him set his sword aside.

“What did you do to me?” I asked, feeling something wrapped tightly around my back. Reaching around, I felt the soft cloth of bandages, wet with something sticky and thick.

“The healer cleaned and dressed your wounds.”

“Why?”

His gaze narrowed. “To save you.”

“You should have left me,” I whispered, licking my dry lips.

“You would have died,” he told me, his jaw ticking. With irritation? With regret? With impatience? I didn’t know. I couldn’t read him and usually I was very good at reading people.

“Wasn’t that the point?” I couldn’t help but ask, remembering the way I felt before I knelt on the ground of my village, thinking it was an execution.

“Nik,” he bit out. “I told you before. I was never going to kill you, kalles.”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t know how I felt about that knowledge, but I heard the truth in his voice. If he wanted me dead, I would be. But why had he taken me from my village? Why did he bring me here?

I didn’t think I wanted to know. One possibility flitted across my mind, but it was ridiculous. I’d heard of Dakkari males taking human females from villages before. But I was not the taking kind. I was small and pale and strange-looking. If anyone from our village was the taking kind, it would have been Viv. She was beautiful.

“What does kalles mean, demon king?” I whispered, my eyes popping open when I heard the fire spark again. The fire was beautiful too. A swirl of red and orange and gold and all the shades in between.

I almost smiled because it was so beautiful…and I liked beautiful things. Like a full moon, all round and silvery, or the shimmering pink fog that sometimes settled over the land on a cold morning.

But my eyes would not remain away from him for long. He was beautiful too.

“Kalles means female in my language,” he told me after a brief pause.

I thought kalles was a pretty word, but I would certainly never tell him that.

His jaw ticked and again I couldn’t read him. “Demon king?” he rasped.

It took me a moment to realize I had even called him ‘demon king.’

“You think me a demon?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, my fingers stroking the furs underneath me. I didn’t know what beast they came from, but it was the softest thing I’d ever felt. “Jana told me about demons. She told me when you look too closely, they steal your soul.”

He went still. He even seemed to stop breathing. Those grey eyes burned into me.

“And I felt you taking it,” I whispered, my breath quickening in fear, remembering that sensation. “I felt it.”

So why was I still staring into his eyes?

Swallowing, my gaze dropped to his chest and I traced one edge of a tattoo until I ended my perusal at his side, where I saw a deep scar. A scar so deep it puckered his skin inwards.

I was a curious being—sometimes to a fault—but even I knew not to ask how he’d received such a scar.

“So, Kakkari has shown you as well,” he said softly, that brutal voice cutting into me, making my chest tighten. He said it with an almost speculative tone.

“Shown me what?” I asked, my gaze drifting over to the bath again, wanting it. When I moved slightly, my back tugged and that icy numbness lifted for a moment, my lungs squeezing from the throbbing pain.

A noise whistled from his slitted nostrils. He didn’t answer my question.

Instead, he said, “I am no demon, thissie. Because if I am one, then you are one too.”

I frowned, surprised by the way his words dragged something fierce and angry from me.

“I want to leave,” I said, glaring at him across the domed tent. “You should not have taken me from my village.”

“You will not leave, kalles,” he said, his tone harsh but firm. I tensed when he rose from his seated position. “Not until I say you can.”

My breath whooshed from my lungs in disbelief, in confusion.

He turned, heading towards the entrance of the tent. I was about to argue, about to push up from the furs. Then the words died in my throat.

My lips parted when I saw his bared back.

He’d been whipped too. Only, instead of three lashes, it looked like he’d received a hundred.

“Rest,” he growled out, a sudden anger in his voice. “I will return with the healer later.”

Then he left. And I was left with the quiet and the crackling fire and the shadows.