Claimed By the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Seven

“You should be resting,” I growled out at the female, halting before her, the kerisa trailing behind me.

The healer had informed me the kalles had woken, bathed, dressed, and eaten. Hearing the news filled me with relief, but when I reached the voliki and found neither the guard or the female inside, I’d grown irritated…and worried.

She hadn’t gotten far. I’d heard her laugh before I saw her…and that laugh, as small and quiet as it was, made my pace quicken towards her.

“I’ve been resting for five days, apparently,” she told me when she turned to look up at me. I couldn’t help but notice she took a step away, putting distance between us, but I hid my scowl as best as I could. “I needed some air.”

I’d forgotten how small she was, how delicate she seemed. I hadn’t stood next to her since I’d ordered her punishment.

Nostrils flaring at the memory, I looked past her and saw Arusan, an older male who’d been with my horde since the beginning. He looked after and crafted our weapons…an accomplished blacksmith. One of the masters trained in Dothik.

I inclined my head at him and noticed his daughter’s son, Arlah, peering at me from behind his legs. How had they made the kalles laugh, I wondered?

“I apologize, Vorakkar,” Neeva said, coming forward. He was the guard I’d posted outside my voliki. “I tried to have her return, but she—”

“I know,” I said, cutting off whatever he was about to say. In Dakkari, I told him, “She has a will of her own, it seems.”

I watched as her dark gaze fluttered between the guard and I, her expression unsure.

A small crowd had gathered, I noticed. Vodan had been right when he’d told me that whispers had begun through the horde. They were curious about the vekkiri I had brought into the camp.

“Come,” I told her, gesturing her forward.

“I still intend to see that enclosure over there,” she informed me, pointing towards the pyroki pen. “I can meet you back at your tent if you wish to discuss something.”

The kerisa made a sound of surprise behind me. Then a growl escaped me, sudden and low. “Kalles, you will—”

She turned her back to me, looking at Arusan and Arlah. The older male had a speculative expression on his features, almost amused. He’d told me long ago that he enjoyed laughing, that he liked to do it whenever something pleased him. He looked on the verge of it now.

“My name is Nelle,” she told him, making his eyes widen and making me clench my jaw. Nelle. “It was nice to speak with you.” She looked down at the boy. “And you.”

Vok, she knew nothing of the Dakkari, knew nothing of our ways. I looked around at the small crowd and saw some of them murmuring to each other. There were those in attendance that understood the universal language, those that now knew her given name. And it would spread among the horde until all knew.

Nelle.

She turned and continued on her way—towards the pyroki pen—and I stared after her, irritation and frustration and a heavy dose of disbelief pulsing hot in my veins.

To the guard, I said, “I will send for you when I need you. I will handle this.”

“Lysi, Vorakkar.”

Gritting my jaw, I stalked after the kalles, leaving the crowd behind me, though I was sure some brave souls followed.

She was heading towards the pen and I stayed a short distance behind her, letting my temper cool before I spoke to her next. As I waited, I studied her. I studied the way she walked, the way she turned her head to regard any Dakkari that stared openly at her, the way she peered into an unlit drum fire she passed, as if trying to ascertain its purpose.

Vok, she even poked her head into the common bathing voliki, though her cheeks appeared reddened when she straightened and continued on her way.

She was a curious thing. Perhaps to a fault.

Finally, she halted at the pyroki pen, to the east of the encampment. The mrikro, the pyroki master charged with overseeing their care and training, was busy inside, ordering around a handful of spare horde warriors. They were still building the pyrokis’ nests for the cold season, though only a few more needed to be crafted.

I watched as the kalles pressed her belly to the fence, leaning on the rails heavily. She was tired, I realized. When I drew closer, I saw a sheen of sweat on her forehead.

“You need to rest,” I growled, halting just behind her.

“I would rather be out here,” she said without looking at me. She sounded out of breath.

I blew out a sharp exhale, unused to my orders being ignored completely.

“Why did you do it?” she asked softly, not meeting my eyes. Instead, she looked at the mrikro, who paused when he saw us standing there.

She could be asking many things. Why did I punish her? Why did I take her? Why did I keep her in my voliki, knowing it would spark rumors among my horde? Why did I want so desperately to save her?

I decided to pretend she was asking the obvious question.

“Because under my Dothikkar’s laws, you had to be punished,” I told her, squeezing my fists at my sides. In my mind’s eye, I remembered the way her body jerked when that first lash fell over her exposed, delicate skin. She hadn’t cried out. She hadn’t made a sound.

“No,” she said, shaking her head, finally looking back at me. “Why did you stop at three?”

I stilled. The way she looked at me right then…her gaze was indifferent. I expected fear or perhaps disgust, but she gave me neither.

I lied. “Because you would not have lasted through the fifth.”

“That’s not true,” she said. “How many did you last through?”

She’d seen my back then, my own scars. And for once, my tongue failed me. I couldn’t answer her.

“Did you think my body would break first, or my mind?” she asked, tilting her head, as if she was curious how I would respond.

I was unable to read her. I couldn’t understand why she was asking these things. One thing I did know was that I regretted lying to her now. Part of me wanted to see how she would react if I told her the truth…that I had stopped because of Kakkari. That I had stopped because I recognized this female as mine.

Monster, my mind whispered.

“I have a strong mind,” she informed me, her voice smooth and light. “You might not think so. Many might not think so. But my mind would’ve withstood anything you gave me. My body would’ve broken long before.”

“I believe that, kalles,” I told her quietly.

