Captive of the Horde King by Zoey Draven

Chapter Four

“Kalles, you look frightened,” the horde king said. His voice sounded almost…mocking.

I stiffened in the bathing tub, indignation rising, but I tamped it down. I still had the presence of mind to recognize that he held the power over me and it would be best not to anger him.

He turned from me, which gave me a momentary sliver of relief, but it was to rummage through one of the closed chests I’d spotted earlier. Sinking lower into the bath water, making sure it covered my jutting nipples, I watched carefully as he crouched, his back muscles shifting in the golden light as he searched for something.

I let my eyes linger on him longer than I should. Just because he was my new master, it didn’t change the fact that he was visually intriguing. The gold beads and wraps in his hair flashed, the golden, swirling tattoos adorning his dark skin glimmered, those scars, long and deep, bringing questions to my mind, though I didn’t dare voice them. He was strong and large and powerful and dangerous, a cautionary tale I’d heard since childhood made flesh.

When he stood, I saw he had a silk shift night dress in his large hands. It was practically transparent and it confirmed my suspicions that he had more than one female ‘serving’ him. Why else would he have that in his private possessions?

When he approached, I leaned forward, hugging my knees to my chest in an attempt to shield my nudity, looking up at him warily. I cursed that the water was clear now, instead of the dark brown it’d been earlier.

“Stand,” he ordered.

I froze. “What?”

“You are clean now. Stand, kalles.”

There was a challenge not only in his voice but in his eyes. He was testing me again. Why?

He’d called me brave back in my village. He’d also called me foolish. Perhaps I was both because that challenge steeled my spine and set my teeth on edge.

Slowly, I unwrapped my arms from around my knees and stood as I swallowed past the nervous lump in my throat. Would he take me this night? Was that why he wished for me to bathe? Was I to start ‘serving’ him immediately, though we’d ridden through the night, though I was chafed raw between my thighs?

The horde king’s gaze tracked over my naked body, lingering on my breasts, the curve of my hips, and the dark tuft of hair between my legs. He made a rough sound in the back of his throat and it made me jump.

“Step out,” he ordered, though his voice was considerably deeper than it’d been a moment before.

I licked my dry lips and did as he commanded, though I couldn’t suppress my wince as a twinge of sharp pain shot through my backside.

The horde king stilled. “What is it?”

Pride made me say, “Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed and he grabbed my wrist, hauling me towards him. The sudden movement made me grit my teeth, but he turned me, inspecting me.

He growled out something in Dakkari when he saw my flesh, the redness of my backside, no doubt, and then he turned me, peering between my legs, at my inner thighs.

My cheeks flamed with humiliation. I’d never been naked with a male before, not since my mother used to bathe my brother and I together when we’d been children. I wasn’t used to baring my body so freely, especially in front of rapt, attentive, yellow-rimmed eyes.

I gasped and jumped when he brushed his fingertips across my reddened, sore flesh.

“Don’t,” I protested, trying to twist away from him. But he held me still, though I squirmed.

Finally, he released my wrists. His face was tight when he turned me back around to face him and he scooped up a spare fur blanket, using it to roughly dry off my body, though his touch gentled when he reached my hips…and below.

It surprised me, but I was too nervous to let out a single breath, so I stood, frozen.

“Put this on,” he commanded, dropping the transparent night dress in my hands.

My eyes bulged. “But…but it’s…”

Not that it mattered. I was already naked in front of him. I had no dignity left, it seemed.

“Sleep bare then,” he said, with a shrug of his massive shoulders. “I would prefer it, kalles.”

Thathad me scrambling to pull it on over my head. I would take whatever I could get. Besides, it was clean and it was possibly the most luxurious item I’d ever felt against my skin. The material was so light it felt like air, so it wouldn’t rub against my raw skin.

Again, guilt swamped me. I shouldn’t appreciate these luxuries.

The horde king studied me though I avoided his gaze. Finally, he shifted to untie the laces of his pants, which looked to be made of the same material as the tent—tanned animal hide.

My alarmed eyes flashed up to his. “What are you doing?”

“I need to bathe after the journey,” he told me, stepping out of his pants until he was nude, except for the gold cuffs around his thick wrists. “You will wash me.”

My face burned with so much heat that I wondered if my eyeballs were red too. Actively, I avoided looking at his groin, keeping my eyes level with his neck.

But it was unavoidable. When he stepped into the bathing tub, I caught a glimpse and my mouth went as dry as the earth around our village.

He was massive. Long and thick, with a heavy, dusky, full sack swaying just below. There was a large bump just above the root of his base that protruded slightly, something human males didn’t have. And just like his body…he had two, intricate stripes of gold tattooed around his sex. One near the base of his cock and one just underneath the rounded head.

What made dread pool in my belly most was that he was erect. So hard that his cock bobbed against his taut abdomen when he stepped into the tub. I also caught a glimpse of his perfectly sculpted backside, at the strong tail that jutted out above his buttocks.

