Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,151

I have.”

My heart was pounding ferociously in my chest, so loud that I wondered if my father would hear it on that quiet, still, frosty morning.

Pattar closed his eyes. He clutched his cane harder but he squeezed my hand too.

Eventually, he shook his head and a rueful sigh drifted from his lips. When he met my gaze again, he said, “Your mother told me it would happen. Sometimes I believed that female had the gift of foresight. She always knew.”

Just as Laru had said.

“I have had years to prepare for this moment, and yet, I find the years have not been long enough. No amount of time could prepare a father to say goodbye to his daughter.”

The words made my heart squeeze, made tears swell in my eyes.

“It’s not goodbye, Pattar,” I whispered. “It doesn’t have to be.”

His cold hand cupped my cheek and I clutched at his wrist, feeling his pulse underneath my fingertips.

“When I found you in that forest, I knew that you were a gift from Kakkari herself, Maeva,” he told me, his own eyes going glassy. He’d never been ashamed of his tears. “The warm wind led me to you that day and that wind will take you far from here. It will lead you where you need to go.”

He leaned his forehead against mine.

I didn’t expect it to hurt this much. I knew it would be difficult but this made my heart feel like it was being shredded all over again, just in a different way. Because I knew my father was hurting too.

“Kakkari will lead you where you need to go. But the saruk will always be your home. You can always come home, Maeva. Remember that.”

“It’s healing well,” I told the darukkar, inspecting the incision where the mokkira had needed to extract a broken ungira talon that had imbedded itself inside the poor male’s leg. “Another day and you’ll be able to walk on it, lysi?”

The relief in the darukkar’s eyes was vivid and bright. “Kakkira vor, kerisa.”

Healer.

Not mokkira.

Hearing my old title was strange, made me feel like I’d gone back in time, like the last month hadn’t happened at all.

I gave the darukkar a small smile. “Rest for today. The mokkira will check on you later tonight.”

He nodded and then I left the soliki, nodding at the darukkar’s mate as I left the small home. It was late afternoon already. The day had seemed to fly by after my conversation with my father earlier. After I’d ensured he made it back to his bed safely, him grumbling the entire time, I’d left to assist the mokkira, making rounds around the saruk.

I hadn’t seen Kiran since I’d checked in on him sleeping before I left, though I thought I’d spied him near the front of the saruk earlier.

I had a break, however, and wanted to see him. So I ventured down the main road and I asked a passing darukkar, “Have you seen the Vorakkar?”

His chin lifted and he looked out beyond the gates. “He’s out in the fields.”

He was?

But that was just like Kiran, wasn’t it? Even though he was a Vorakkar, a king in his own right, he was helping the darukkars with a filthy, laborious, difficult job out in the frost-bitten fields.

“Kakkira vor,” I murmured and headed the rest of the way, winding down the road and then I had one of the guards open the gates.

There were dozens of males working around the field but most of them were centered around the next ungira they were trying to drop back into its nest. Others were trying to break through the frosted ground, to cover the nests that were already filled.

I spotted Kiran easily. He was tethering a strap to Roon out in the field, which was wrapped around an ungira. They were using the pyrokis’ strength to help shift the massive beasts.

His head came up, as if sensing me near. I heard him call out something to the other males—who seemed relieved for a break—before he strode towards me.

When he was close, he said, “I have to warn you, seffi, I am certain I smell like rotting ungira.”

My heart stuttered when I saw his quirked smile. Something that felt like relief spread through my chest.

“I’m a healer,” I told him when he stopped in front of me, stepping closer. “I’ve smelled worse, I assure you.”

His low, husky laugh slid down my throat and into my belly.

And though there were eyes on us, he reached out to embrace me, pulling