Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,8
and…disgust. Disgust for myself. Disgust that I’d heard in Kiran’s tone, but I had changed it and directed it at myself and I’d made it so much worse.
“Maeva, look at me,” he ordered, not even giving me my own sense of privacy.
For years to come, I would never know how I’d found the strength to lift my gaze to his in that moment.
But I did.
I held his eyes while he broke my heart so completely that I knew I would never be the same afterwards.
“I do not love you, Maeva,” he said, his words slicing through the air like a blade. Coming right at me. “Not in the way you want me to.”
The foolish, pathetic words slipped from my lips before I could stop them. I whispered, “But I’m older now. You said that when I was older—”
“Vok, Maeva,” Kiran cursed. “They were just words. I didn’t want to hurt you! But I realize now that I should have been clear from the beginning.”
Stunned, I could only stare as another wave boomed against the cliff, wetting my face.
“I love you like I would my own blood, seffi,” he said, his voice harsh. Seffi seemed mocking now, especially considering I’d spent the majority of the morning gathering the flowers dotted through my curly hair. “That is all. I cannot give you what you want.”
“You kissed me back,” I whispered, tightening my grip around myself.
I wished to Kakkari that I could just disappear. That I could wrap my arms around myself tight enough, pulling harder and harder, that somehow the compression would just make me disappear into nothingness.
“Did you…did you feel sorry for me?” I forced myself to ask. “Is that why?”
Kiran made a rough exhale.
“Maybe,” he finally admitted, pinching the space between his brows. “I don’t know.”
My lungs seized. The whole world seemed to spin.
“You’re still so young, Maeva,” he continued, raking a hand down his drawn face. His Vorakkar cuffs flashed. “But the fault is mine for letting it come to this. I shouldn’t have let it come to this. That was why I wanted to speak with you. Because if you join my horde, you must know that our relationship will never be more than what it is. It will not be what you want it to be.”
He took a step closer to me, his gaze both hard and pleading, and I stumbled back against the cliff wall, sharp rocks jutting into my spine. His words were shards of glass, piercing and tearing right through me. He still wanted me to join his horde? Knowing that he would soon take a Morakkari?
He expected me to be able to stand by and watch him love a female that would never be me?
Did he think I had no dignity at all? No self-preservation? That I would willingly subject myself to that heartache?
“My father told me once,” I whispered, “that Vorakkars had to be cruel in order to lead best. I thought he was wrong. I told him that you would be different. That you didn’t have a cruel bone in your body.”
His jaw shifted, a muscle ticking there.
“But he was right,” I said, my voice soft. Hurt. Raw. Horrified. “I’m beginning to think I don’t know you at all.”
A sharp huff escaped Kiran’s nostrils. They flared wide. His eyes looked…haunted by my words. Yet, his jaw was set like he’d accepted them as truth.
“I may be young,” I continued, licking my lips, shocked when I tasted him there, “and I—I may seem pathetic to you. But I was never afraid to love you, Kiran. And I certainly never felt ashamed that I did. Not until right now.”
Not until you made me feel ashamed for loving you.
Not until you showed me your disgust when I revealed my desire for you.
I shivered, my dress getting soaked from the sea spray, molding to my flesh. I didn’t want him to see any more of my body. I covered myself as best as I could, in my backwards dress. I was heartbroken and miserable and cold. All I wanted was to curl up in my mother’s arms. I wanted to feel her stroke my hair like she’d done when I was a child. All I wanted to do was cry and sleep in her lap.
His next question twisted the blade in my chest even more.
“Is that your answer?”
His horde.
He was ripping my heart up, stealing my breath straight out of my lungs, and he wanted to know if I was joining his horde or not.