Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,146
he became a hunter. Most of his life had been spent in a horde.
I’d almost asked him, as we talked earlier. I’d almost asked him if he would consider horde life again. But I couldn’t make the selfish words come. Not when he’d been so anxious to visit Lomma’s burial site, which was near the forest of Isida, though protected along a coastal path. He’d been so worried that the ungira had destroyed her grave.
“I wish you would come with me, Pattar,” I whispered though he slept soundly. “I wish you all would.”
There was noise in the common room, noise that made me pivot my head and frown down the hallway, though I saw nothing, only the flickering of the fire against the walls. Laru and Nevir were out of sight, though I could hear their hushed voices.
I turned back to my father. He was sleeping and though I was exhausted, I knew I should take advantage of that time and see if the mokkira needed any—
Heavy footsteps came down the hallway. Too heavy to be Nevir’s.
Before I could react, a large body was stepping over the threshold of the doorway, silhouetted in the darkness.
Even if I were blind, even if all my senses were taken away from me, I’d still be able to recognize Kiran anywhere.
Stunned disbelief and a bright burst of relief—overwhelming and wonderful—made me gasp for air, made tears immediately flood my eyes as I clamored hurriedly from the ground.
“Seffi,” came his gruff, quiet voice, those golden eyes glowing in the darkness.
All my emotions came flooding to the surface. My worry for him, my guilt for leaving, my fear that my father wouldn’t be able to survive this, my exhaustion, both emotionally and physically. With it also came my need to be near him, my need to hold him, to feel his arms around me, his heartbeat against my cheek. With it also came my surging love, love that had never died, after all. He’d been right. I had just buried it so deep I couldn’t feel it anymore…until he’d unearthed it again.
I tumbled into his arms but he held me steadily. He was warm. He smelled of Roon and the frost. He was safe. He’d come to the saruk. Looking for me?
He was in my family’s soliki, where it was so easy to remember him, remember us.
My tears unleashed, silent, happy, relieved sobs shaking my shoulders. His arms tightened around me, his head dropping to press his lips into my hair.
“I’m here, seffi,” he murmured. “Let me take care of you now, lysi?”
Chapter Fifty
Maeva slept soundly in my arms, dead to the world.
With my back to the stone wall, I was sitting on the floor of her father’s room, listening to his even, steady breaths, and feeling my female’s heart pump against my chest. Down the hallway, I could hear Nevir and Laru whispering to one another, though I couldn’t make out their words.
The longer Maeva was in my arms, the more I felt the thick, heavy, tight knot loosen in my chest.
It had been a long, nightmarish week. Made even longer when I’d finally returned from Rath Kitala’s horde to find my pujerak—with a grim, knowing expression—telling me that Maeva had returned to the saruk.
The only reason I hadn’t eviscerated him where he stood was that he’d sent her away with eight darukkars as protection and he’d told me that the saruk had been attacked, Maeva’s father injured.
And I had known right then that nothing would’ve stopped her from leaving. I’d been back at my horde for scarcely an hour, long enough for Roon to eat and rest briefly, before I was on his back again, riding south. He’d seemed to sense my urgency and he brought us quickly to the saruk in a little over a day.
Now, my beast rested, reunited briefly with his mother—my lomma’s pyroki—in the small enclosure of the saruk. And I was holding Maeva in my arms.
“You,” came the voice.
My head snapped up and I met the eyes of Maeva’s father, careful not to wake her.
“Terun,” I murmured softly, inclining my head. It meant elder. It was the respectful title I’d always greeted him with. It didn’t matter that I was a Vorakkar now.
The last time I saw him, he’d been so mad he was spitting and cursing my name. Furious that I’d broken Maeva’s heart, that I’d rejected her love. And I remembered the words, the last words he’d ever said to me.