Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,63
small smile softened her firm words. A flash of surprise came over Errok’s face. She’d shocked him. That surprise melted swiftly, morphing into a frown as his gaze flickered over her. Trying to read her?
Good luck, Errok. I have known her for years and even I cannot read her sometimes, I thought.
She raised her brow at him the longer he stared.
A low chuckle tumbled from his throat.
“My apologies, mokkira. You are quite right,” he said, inclining his head in a show of respect, chastened.
Errok strode from the training grounds, leaving only the two of us. Maeva pulled her furs—still blood-stained at the bottom, I noticed—tighter around her shoulders. The mornings were growing icier by the day, the afternoons cooler.
“I am sorry, Maeva,” I said quietly, stepping towards her. “He should not have said anything. It didn’t…it didn’t mean anything.”
She cocked her head to the side, regarding me. “You are free to do whatever you please, Vorakkar. Why do you feel the need to apologize to me?”
A part of her was pissed. Hurt.
I’d never told her about the females in Dothik. It was a part of my life that I’d kept entirely separate from her…because I’d known that it would upset her. Because I’d always known how she felt about me.
Because a part of me had always felt…unfaithful to her.
Like what I’d been doing was wrong…even though every Dakkari male went through a rutting period when they wanted to bed every female that caught their eye.
There had been females in the saruk, of course. Females that Maeva had no doubt heard about. But of those females, it was Laru that I had always regretted most.
I had betrayed Maeva’s trust so many times that it was a wonder she’d stayed my friend at all.
I couldn’t change who I’d been, however. The decisions I’d made when I was a mere boy. But I was making decisions now that would reveal the path for the rest of my life.
Decisions that very much included her. At least…I hoped so.
Though my hand was slightly bloody, I reached forward and caught her face in my palm.
“Maeva,” I rasped, my eyes flickering back and forth between hers, “there have been no others. Not for a while.”
Her gaze flashed, fury burning so brightly there. One of the few unguarded emotions I’d seen from her since I returned. It almost felt like a relief. To know that she wasn’t as indifferent to me as she wanted to be.
She turned her face away.
“You know,” she said softly, “sometimes I wish that I’d accepted Ojinu’s courtship when we were younger. Maybe then I wouldn’t have wasted so much time—”
She cut herself off abruptly, her jaw gritting, her nostrils flaring.
A dark frown had formed on my features. I knew exactly what she spoke of and though she’d be furious at me—again—I told her, “He wouldn’t have dared continue his courtship.”
“Why?” she bit out. “Are you saying he didn’t even like me?”
Ojinu had been a male at our saruk. Last I’d heard, he lived in Dothik now, good riddance. But he’d been attracted to Maeva, had begun his courtship of her…
I needed to be honest with her, though she might hate me even more for it, despite her assurances last night that she didn’t.
“I told him to stop,” I told her, meeting her shocked, widened eyes. “I scared him off of his pursuit of you.”
Then her eyes narrowed. “You what?”
“He wasn’t good enough for you, seffi,” I said, my voice gruff.
She stared at me.
“You…you had no right to do that,” she whispered, her fists clenching at her sides. “Especially you!”
“He was courting you but bedding others, making them promises he had no intention of keeping,” I argued, brow furrowed. “He was a dishonorable male and wasn’t even worthy of your time.”
Not to mention the disgusting things he’d said about bedding a human…that he would be the first to fuck Maeva, that he would tell the other Dakkari what it was like. He’d said those things when I’d been in earshot—his last mistake—and I’d jumped at him in my fury, nearly beating him senseless. It took five males to pull me off him.
After that, he’d never looked at Maeva again.
“I won’t apologize for protecting you,” I grated. “I will never apologize for that, even if you hate me for it.”
She was breathing hard, staring at me like she’d never seen me before.
Her hand flashed out. I thought she would slap me across the face but she ended up slapping something against my chest.