Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,28
the coming weeks, once my horde is settled in the south lands.”
With that, I left.
She wanted to forget?
For the first time in nine years…I wasn’t certain I wanted to anymore.
Chapter Eleven
Laru was watching me when I came through the door, combing through Rasik’s growing hair. The little male, though he’d just been bounding with energy before I met with Kiran, was now growing tired, his eyelids heavy. They grew even heavier when his mother began to comb through the little tuft of hair sprouting from the tip of his tail.
Affection flooded my chest as I drank in his sweet, sleepy face.
“Was that…” Laru began quietly, regarding me carefully. “Was that the Vorakkar?”
I never knew if Kiran had ever told Laru his given name. Though I’d caught them kissing when Laru had come of age—before Nevir had begun to court her—I never knew the extent of their relationship.
I’d never asked. For good reason. And we’d…we’d simply never spoken of it. Laru had known my feelings for Kiran back then. Once she saw how upset I’d been about their kiss, she’d apologized.
But that had been the last we’d spoken of Kiran. We never even spoke of that night, when she’d found me on the cliff’s edge with my dress on backwards, with tears streaming down my face, and my heart flayed wide open. She’d comforted me, then brought me to my mother, who had comforted me more.
“Lysi,” I rasped, shrugging off my furs and hanging them by the door. It was warm inside our soliki. The fire had been roaring since sundown. As soon as the sun set, the temperature plummeted dramatically.
“What did he want?”
I was careful not to meet her gaze. Instead, I went to my cabinets, in need of a distraction. Inside, there were three rows of carefully organized and labelled vials. All different colors, some clear, some vivid purple, all with different uses. Below the last shelf, I saw the frayed pages of my journal, the one my mother had made me—carefully crafted from hide and strained pulp from fallen trees in the Isida forest.
Running my fingers over the soft brown hide, I murmured, “He’s leaving in the morning. He told me he’ll send for me soon, after Pattar returns from his hunt.”
Laru was silent. When I’d broken the news to her last night, after I’d spoken with Kiran at our old private place by the sea, she’d been…quiet. She hadn’t broken down into tears, which I had expected of her, given her pregnancy. She hadn’t begged me to stay, though I knew she never would. She’d simply said, “Be careful.”
Now? I could sense the inevitable was about to happen.
So, I wasn’t surprised when Laru said, “The Vorakkar has always held power over you, Maeva.”
“Power I willingly gave him,” I replied, never taking my eyes from my vials. My gaze was frantic over them and my hand shook when I reached forward to take Laru’s sickness tonic out from its place. I would need to make more for her before I left. I needed to do so many things before I left.
But I was…excited?
I’d never left the saruk. Whatever my life had been before I was discovered by the Dakkari hunting party, I would never know. But I would be returning to the wild lands and there was no denying the anticipation I felt at that knowledge.
“I saw how much he hurt you,” Laru said, her voice nothing more than a whisper. When I took a deep breath and turned, I saw Rasik was sleeping on her lap, though she continued to brush his hair. “Everyone did.”
My lips pressed together, remembering my shame. Remembering the way the members of the saruk had whispered, or tittered, or looked at me with pity whenever I passed them. My love for Kiran had perhaps been…rather obvious. His rejection of me had been even more obvious.
Then Lomma had died.
Then everyone had looked at my family and I with pity.
It had taken a long time for them to look at us any differently. There were still those in the saruk, like Nebrik, who would always remember Kiran’s rejection. He had been Rukkar to the saruk. Now, he was a Vorakkar. That stamp of rejection would be with me always.
“I worry he can hurt you again,” Laru confessed.
I sighed. Then I went to her, sitting on the floor cushions next to our blazing fire basin. I watched the shadows flicker over her face, saw the worry in her eyes.