Captive of the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Oh, Missiki,” Mirari murmured, squirming in discomfort. “I do not…I do not know if I can…”

My cheeks burned and I kept my voice quiet as I asked her advice, so even the guards outside our tent wouldn’t hear. “Please. He hasn’t…he hasn’t, erm, approached me in some time. I don’t know what to do.”

It had been four days since that night in the bathing tub when he’d told me about Dothik. Four days and three nights and Arokan still hadn’t touched me. Of course, he touched me during our baths before bed. He stroked my body and touched me in places that made me bite my lip and try to hold back a moan. But anything more, even when we lay in bed at night, was nonexistent.

And I was slowly losing my mind because of it.

My body felt like a stranger’s once again. I was almost constantly aroused because of his teasings, my body needing release. My skin felt sensitive to the touch. I’d woken up that morning in an empty bed with my hand between my legs and I’d been so tempted to release some tension myself. But Mirari and Lavi had entered shortly after and I’d sighed in frustration and let them dress me for the day instead.

But now, as Lavi finished braiding my hair, I wanted to know what Mirari thought.

“Is it…is this strange?” I asked, worried about her reply. My eyes went over to the chests that lined the tent wall and my belly burned. It wasn’t the first time I wondered if Arokan was releasing his own tension elsewhere. And that thought cutdeep. It made jealousy swarm my veins.

The only thing that didn’t make me completely lose it over that was that I didn’t know when he’d have the time to seek out another female. He went about his duties during the day with his pujerak and his advisors and at dusk, he collected me from the enclosure and we trained together until long after nightfall. After which, we retired to our tent.

Mirari lowered her voice and said, “It is, Missiki. I am sorry to say. Dakkari males are very…very needful.”

My stomach dropped, my eyes closing. I knew it. I knew something was wrong.

“It all makes sense now,” she said softly.

“What do you mean?”

“It is rumored that as of late the Vorakkar has been especially short with his warriors. Frustrated. Rarely does he show his temper, but I am told it’s been rather apparent lately.”

My brows rose, surprised. With me, Arokan didn’t seem any different, though there had been something in his gaze that confused me. A tightness.

But everything had been normal between us. We spent a good deal of time together, especially at night, so wouldn’t I notice if something was wrong?

“I don’t know what to do,” I confessed, looking into her eyes. Mirari and Lavi—though she only spoke a handful of words in the universal tongue now—had become my friends. I trusted them. And I trusted Mirari to tell me the truth. I knew she would, had never held back before, despite her being my piki.

“Does he ever make his interest clear?” she asked softly, though she still seemed a little uncomfortable with the subject.

I furrowed my brow. “Sometimes I think so. He, um, touches me at night. I always think he will initiate something, but he always pulls away shortly afterwards.”

Mirari blinked. “Why do you not initiate then?”

“What?”

Mirari shook her head. “Missiki, do you ever touch him too? Do you seem receptive to him? What do you do when he makes his interest clear?”

“I…” I trailed off. I looked down at my lap, at the golden marks across my wrists. They were fully healed now and beautiful. “I just…wait.”

Mirari sucked in a sharp inhale. “Missiki…”

“Is that bad?” I asked, looking up at her. “It’s bad, isn’t it? Ugh, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never had to think about this before.”

“Never?” she asked skeptically.

My cheeks flamed again. “No. I was inexperienced before the Vorakkar.”

“Oh, I see,” Mirari said gently. “In that case, Missiki, you need to take initiative. Males need to know that you desire them as much as they desire you. If you do nothing when he touches you, he must think that you do not want his advances.”

“But…” I whispered, dread pooling in my stomach. “But I do.”

“Then it is not a problem,” Mirari said, smiling, relaxing at my admission. “Just communicate with your body that you wish for him to continue.”

“I don’t know how,” I confessed again.

The other times we’d had sex, had I touched him, been receptive to him?

The night he’d come to me after I refused to eat, I’d been still and unresponsive. He’d touched and kissed my body but it was only after my stomach growled did he stop. Or had it also been because I was simply lying there, scared and nervous? I remembered he’d kept looking up at me. Had that been to gauge whether I was enjoying it? Had he stopped because he thought I wasn’t, not only because I was hungry?

Then the night of our tassimara…I think I had been responsive. The fermented drink from the celebration had helped relax me. I’d enjoyed what we did, after the initial pain.

The second time we’d had sex, I’d been angry, but that anger had turned to passion, to need. I’d screamed into the furs so loud with the pleasure he’d wrung from me.

Was that what this was about? Arokan believed that I wasn’t receptive to him anymore?

I blew out a breath. I’d given him no indication that I was. I’d let him stroke my body, let him suckle and kiss my nipples without so much as a word or a sound or a touch of reciprocation. Of course, he would think that.

Damn.

I was a fool. An inexperienced fool who desired her horde king husband but didn’t know how to show him.

“How…” I trailed off, meeting Mirari’s eyes again. “How can I show him that I want him?”

“Many ways,” Mirari replied, seemingly over her initial embarrassment. “Males are easy. They do not need much. Just give into your instincts as a female. Do not hide your sounds or your movements. Let him see your enjoyment. Be open to him, like I told you before.”

Easier said than done. I’d grown up in a village where sex was hidden, hardly discussed. I was relying on those same instincts to hide what I felt whenever Arokan touched me.

“You train together at night, do you not?” Mirari asked next.

“Yes,” I answered. “Why?”

