Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,39

not asking me if you’ll live, like most I see with injures like this,” I commented softly, if only to take my mind off the warmth that had threatened to explode in my chest. I scooted my knees forward, not caring that they were now damp with his blood. “Turn your back towards the fire.”

Kiran shifted. He murmured, “Have you always been like this? Or did I simply forget how demanding you are?”

“You are a Vorakkar now,” I told him. “Maybe you simply forgot how to take orders.”

He huffed out a sharp breath from his nostrils.

“My darukkars are out patrolling. If you wanted to end my life right now, you would be able to, rei mokkira. I know the wound is not deep enough to kill me—I feel it—but I could bleed out.”

My hands stilled before I ever even touched his flesh. “Why would you say something like that?” I whispered.

His head turned to regard me over his shoulder. His expression revealed nothing but I understood what he was asking.

“You think I want you dead?” I asked him, frowning, disturbed.

He shrugged his shoulder though the skin around his wound pulled. More blood leaked out and I washed it away again, using the cloth I had to press the wound tight.

He didn’t even flinch. And I suddenly knew that when he’d been whipped for his Vorakkar marks, he hadn’t made a single sound then either.

My heart threatened to break at that thought.

“I hurt you, left you,” he murmured. “Maybe you do wish me dead.”

I clenched my jaw tight, perhaps the only change in my expression.

“It was a long time ago, Vorakkar,” I told him, keeping my voice even. “I don’t think of it anymore.”

A lie.

His eyes flashed, his brow furrowing, as if he couldn’t figure me out.

“Do you have a mate now?” he asked gruffly.

A strangled sound rose from my throat and I saw his expression change. It lightened, his brow smoothing. Relieved? Nik, that couldn’t be right.

“Why does it matter?” I asked, incredulous, watching the cloth bloom black, already soaked with his blood. I peeled it away carefully, casting my gaze to the pot in the fire basin, little bubbles rising.

“You do not,” he said, his tone dismissive. He turned forward and I stared at the back of his neck.

A bubble of uncomfortable emotion rose within me. A mixture of shame, of self-consciousness, of embarrassment that I hadn’t felt in years.

My cheeks burned with it. Then I grew angry.

Because the truth was…for years after he left, I’d been filled with a sense of self-disgust. I remembered Kiran’s expression the night I’d undressed for him on the cliffside. I remembered that thunderous look in his eyes, the way his mouth pulled down when he saw my naked body. I’d been the most vulnerable I’d ever been with another being.

And he had been disgusted.

After that night, after he left, I’d taken his disgust and directed it at myself. I’d multiplied it until it had threatened to drown me. I’d been in such a dark place. Because back then, I didn’t have the self-esteem to realize that just because Kiran didn’t desire me, I could still desire myself. Others could still desire me because I was worth it.

It took me years to realize I had a lot to give someone else, a partner, a mate. Now? There was a sense of pride that I’d been able to love someone so completely and utterly.

Of course, I had never allowed myself to love that deeply again.

But at least I knew I was capable of it. At least I had experienced it.

Laru had been right, however. I’d loved deeply…and then I built my walls up, high and impenetrable. There were males in the saruk that had expressed interest in me over the years, males I’d grown up with all my life.

But I didn’t desire them. It was like that part of me had died and any hope for a mated life, for children and love, had died with it.

In the end, I didn’t reply to Kiran, not that he’d asked me a question. I didn’t know why he was interested in whether I had a mate or not. It wasn’t his business. It wasn’t his concern and I strongly suspected he’d asked the question to unsettle me.

The water began to boil and I retrieved it, using the bloodied cloths to keep the handle from burning my palm. I set it down next to me to cool.

“I do have a mate,” I informed him, staring at the