formed a horde of my own, with Errok as my chosen pujerak.
“She told me you have known one another since you were children,” Errok continued after my silence stretched out.
My head snapped up. “What else did she say?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Well, she told me her name.”
“Vok,” I rasped, a short chuffing laugh falling from my lips. “Of course she did.”
“You were lovers?” Errok guessed.
I froze.
“Never,” I finally murmured.
My pujerak raised a brow in surprise. “Truly?”
I growled, my hands clenching into fists on the table.
“We were…” I trailed off, not knowing how to explain the complexities of it. But his words made me remember every single time I had wanted Maeva to be my lover, though those moments had been later in our friendship. “Complicated.”
“Vok,” Errok rasped, his eyes widening in surprise. “It is her, isn’t it? The female that’s vokking haunted you all these years.”
“I don’t want to speak of this,” I finally snapped.
“You mean you don’t want to speak of her,” Errok amended.
“It doesn’t matter,” I rasped. “She loathes me now. For good reason.”
“Yet you brought her to your horde,” Errok said, crossing his arms over his wide chest. “For what purpose? You intend to win her back? Make her your Morakkari?”
My mind flashed to the dream Kakkari had given me. A vision?
What I knew for certain was when I was with Maeva, even when she was furious with me, or cursing me silently…I felt that peace that I had been searching for ever since I’d left the saruk all those years ago.
It had been her. It had always been her. I’d found her when I was thirteen years old and I’d fought against her pull ever since. I’d hurt her, rejected her, humiliated her…when all she’d ever done was care for me. Love me.
She was right to hate me. I would hate me, had our positions been reversed.
In the end, I didn’t respond to Errok. I’d leave the bastard guessing because it would serve him right for meddling.
“I’ll be at the training grounds,” I said, pushing back from the table. “Prepare the thesper for me. I’ll send the message to Rath Kitala by the end of the night.”
A gentle glow spread out from underneath the entrance flap of Maeva’s voliki.
Anticipation had been building inside me all day. I’d gone almost nine years without laying eyes on her once but now that she was back in my life…I could hardly go a single afternoon.
“Seffi,” I grunted out, keeping my ears perked for sounds inside, and I stepped forward.
A small gasp met me.
Maeva had been undressing. My gaze caught on the skin of her back, smooth save for the jagged, deep scar that ran down her shoulder—a scar she wouldn’t tell me about.
Though I’d seen plenty of naked females before in my life—Maeva included, for that matter—I growled in surprise. She was still wearing her riding trews from earlier in the day and a small bathing tub was wedged up against the side of the voliki, steam curling off its surface.
She’d been about to bathe and I’d interrupted her.
The sight of her skin disappeared from my view as she hurriedly tugged her bandeau back down over her breasts.
Maeva turned to glare at me, her jaw ticking. My nostrils flared as I studied her face like I’d been starved for a mere glimpse of it. Even frowning at me, she was beautiful.
“You cannot just enter my dwelling,” she informed me, her tone clipped yet restrained.
“Actually, I can,” I grunted, fists clenched at my sides. “We are not in a saruk, Maeva. And I am your Vorakkar. You need to remember that.”
She wanted to say something, wanted to argue with me. I saw it. It was the way her mouth pinched, how the space between her brow squeezed…before everything smoothed out. Before her frustration and anger disappeared entirely and I was left with her indifference again.
It felt like a punch in the gut, just like it had the previous night. But I had promised myself that I would make amends for my hurtful words, lobbed at her in frustration and longing and melancholy.
“And if you wish to bathe, you should tie off the entrance with these,” I informed her, gesturing to the slim cords that ran down the sides of the flap. “If you want your privacy.”
Her eyes flickered to the ties. After a moment, she nodded, casting me a speculative look that made the voliki seem three sizes too small.
“What do you need, Vorakkar?” she asked.
My body tightened at the question.