Madness of the Horde King - Zoey Draven Page 0,134

that we all were.

“Maybe now it is you who is the bravest of us all,” he told me, his voice thick with relief. Ever since we were younger, he always said he was the bravest of us all, that he could face down an entire horde of Dakkari warriors and live to tell the tale.

My laugh was husky and dry.

“Hi, Maxen,” I said, uncaring that I was crying, since he’d always teased me for it anyways.

Eli appeared, his mop of dark hair glittering from the firelight, followed closely by Viola. My breath left me, seeing them both. Eli was thinner than he’d been before, his face pale. And Viola…my beautiful sister, who I had spent most of my youth envious of. She was still beautiful, of course, but some of the light in her eyes, which had always glittered with warmth, had been extinguished. I wondered if it would ever return.

But she burst into tears when she saw me awake, deep shoulder-shaking sobs, and my last two siblings joined us, huddled close, and I embraced all of them in turn, squeezing tight, never wanting to let go again, until we were all a mess of tears and relief. I breathed in their familiar scents and heard the rhythm and cadence of their voices, which I had drifted off to sleep to for so many years. And I felt so much love fill me that it was difficult to breathe.

How many times had I envisioned just this? How many times had I envisioned us together again and safe?

My breath hitched, my eyes going to Maman. “The vovic?”

“There was a cure. Lozza hadn’t lied about that,” she told me, wiping her cheeks. “All of us have taken it. You still need to take yours.”

I didn’t think I did. I thought that Kakkari’s power had seared whatever had remained within me.

“And the others? Are they all right?”

“Yes,” Eli said. “Most of the Killup and Nrunteng returned to their homes earlier in the week, led by Dakkari guards.”

“And the humans?”

Maxen hesitated. “A couple died from vovic after you left. But the ones that lived…they have no villages to return to. Most came from a single village that the Ghertun destroyed three years ago. The horde king...your horde king offered them a home here, as did the other Vorakkar. Rath Kitala, I think. Some went with him. Some remain here.”

Relief threaded through me, so powerful that it left me drained.

And Davik…just like I’d known, he was a good male. The best of them, as Lokkaru had once said. Giving lost souls a home, a place to belong. Like Lokkaru herself, like Bissa, like Nillima…like me.

Just then, as if my thoughts had summoned him, Davik entered the voliki, trailed by Hedna.

With my family around me, with my heart full to bursting, I locked my gaze with the Vorakkar who had captured me utterly and completely.

His chest was heaving as he regarded me. There was a strain and a darkness in his gaze that lifted and brightened when he saw me awake. He looked as if he hadn’t slept and I just knew that when I’d been asleep, he’d watched over me and held me close at night, worrying all the while.

My love for him was a quiet thing, deep within me, etched into my bones and infused through my veins.

I didn’t need my gift to know he felt the same.

I didn’t need my gift to know that love would be there always. That this was permanent.

There was much that needed to be said between us. But in that wonderful moment, I simply looked at him and I knew that everything would fall into place. He’d told me to have faith.

Now I finally did.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in my bed. Though I’d been eager to rise, to get some fresh air, my mother fretted over me, feeding me until I was full, and keeping me to my bed to regain my strength. She’d nearly fallen into hysterics when I’d risen to bathe and my knees had buckled briefly.

My family remained there with me for the entirety of the day. And Davik as well, though he kept out of the way, his nearly silent presence in the voliki as he watched me making my family a little wary and nervous. Davik was intimidating. There was no doubt about it. But my brothers, as overprotective as they’d always been, had seemed to come to terms with him being there…or perhaps they were just frightened of his