Claimed By the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Eight

One, a drum fire sparking into the air.

Two, two Dakkari children running through a hidden maze only they could see between the tents.

Three, a guard at the entrance to the encampment, walking the line of it on patrol.

I closed my eyes, but then paused. I didn’t count silently in my head but let the sounds and the smells and the wind float over me. I heard a collection of deep murmurs among horde warriors that floated up to the horde king’s tent where I was sitting, perched just outside the entrance. I heard children laughing and yelling in merriment as they played. I felt the icy cold night breeze across my cheeks and swore I saw the gentle orange glow that seemed to hover over the camp behind my closed eyelids. I heard my assigned guard shift from one foot to the other behind me. I heard the Dakkari male in the enclosure I visited earlier barking orders, constructing something in the pen. I smelled the delicious scent of cooking meat combined with a crispness that told me the cold season winds were near.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that the moon, almost a half moon now, hung overhead in the night sky. Sighing, I tucked my knees closer to my chest, resting my chin on my bony kneecaps. My seated position pulled at the wounds on my back, but I tried to ignore it. I’d slept the day away on accident and I woke groggy, thirsty, and hungry to an eerily quiet tent. I’d chugged the water I’d found on the table and then taken out my saved meal, chewing it down quickly.

When I appeared outside the entrance, my guard had taken up his post again, though he didn’t protest when I sat in front of him.

I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there. Long enough for my backside to grow numb from the cold ground and to watch the sky deepen from a soft lavender to a darkened indigo.

The horde camp was vibrant, even on the cusp of the season. My village was nothing like it. In the past, my village had held celebrations if there was a marriage, or if the Uranian Federation had dropped a large ration shipment. But they’d seemed like depressing events to me, where villagers where most concerned with when they would eat and who received the largest cut of the rationed meat.

There had been no children playing together—there were very few children in our village at all. Most villagers kept to their homes after dark. Laughter was rarely heard.

There was life here. And though it was cold, I didn’t want to give up the sounds of the horde for the oppressive quietness of the tent, as luxurious and warm as it was.

A dark figure approached the small incline up to the tent. I studied the way he walked, how his strong legs ate up the distance quickly, and marveled that someone so large could seem so graceful. I hadn’t seen him since that morning, at the enclosure, and I wondered what a horde king of Dakkar did with his day, what tasks he had to oversee.

“Why are you sitting out here, kalles?” he asked, frowning when he reached me.

“I don’t like to be inside much,” I told him. He towered above me, but I kept my eyes on the camp below.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn to the guard. He said something in Dakkari, no doubt dismissing him for the night, and I watched the guard leave down the slope, disappearing behind a tent towards the middle of the camp.

Nerves began to creep up on me now that we were alone and away from the others. It made me wary, being alone with any male, especially after what Kier attempted with me.

I looked up at him from my seated position. “I was wondering where I go.”

“Go?” he murmured.

“Where I should sleep,” I corrected.

He exhaled a sharp breath. “You will sleep here tonight.”

“But…I’m not sick anymore,” I explained to him slowly, as if he didn’t understand what I was trying to tell him. When I’d slept in his bed with him—though unknowingly on my end—I’d been sick with infection and fever. That was different.

“My warriors have been busy preparing for the cold season,” he told me. “You will have your own voliki soon, but not tonight. Unless you wish to sleep out here…”

Frowning, I looked back to the camp. “Surely, there is a spare tent.”

“Nik,” he said. “New volikis are only built when a warrior takes a mate or when members join the horde.”

My shoulders sagged. Another figure approached the incline. It was a Dakkari female carrying a covered tray. Of food?

“Come inside, kalles. Come eat,” he told me before entering through the flaps himself, ducking low to maneuver his large body inside.

The female reached me just as I stood, but she brushed past me. When I caught her eyes, they narrowed on me and there was a very decided chill emanating from her stare that had nothing to do with the crispness in the air.

