been quiet for a long time, wondering about all the things I didn’t know, because Kiran tipped up my chin and ran an assessing look over my expression.
And because I couldn’t hide anything from him, I teased softly, “Perhaps a female in the horde is better suited to be your wife. Because all I know is how to suture a bloody wound and how to deliver babies. I know nothing of the politics of Dothik, or of the other hordes. All I’ve known is the saruk.”
The more I talked, the more I realized it was true. I had always been confident in my abilities as a healer. And I took pride in what I did.
But I was a healer. I’d studied to become one. I’d poured nearly half my life into the pursuit of it. I knew nothing about being a Morakkari. I knew nothing about being a horde king’s queen.
Kiran didn’t hesitate.
“I don’t want any other female but you,” he rasped and I felt more of that compacted dirt in my chest loosen. I imagined my heart beginning to peek through, shifting more of that dirt as it pumped harder and faster, exposed. “And I never will.”
“You don’t know that,” I whispered, swallowing.
“I do,” he returned without hesitation. “And you will learn how to be a Vorakkar’s wife. And you will be great at it, as you are at everything you put your mind to. Lysi?”
I couldn’t help my tired smile. “You are relentless, you know that?”
“You’ve always known that,” he replied. “Do not act surprised now.”
A small laugh burst from my throat.
“Do not think of these matters now, Maeva,” came his voice, a subtle change in its tone. I sobered when I saw how serious, how focused he looked. “Do not worry about being my Morakkari now. Just be with me. Let me touch you and kiss you. Let me warm you in this bed. Let me make you smile again.”
I took in a deep breath, feeling his words burrow their way into my chest.
“And if you find yourself loving me again,” he continued, pressing closer, his arms coming around me, “if you find that at the end of the frost you do not want to leave me, that you want to stay by my side, that you want to be the mokkira to my horde and my queen in our furs, that you want to bear my children...”
His voice went a little gruffer at those words as a sharp inhale whistled through my nostrils, imagining that.
“If you find all that to be true, then allow yourself to worry about being my Morakkari. But even then, I will see you through it. Because you’ll find you have nothing to worry about. Not with me, seffi. You have nothing to worry about with me, ever again.”
Later that night, as I lay in Kiran’s arms, as I listened to his steady, even breaths as he slept beside me and felt his warmth pour into me, I heard the storm reach the horde.
As his words continued to ring through my mind—feeling more and more like a premonition than a possible path to where this would lead—I heard the stones of ice begin to rain down from the sky.
And when those little pelts of ice ceased suddenly, I knew the frost had taken their place, soft and slow, yet already chilling the air inside the voliki.
In the morning, I would wake to a new Dakkar. But for now, I closed my eyes and slept in my horde king’s arms.
Chapter Forty
“What did the healer say again?” Addie asked, perched on the table in my voliki, nervously nibbling her lip. “Because something feels different. I noticed yesterday, after I left here.”
“What feels different?” I asked, approaching her with the note from the healer of Rath Tuviri. A note that I had poured over in the last few days, ever since the frost had blown in.
Addie had come in every day since the note arrived. She asked me to read it to her again and again. I knew she was just nervous. The baby would be coming soon. Sooner than the previous mokkira had believed, that much was obvious, and there was always a hint of panic in her face whenever I saw her.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “Just a…heaviness. Sometimes pain. I woke Jurin last night because it frightened me but he calmed me back down.”
Jurin must have been her mate and Addie was in too much of an anxious state to realize she’d