Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,88

I heard his rough breaths. He went quiet for a little while, though he broke free of my hold on his wrist and trailed his big hand down my soft belly. I was only wearing my tunic. He stopped before he reached the junction of my thighs but only just barely, and he spread his fingers wide until his large hand covered the entirety of my abdomen.

“Because I was always supposed to protect you,” came his quiet answer. “Even if it was from me.”

My brow furrowed.

“There were other males that wanted you, Maeva,” he told me. “Males that weren’t worthy of you.”

“You mean Ojinu?” I asked, my voice quiet.

He’d mentioned something about scaring off Ojinu from his courtship of me.

Kiran stiffened. “Among others.”

“No one ever approached me,” I said.

“Because I didn’t let them,” came his gruff reply. “They were vile males, not worthy of your time.”

“What is it?” I asked, because there was something he wasn’t telling me. I was certain.

He hesitated.

“Kiran.”

Finally, as his arm tightened around me, he said, “Ojinu always bragged to the other darukkars in training that he would be the first to mate you. That he would be the first to—”

He broke off, a curse falling from his lips.

I swallowed. “That he’d be the first to mate a human, you mean.”

Kiran sighed and his forehead dropped into my hair. “Lysi. We fought. I told him to never look at you again or I’d kill him. And I meant it. I’d never been so angry, Maeva, when I heard him.”

“I don’t remember that,” I whispered, my eyes wide. I’d been furious—and hurt—when he told me about Ojinu when I met him at the training grounds. Now, I felt the opposite.

“I didn’t want you to know,” Kiran grunted. “And after that, the other males who desired you never dared to try their luck either. I was still Rukkar, after all. They wouldn’t dare.”

Closing my eyes, I blew out a breath. “For years, I thought no one was attracted to me. Because I was vekkiri. And now, you’re telling me that many were because of it?”

The thought sickened me. That Ojinu had only begun a courtship so he could see what mating a human was like. And what if I’d eventually given in to him, because I was young and stupid and impulsive, and would’ve wanted to see if it made Kiran jealous? He would’ve bragged about it to the rest of the males afterwards.

But Kiran had saved me from that humiliation, from that shame.

Gratitude spread through me.

“What does this have to do with the night of the storm?” I whispered.

“Because I thought that maybe I was no better than they were,” he admitted.

His quiet confession made me more confused. And though I wanted to stay turned away from him—because somehow it made talking about these things easier—his eyes would tell me what I needed to know. I knew that for certain.

Shifting in his arms, I turned so that I faced him, my cheek pressing into the soft cushions underneath my head. His hands never left me. They went around my back and I felt one settle on the swell of my buttocks, a possessive, intimate touch, as if we’d done this a million times before.

Those golden eyes were rapt and intense on me. Pinning me in place. Kiran was never afraid of anything. He wasn’t afraid of this conversation, so I didn’t want to be either.

His eyes trailed down to my breasts and his grip tightened when he saw my hardened nipples underneath the thin tunic. I gasped when he moved his hand to cup the side of my breast, its weight in his palm, his eyes going dark with hunger.

“Y-you thought that because you wanted me, you were like the others you scared away from me?” I asked.

“I had always promised to protect you,” he repeated. “I thought that I was worse than them. Because you were my seffi, my Maeva. And suddenly, all I thought about was fucking you, mating you. Because I wanted you for my own and I wanted every inch of you. And in my mind, I could never have you. It felt like I was betraying you. It felt like I was dishonoring the trust you had in me, breaking an unspoken promise between us.”

“But I loved you then, Kiran,” I whispered, feeling my nose sting. My tears came more easily than they had for the past eight years. Like a gate had been opened. “All I wanted was you. Surely you