He groaned, the sound strangely erotic, when he leaned back, fully enveloped in the warm water. His eyes closed briefly, his arms coming to rest on the lip of the tub, the size of which was obviously meant for a Dakkari male, since he fit perfectly.

Despite the situation, despite what happened that night, and my pain and exhaustion from riding the pyroki…my heartbeat stuttered at the sensual sight of him.

I swallowed with difficulty, looking away, shame burning deep in my chest for finding him attractive. He’d almost killed my brother, had taken me as his whore. I needed to remember that.

His voice made me jump. “Bathe me, kalles. You promised you would serve me, did you not?”

Slowly, I knelt beside the tub, ignoring my aching soreness. I took up one of the washing cloths the Dakkari females had used on me, dipping it in the water quickly to wet it.

Then, taking a deep breath, I smoothed it over his skin, trying to copy the efficient motions the females had used on me. Otherwise, bathing him felt too…intimate.

So, with rough, quick circles, I washed his shoulders, his arms, cleaning away the dirt that had accumulated during our ride to the camp. His eyes remained closed, thankfully, and he remained still. It gave me the courage to wash below the water, to wipe across his chest, his abdomen. He lifted slightly so I could wash his back.

But washing below his waist seemed unavoidable once I’d finished.

He grunted lightly when I made one light pass over his cock. I bit my lip, looking away, and then blew out a silent breath of relief when I moved down to his long, muscular legs.

“Relax, kalles,” he murmured. When I chanced a look at him, I saw his eyes were on me, heavy lidded. “I will not fuck you this night.”

My body went tense at his words, though I also felt relieved that I’d escaped my ‘duties’ for that night. He said it so crudely, so matter-of-fact.

I’d always heard that the Dakkari were like barbarians, primitive beings that did nothing more than fuck and ride their beasts and wage war on unsuspecting settlements.

Something told me that I’d been fed untruths. At least partial ones. There was more to the Dakkari than the tall tales I’d heard since childhood, as evidenced by this very encampment, by the females and children that traveled with the hordes, by the gentle luxuries that the horde king seemed to enjoy. Nothing in that tent told me he was a primitive barbarian.

But still…

I did not know what prompted me to say it, but I told him, “Can you blame me? I’d expected to be rutted on the floor the moment you came inside. That was what I’d agreed to, was it not?”

I cursed myself once the words left my tongue.

He made a sound in the back of his throat. “Do not give me tempting ideas, kalles.”

That surprised me. He said it with no venom behind his words.

I moved onto washing his hair. It was surprisingly soft, though it looked coarse, and I threaded my soap-covered fingers through it, washing away the dirt. Once it was clean, the horde king did one final rinse and then stood from the tub, water sluicing off his body.

He looked down at me, his magnificent flesh on display, his cock still hard in front of me. And I kneeled before him, in my transparent shift.

His jaw ticked and he growled, looking away. He stepped out of the tub, calling out in Dakkari towards the entrance and I gasped when the same three males appeared, taking out the bathing tub so quickly, I didn’t even have time to shield my almost-nude body from them. Not that they looked. They kept their eyes averted.

The horde king had no hesitations about his own nudity and simply dried off with the same furs I had used before draping it over the back of a steel rack at the side of the tent.

When we were alone again, I stood, wrapping my arms around me to hide my modest breasts. My hair was wet, however, drenching the fabric as it dripped, and parts of the shift molded to my body.

I tensed when he approached me and despite the heat in the tent, I shivered, my nipples pebbling against my arm.

He unthreaded my arms, placing them at my sides, looking down the front of my body the same way he had at my village. Like he could see all of me. And I supposed he could.

Tension, at least on my part, thickened the air between us.

“I had intended to rut you on the floor this night like a beast,” he murmured suddenly. “I thought of nothing else as we rode.”

I inhaled a sharp breath.

“I will wait until you heal,” he finally said.

That…surprised me.

The way he was gazing at me…no male had ever looked at me like that before. And when he reached out a hand to touch me, in desperation, in a clumsy attempt to maintain some sort of distance between us, I hurriedly asked, “Do the Dakkari often take humans as their whores? I would think your own females would suffice for that purpose.”

The horde king stilled and my blood rushed in my ears, wondering if I’d gone too far.

Silence spread thin between us.

“You believe you will be my whore, kalles?” he finally asked.

Confusion made my brows furrow and I licked my lips as I said, “Isn’t that what you meant?”

The horde king grinned, though it was small and dark. Still, it made my breath hitch.

“Nik, you will not be my whore,” he rasped, his voice deepening. I gasped, my body going tight, when he brushed his fingertips over my pebbled nipple before thumbing it back and forth in a way that made my hands shake, the sensation foreign and new. “Nik, you will be my kassikari. You will be my Morakkari.”

My head went foggy as he continued his caress over my other nipple but when I tried to squirm away, his tail wrapped around my waist, holding me fast and firm, surprising me with its strength.

“What…what is that?” I asked, trying to focus.

“I will claim you in the old way, in the old Dakkari tradition,” he told me, which only confused me even more. “You will not be my whore, kalles. You will be my queen.”