Her hair was wet, I realized, curling black over her shoulders to the middle of her back. Her small eyes were dark, tilted slightly up at the corners, and her upper lip was larger than her bottom one. She was small and too thin. She didn’t look like she could lift a bow, much less draw her arrow back. But I’d seen the evidence of her skill firsthand.

She seemed satisfied with my answer and when a pyroki ventured close to the fence, she turned her head to look at it. They were curious creatures as well, and I watched as she held her hand out to it without hesitation or fear. I watched with even more disbelief as the pyroki nudged the palm of her hand with its sharp snout, smelling her skin.

“Hello,” she whispered to it. It towered over her, but she didn’t seem afraid. I studied her again, my chest pulling tight with something I didn’t want to recognize.

“Have you encountered Dakkari before?” I asked, watching her and the pyroki closely.

“From afar, as they rode past our village on these creatures,” she responded.

“You do not seem to fear the Dakkari.”

“Should I?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at me, frowning. “I’ve never had reason to.”

“I whipped you,” I rasped. “You believed you were walking to your execution and you say you never had reason to fear the Dakkari?”

“Your horde warrior whipped me,” she said, her brows furrowing in a glare.

“Under my orders!” I growled, my normally tame temper rising again.

“Do you wish for me to be angry with you?” she asked. “Do you wish for me to hate you or to cower in fear whenever you are close?”

Nik, I did not wish for any of those things, though I deserved all of them.

“I want to understand you,” was what I told her. “Because I do not know what to make of you.”

She sighed. She looked back to the pyroki. “I do not respond to things as others might. People in my village…it made them uncomfortable. They like it when you respond like them because it makes you predictable. Somehow predictability means you are safer to be around.”

I heard the sadness in her voice as surely as I heard the pounding of my heartbeat in my own ears.

“I neither like you nor dislike you,” she told me, looking back at me, holding my gaze. “And I do not hold grudges. You had to punish me because of your king and so you did. It is not my place to question the justness of your laws. This is your planet, after all, and I knew it was forbidden. But unless I break any more of your laws, I have no reason to fear you, yes?”

“You called me a demon,” I reminded her. “You seemed to fear me then.”

Thatdrew an uncomfortable expression from her and her eyes darted away. “You are one,” she informed me, her voice certain and firm. “But maybe you cannot help it.”

I had the strangest urge to laugh, but I feared I’d forgotten how. This otherworldly creature, who both mesmerized and maddened me, drew me to the edge of something I’d never explored, something I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

But did I have a choice? She would pull me over to the other side whether I liked it or not.

Vodan’s words of caution flickered through my mind.

You cannot be swayed. And this female? She sways you. She will.

Sobering, I knew I had to tread carefully. I was a Vorakkar. Despite Kakkari’s guiding light, despite what I knew to be true, my horde would always come first. Vodan worried because he believed this female would make a home for herself in my mind, that I would forget who I was—what I’d become—because of her.

It was a ridiculous notion, but I had seen it happen before. It had happened to the Dothikkar. A female prostitute had whispered into his ear, asking him to grant me entrance into the Trials, though before, only those that came from ancient bloodlines were considered for the position of Vorakkar. I did not even carry my father’s name. I had grown up in the streets of Dothik. No one had known me. I’d stolen to eat. I’d lied to live.

It had sparked outrage in the capitol. Because of that prostitute—my mother—I entered the Trials, breaking centuries of tradition simply due to whispered suggestions and unspoken promises in the Dothikkar’s bed.

Females were powerful creatures. Dangerous ones. I’d learned that from my mother and I would not underestimate the vekkiri kalles standing in front of me, stroking the pyroki’s snout. The pyroki seemed just as enthralled by her as I was and I wondered if she did possess a power of her own.

“When can I return to my village?” she asked.

“You wish to?” I asked, my voice nothing but a dark rasp.

She shivered and I frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I am afraid to stay.”

“Why?”

She exhaled, her breath puffing out in front of her. She took her hand away from the pyroki, giving it one last pat.

“Because I think I could like it here,” she said. I noticed she patted the pocket in her freshly crafted pants and I saw something there. She’d done it almost unconsciously, as if reassuring herself. “And I don’t like being disappointed.”

Taking a step towards her, I saw the way her eyes flickered up to me in surprise when I drew close. I’d been a thief once, so she didn’t feel it when I slipped my fingers into her pocket.

But her dark eyes did go wide when I pulled the small bundle out swiftly and inspected what it was that she hid.

Her cheeks went a little red again and my lips pressed together when I saw it was wrapped food, squashed into a ball, the meat sticking to the kuveri loaf, blending the colors and textures together.

Though her cheeks were red, I noticed she tilted her chin up, meeting my eyes directly, as if daring me to challenge her.

“It is a hard habit to break,” I told her instead, “but you do not need to do this. Not here. There is always food, even in the cold season.”

Even still, I rewrapped the food and held it out to her, knowing she would feel more comforted having it close.

“Eat that by nightfall so the meat does not spoil,” I said. “I do not want you sick again.”

Her features were expressive, so I knew my words surprised her. She plucked the bundle from my hand, her small, cold fingers brushing mine, and hastily hid her food away again.

“And you should not give your name so freely,” I told her next.

She frowned. “Why not?”

“To the Dakkari, given names are important. Those who know yours have power over you.”

“What is your name then?” she tried, dangerous creature that she was, looking up at me in expectation.

I was tempted to grin. I was tempted to tell her. A selfish, foolish part of me wanted to, just to see how her mind would use it against me.

But I remembered Vodan’s warning and so I did not give her my name. Not then.

“You may continue calling me demon king if you wish, Nelle,” I rasped. Her lips parted at the sound of her name. “I like it.”