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

on the opposite side of the room, “bring me that and help me.”

Though I had never seen such a thing in my life, I did as he’d asked, without question. At first, the sight of the seamstress’s splayed thighs, and something peeking out from in between them, made my eyes widen and discomfort churn in my belly.

But then she was grabbing my hand, seeking comfort, her eyes wild. And I held onto her hand though I felt my little bones aching and compressing with her grip. I washed away blood until my hands were slippery. I listened to her guttural cries.

When the child was born, squalling into the world, I found tears streaming down my cheeks. The delight and utter joy on the new mother’s face was a reward in itself.

I was filled with…purpose. A beautiful purpose that felt like Kakkari’s touch within me, guiding me to this.

Afterwards, I watched the mokkira with his herbs and tonics, helping her with the pain, until her frantic mate made an appearance, fresh off a hunt.

When I went home that night, with bright eyes and blood on my clothes, I announced to my mother, father, and Laru that I wanted to be a healer.

And in the years that followed, in Kiran’s absence, I found a different kind of love in medicine and learning and apprenticeship, though the mokkira and the other healers in our saruk barely tolerated my constant and no doubt annoying presence. I absorbed everything like a sponge, jotting down notes in the journal Lomma made for me until I ran out of room and wrote on anything I could find.

Kiran was allowed to return to the saruk every year for a brief stretch of time. During those times, my heart always felt full to bursting. We would go on our runs across the coastline, we would swim in Drukkar’s Sea if the weather was warm. I would chatter on about all the activity in the saruk in his absence, though I wrote to him often with the same gossip, and about my apprenticeship, though the mokkira had not officially taken me under his tutelage. With time, however, I knew I would wear the elder down.

And Kiran would tell me about Dothik, how it was different there, but he would never tell me much more.

Kiran was…changed. In the stretches of time that he returned, he always came home different. Quieter. More…intense. It was more difficult to make him laugh, though he always looked at me with affection, and he still called me his seffi. It meant ‘little bloom’ from the beautiful, ancient okkara trees that dotted the south lands.

Kiran was changed but my love for him was not. It was a steadfast, unshakeable, loyal thing.

The year before the Trials, Kiran didn’t come home. My letters to Dothik went unanswered, though that was nothing surprising. Kiran had told me his training was regimented and strict. He barely had time alone.

The Trials were different, however. They were dangerous. I remember watching Kiran’s mother pace the saruk, worried, almost every day of that year, and my mother told me that she hardly ate in her fear.

But I had faith in Kiran. The Vorakkar Trials were what he’d been preparing for his entire life, from the moment of his birth.

So, it was no surprise when we learned that Kiran had become the youngest Vorakkar in Dakkar’s history at twenty-five years, completing the Trials in record time. He would have a moon cycle to rest and then he would be expected to take to the wild lands, leading a horde all his own, in service to Kakkari, our goddess, and the Dothikkar.

That moon cycle, he returned to the saruk—he returned home.

But he was not the boy I remembered. He was a Vorakkar now. He had scars that he hadn’t had before. There was a hardened glint in his gaze that reminded me of his father. There was a cold strength in him that had taken root, that had extinguished the comforting warmth I’d always associated with him.

Now that he was a Vorakkar, I wasn’t allowed to meet his gaze. Not directly. The moon cycle when he was home was a strange time. He could no longer be my friend, not the way he’d been before. He could be no one’s friend, truly, for Vorakkars were supposed to hold themselves away from others.

But if I’d learned one thing in my life, it was that I was stubborn and unwavering. I would try until I failed. And that