She ducked inside after calling out in Dakkari at the tent’s entrance, announcing her arrival. Though Dakkari had certainty stared at me that day, none had seemed hostile or angry…simply curious, as if they’d never seen a human before.

When I took a small breath and ducked into the tent myself, I saw the female out of the corner of my eye. She was bending low at the table, unloading the heaping plates of food and a double loaf of the purple bread I liked. Among the plates were other things, but the food didn’t hold my attention for long.

The female was looking at the demon king from under her lashes, taking considerably longer to unload the tray than necessary.

When I looked at him, he was standing by the bed of furs, unbuckling the wide strap of leather attached to his sword’s sheath. He’d worn a heavy pelt of fur over his shoulders that day to protect him from the growing cold, but when he shrugged it off, I saw he was bare-chested underneath, revealing his gleaming, golden skin.

I forced myself to look away, though I felt something strange at the sight of him—intense curiosity and something else I didn’t want to place. When I looked back to the female, she was straightening, a small smile playing over her painted lips.

She said something in Dakkari, her voice soft and low.

“Nik,” the demon king replied, only sparing her the smallest glance. “Rothi kiv.”

The female’s smile dropped ever so slightly. When she saw me watching her, that coldness entered her gaze again and she stalked past, out the tent’s entrance, leaving me alone with the horde king.

The silence prickled at my skin. I longed to be outside, longed to be away from him.

To fill that silence, I informed him, “She wants you.”

Throughout the stages of my lifetime, I’d always observed the men and women in my village. I saw their secret smiles, I heard the unspoken meaning in their words. I’d singlehandedly discovered that Sam and Una were having an affair, despite their spouses not knowing. It seemed like a lot of work to me, the seemingly endless mating dance of humans. I wondered how Dakkari courted their chosen mates. Was it any different?

But I’d recognized the look in the Dakkari female’s eyes and knew what she wanted.

My words caught the horde king’s attention. He turned to face me and I was briefly distracted by how his markings shimmered in the dim lighting.

“Neffar?” he murmured, but I got the distinct impression that he’d heard me perfectly. He simply wanted me to repeat it.

“I said she wants you. You could be nicer to her, I suppose,” I added.

“Wants me in what way, kalles?”

Now I got the distinct impression he was laughing at me.

I frowned. I didn’t like being laughed at. I was only trying to fill the silence with something he might find useful.

Except…

My eyes narrowed on him.

“You already know,” I accused.

“Lysi, kalles,” he murmured, walking towards me. His eyes burned bright in the low lighting and for a moment, I held my breath. “I already know.”

Swallowing, my brow furrowed when he slipped around me to kneel at the low table, the one I was beginning to understand was only for taking meals at.

“Come,” he said.

I mirrored his actions, hiding my wince when I knelt. The black liquid the healer had given me for the pain that morning had begun to wear off.

When I felt him studying me, I commented, “You hardly looked at her. How would you know?”

“She has been with my horde for a few years now,” he informed me. “She has made her intentions clear.”

“Intentions?”

“She aspires to be Morakkari,” he told me. “As do others.”

“Morakkari?” I asked softly, the strange word filtering over my tongue. I thought that like kalles, Morakkari was a pretty word, one I liked.

“My queen,” he told me. His voice went slightly lower as he added, “My wife.”

Something pierced my chest at his words and I looked down at the food on the table.

“Oh,” was all I said, though I had numerous questions bubbling up inside my mind.

Thinking about it, I figured he was right. He was beautiful—handsome, masculine, and seemingly virile. He was powerful, a king in his own right. Wasn’t that what females wanted in their chosen male? Beauty and power and sex?

Now that I thought about it, I wondered why half the females in the horde weren’t at his tent, trying to deliver his meals every night.

“What are you thinking of, thissie?” he rasped and when I looked up at him, I saw him studying me, his brow furrowed. There was an expression etched into his face, one that reminded me of frustration, but why would he be frustrated?

“Nothing,” I said, looking back down at the food. “Can I eat now?”