“Fighting can be…exciting. Primal. The Vorakkar would never hurt you though he pushes you hard. You can use that to your advantage. Think of your training sessions as foreplay.”

I laughed even though I wanted to hide. “There are so many of the horde watching.”

“So?” Mirari asked. “It is only you and him. Ignore the others.”

Lavi spoke, probably frustrated that Mirari wasn’t translating the conversation like she normally did. Mirari looked at me for permission and I nodded. Then I listened as Mirari told Lavi all my troubles with the Vorakkar in Dakkari.

Lavi waved her hand in response, glancing at me. She said something that made Mirari chuckle.

“What did she say?” I asked, biting my lip.

“Lavi said that you should just suck his cock,” she laughed. “That will tell him everything he needs to know and make him worship the ground you walk on. Like I said, males are simple like that.”

I was makinga mess of this ‘foreplay’ business.

Cursing Mirari for ever planting the idea, I gripped the small blade in my hand and arced out my arm the way Arokan taught me.

“You are pushing your hips too far back,” Arokan grumbled from behind me, watching my form.

I blew a strand of hair out of my eyes as his hands came to my hips, pushing them forward. The sweet ache of my muscles almost made me groan. I’d been constantly sore ever since our training sessions began earlier in the week. But I liked it. It meant my body was growing stronger, rebuilding itself.

“You are unfocused tonight,” he rasped. “Perhaps we should end early. I have been pushing you too hard.”

I was just about to protest, but then thought that retiring to the tent early might not be such a bad idea. Because I’d decided earlier that tonight was the night. I couldn’t take the sexual frustration anymore and I didn’t think Arokan could either.

Ever since Mirari had told me about his short-temper, I’d looked for signs of it. While he never raised his voice to me, he was definitely tense about something. His shoulders were bunched, his brows lowered into a dark expression, his fists clenching every so often.

My horde king was wound tight because of me.

“Yes,” I said, looking over my shoulder at him, dropping my arm. “Let’s end early.”

He nodded, stepping back. “I have a matter to attend to,” he said. “Go eat and rest. I might return late.”

I frowned, but he had already turned away.

“Vorakkar,” I called out before I realized it, catching sight of a small group that had formed to watch us practice.

He stopped, looked back.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

“Never mind,” I said, shaking my head. What was I going to say with a group watching? That I wanted him to come back with me so we could fuck each other senseless?

I was at that point though. I’d never particularly thought about sex, or needed it. Back at my village, I would masturbate whenever the need arose, but nothing more. Even that had been difficult to find time for, considering how filled my days had been with work.

Now, I felt like I would scream with the frustration of it.

Arokan turned back towards the front of the camp and I lost sight of him between the tents. I couldn’t help but wonder where he was going…and so late.

When I returned to the voliki, I ate and bathed myself, but even the tub seemed too big without Arokan in it. I had grown so used to spending the nights with him that now it seemed strange, like the time was stretched. It was different. I didn’t think I liked it.

As I waited, my thoughts ran wild. Insecurity reared its ugly head and I couldn’t help but wonder, for the hundredth time, if Arokan was assuaging his lusts elsewhere.

I didn’t think I could handle that if it were true. Over the short amount of time we’d been together, I’d grown to care for him. There had been a point, early on, when I hadn’t cared. I’d hoped he’d been visiting other females.

Now, that possibility made my hands shake, made my heart palpitate in my chest.

I didn’t want him touching anyone else. I didn’t want him using that magnificent body on anyone else. I didn’t want him kissing or gently stroking or warming anyone else but me.

He was mine. Mine alone. And it amazed me at how intense that feeling rose in my chest and held, how that feeling took shape and hardened like stone.

Unable to wait any longer, I stalked out the tent entrance, surprising my two guards.

I needed to see for myself where he was, who he was with.

“I need some fresh air,” I told them. “Lo navi kikkira anr.”

Though they initially tried to protest, I began to walk through camp, threading my way in the direction Arokan had gone in.

Maybe I was being crazy, but I blamed it on the frustration. I just needed to know to finally stop these treacherous thoughts once and for all.

I walked between tents, keeping an ear out for his voice. And I heard quite a lot. I’d never really walked between the volikis at night, but it suddenly occurred to me how easily it was to hear families or couples or warriors inside. And every time I heard a female moan, or cry out in pleasure, my heart froze because I wondered who was giving her it.

I don’t know how many tents I passed where couples were having sex. It only drove in what I already knew: that the Dakkari liked sex, liked having it regularly, and that Arokan and I were not having it.

And strangely enough, it brought me close to tears. Perhaps it was the frustration, perhaps it was how much I’d grown to like Arokan, how my belly warmed and fluttered whenever he was around, whenever I heard his voice, or perhaps it was simply close to my bleeding time. I didn’t know.

Regardless, I was on the verge of having some sort of emotional breakdown when I finally heard his voice.

It was coming from a tent set a little further away from the others. A larger one, the same size as ours. A single guard was posted out front and as I approached, his brow furrowed.

I heard Arokan’s voice again. He was speaking in Dakkari. It sounded like he was asking a question, but his voice was low and deep.

Then I heard the light voice of a female and my stomach lurched.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was striding towards the voliki. The guard tried to stop me but I wouldn’t be deterred.

All I could think was that Arokan was mine and he was with another female that night.

So, before the guard caught hold of me, I pushed the flaps of the tent entrance back with a forceful slap and lunged inside, bracing myself for whatever I would find.