that panic I felt? Knowing that Kiran would be so close to us for the next few months?
“Truly?” the Arakkari breathed, clasping her son’s wide wrist, placing her palm right over his Vorakkar cuffs, which looked more worn than when I’d last seen them.
Kiran inclined his head, though his eyes were on me. “I come to the saruk now to make an offer to one of your healers. I need a new mokkira through the coming frost. We have many pregnant females that will give birth soon…one of them human.”
Even I couldn’t conceal the sharp, surprised breath that escaped me…and I had had plenty of practice hiding my emotions through the years.
Human?
He had humans living among his horde?
So the rumors have been true, I thought, in disbelief.
The Arakkari’s eyes turned to me, golden and glittering in the morning light. Her expression was pensive, knowing. The room suddenly seemed very quiet, heavy, suspended on the cusp of something. Even the mokkira had paused in his work.
With his searing gaze still pinning me in place, Kiran murmured, “I know which healer I would like to make the offer to.”
Chapter Seven
The tension that filled the soliki was palpable and my poor lomma was doing everything she could to ignore it.
My father’s disapproving stare connected with my unyielding one. Though my mother had come to visit me in my own horde two years prior, I hadn’t seen my father since a meeting in Dothik, five years ago.
Though it had been five years, my father hadn’t changed at all. There were no aging lines on his face. He still wore his pressed Dakkari armor almost daily, his sword always at his side. I knew he still sharpened the blade every night, cleaning it meticulously though it barely saw use anymore.
“You think that just because you are my son, you can come to my saruk to take one of my healers?” my father murmured, his voice deceptively soft.
My jaw was clenched tight. For Lomma’s sake, I kept a tight leash on my temper. Perhaps I was more like my father than I cared to admit.
“Let’s not talk of this now,” Lomma pleaded softly, reaching out to place a soft hand on my father’s wrist, right over where his Vorakkar cuffs had been. The skin was still lightened where they’d once been. “Eat. Both of you.”
My father’s gaze never left me, however.
“Get a healer from Dothik,” my father growled. “I forbid this.”
He had four healers going into the frost season. I barely had one. Though saruks were larger in population than hordes, four healers still seemed excessive, especially in a time of peace.
The Ghertun under the Dead Mountain had been leashed…for now. Lozza, the Ghertun king, had retreated with his tail tucked between his legs. The Killup were our tentative allies, should tensions begin to rise once more.
My only concern for the frost season were the births of the children and assistance for some of the elder members of my horde, for the frosts were always difficult on them.
“You cannot forbid it,” I told my father, lifting my goblet from its place on the wood table.
We were all seated on the floor, our untouched meal spread before us. It was evening. The day had passed by quickly and already, I itched to return to my horde. We had been traveling for two days and I wanted to be back by the full moon.
“Neffar?” my father growled, his temper beginning to snap. Lomma squirmed in her seat, her expression one of discomfort. She’d forgotten how often my father and I butted heads. Not a night back home and we were already fighting.
“I don’t need your permission, Sorakkar,” I rasped, holding his eyes.
I had always called him Sorakkar. Never Pattar. Father.
In this instance, however, my word was meant as a reminder of his rank.
I was a Vorakkar. He was not. Not anymore.
As Vorakkar, I didn’t need his permission to extend an offer to one of his healers. Any members of the saruk were free to leave it. Any members were free to make their own decisions.
My father seethed quietly but I was used to his glare.
I loved my father. I knew he loved me.
But our relationship had never been easy. It never would be, especially now that I was a Vorakkar, though it had always been what my father had trained me for.
“Enough,” my lomma finally snapped, a hint of the Morakkari she’d once been shining through. Her eyes were on my father. “Eat. Now.”
Leaning forward, I pressed a