A muscle in his jaw ticked and he tilted his head down. I took that as my yes and I plucked a chunk of meat from the plate.

There was a lot of food, almost four times as much as that morning. In the back of my mind, I thought that this much food would last me a whole week in my village and I mentally determined how I would ration it.

It took me long moments and many stuffed mouthfuls to realize that he wasn’t eating. He was watching me from across the low table and seemed very content to do so.

His gaze made me uncomfortable and I snatched my hand back when I realized it was outstretched towards the purple bread loaf.

Tucking my hands in my lap, I licked my lips and stared at the golden inlaid design on the wooden table.

“Here,” he rasped a stretch of silence later. When I looked up, he was offering me a small plate of shriveled greens I’d ignored in favor of the meat. “Try.”

With hesitation, I took one from the plate and he set it back on the table, taking one himself and chewing it. I watched the way his strong jaw worked and felt a little of my unease drain when he began eating too.

I ate the cold, withered green, but made a noise when the strange flavor burst on my tongue. It was tart and tangy and delicious.

The demon king’s lips quirked when he saw me reach for another, but he didn’t say anything more during our meal together and I didn’t either.

When my belly was full to the point of bursting, I waited for him to finish, since I thought that was the polite thing to do. Jana had always told me so and she’d grown up on one of the old Earth colonies, before they’d been destroyed. Out of the corner of my eye, I studied his markings again. They were intricate and detailed and beautiful.

When I met his eyes, I jolted as I realized he’d caught me looking at them. I didn’t want him to think I’d been admiring his chest, like the Dakkari female had, so I asked quickly, “Are those symbols Dakkari words?”

“Lysi,” he murmured.

“What do they say?” I asked. Jana had been able to read, but she’d never taught me, though I had begged her many times.

He finished chewing his last bite and I saw the thick, golden column of his throat bob as he swallowed.

“They are my Vorakkar markings,” he told me after a lengthy pause. “My oath to protect my horde above all else.”

I looked at them as if I could read them. There was a looping shape with two perfect dots inside it and I wondered what that word meant. I wondered what exactly a Vorakkar oath would say.

“Have you always been so curious?” he asked me.

“Yes,” I replied immediately, tearing my eyes away from the beautiful, foreign words and looking down into my lap. My wounds gave another sharp throb and I swallowed. “Jana hated it. She told me that it was dangerous to be so curious all the time, to want to know so many things.”

“Who is Jana?” he rumbled. “Your mother?”

My breath hitched and my gaze jerked up at him. “No. No, I was orphaned on my way to Dakkar. Jana…just happened to be there.”

I’d called Jana my mother once when I’d been young. She’d grown so angry that I’d never attempted it again.

His expression was unreadable, but I saw the way his eyes narrowed on me, pinning me in place. Those eyes held mine, ate at me, and my throat grew tight when I realized the demon was doing it again.

It was a relief when I heard a Dakkari announce his presence at the tent’s entrance and I jerked my gaze away from him with a shuddering inhale.

“Lysi,” the horde king called out and I jumped when the tent flaps slapped back.

Not just one but three Dakkari males entered, carrying in buckets of steaming hot water, pouring them into the bathing tub that still remained from that morning, though it’d been emptied sometime during my nap.

When they left, I sat, frozen on my cushion.

“Do you wish to bathe first?” came his low voice.

Swallowing, I watched a trail of steam rise from the surface of the water. I’d never taken a hot bath before. What was it like?

“No,” I choked out. “Of course not. That is inappropriate.”

That was what Jana would’ve said, right?

The corner of his lips lifted ever so slightly but he stood.

“Very well,” he said, walking to the bathing tub.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice reminding me of the Dakkari boy’s high-pitched laugh from earlier that morning.

He didn’t look at me as he unlaced his hide pants and slid them down his legs, being mindful of his tail.

I blinked, frozen, as the expanse of his bare flesh came into view. For once, my thoughts momentarily went silent.

“Bathing,” he told me, as if it were obvious.