Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,94

need much at all.

Kiran went over to the smaller chests tucked against the back wall of the voliki. The chests I’d always assumed were his deviri, his marriage gift for his chosen Morakkari.

From one of the chests, he pulled something golden and shimmering. Tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear, I watched him approach. It was hard to believe that just moments before, his fingers had been between my thighs and he’d been stroking me to orgasm.

Kiran sat on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, as I shivered a little in my thin tunic. He held something up before me.

My breath quickened. It was a simple necklace but beautiful and intricate in its design. The chain was slim and interwoven with various colors of Kakkari’s gold. Small golden beads were threaded through the chain—

Nik, not beads. Flowers. Tiny gold flowers.

Seffi flowers, I realized, my heart speeding with the knowledge. Beautifully and expertly made. So small that they were impossible to see unless one was looking closely.

And hanging from the bottom of the golden chain was a small pendant. A clear circular locket made of glass with the edges bordered in shimmering gold. And inside the locket, I could see sand. Light grey sand. Sand I would know anywhere because it was sand from home. From the shores of the saruk, from the shores of Drukkar’s Sea.

My eyes started to sting and I looked back at Kiran in surprise.

“This is…” I said quietly. “This is from…”

“I had it made for you a long time ago,” he admitted, his eyes flickering back to the swinging pendant in his grip. He unclasped it and leaned forward to settle it around my neck.

His scent was dizzying and I felt the weight of the pendant settle slightly above my mother’s necklace, the one I always wore. Kiran secured it then leaned back, fixing his gaze on it before his eyes returned to mine.

“Leika,” he whispered.

I was still reeling.

“When…when did you have this made?” I asked.

He raked a hand through his hair.

“After I completed the Trials,” he told me. “I had it made in Dothik before I returned to the saruk.”

A sharp exhale released from my lungs.

“I had hoped you would accept my offer,” he admitted quietly. “To join my horde. And I knew how you would miss home, how you would miss the sea. I wanted you to have a piece of it after we left.”

But then I’d stayed behind, I knew. I’d never joined his horde, never left with him.

My throat was tightening and I didn’t trust that my voice wouldn’t shake if I opened my mouth.

“I know you miss home now,” he finished.

“And you’ve kept it all this time?” I whispered, reaching up to touch the pendant though my eyes never left him.

In his deviri chests, I thought but I wouldn’t dwell on that now. I knew from the tiny gold seffi flowers that he’d had it made for me alone. He wouldn’t have given it to anyone else. I knew that with certainty.

His expression grew shadowed. He reached forward to touch the necklace, his fingers lingering over my skin.

“I wanted to give it to you before I left,” he admitted.

But my father wouldn’t let you see me, I thought.

“And when I didn’t see you, I took it with me because…”

He trailed off and a deep sigh burst from him. His jaw tightened, briefly.

“Because?” I whispered.

“Because I always knew that one day I would give it to you,” he said quietly. “That I would see you again, rei seffi.”

Fear bloomed deep in my chest but it wasn’t sharp or alarming. It was…calm. It was fear that I accepted as my reality because it made me remember how easy it had been to love Kiran.

And I felt the lingerings of that love. Right then. Whispers of it inside me. Traces of it, as if that love had been stamped into my bones, as if that love might never be gone.

Maybe he was right. Maybe I had never stopped loving him and all I’d done instead was bury it so deep that I couldn’t feel it anymore.

I hoped that wasn’t true.

Because it meant that all Kiran had to do was dig inside me to uncover it, to bring it bursting to life again.

I imagined dirt and earth packed tight and hard inside me, choking me. And with his gift and the meaning and sentiment behind it, I felt some of that dirt loosen, soften. I imagined his strong hands delving into that