I pushed into his mind harder, even as bile rose up in my throat.
“Please,” I said, swaying. “Hanniva.”
I felt a trickle under my nose and he reached forward with his fingers. Red blood came away with them.
“Leikavi,” he rasped, his tone mildly alarmed.
“Don’t hurt them, horde king,” I said.
With the last of my energy, I tore away from his mind, gasping as my vision darkened. My knees gave out and I fell.
The last thing I remembered was his arms around me.
Chapter Fifteen
The majority of the Killup melted back into the darkness of the forest as the kalles fell.
“What did you do to her?” I growled, my eyes flashing to the single Killup that remained in the clearing. A male, the one she’d been speaking to.
She was limp in my arms and I dropped my daggers on the earth in order to carry her towards the fire. When I gazed down at her, red blood trailed from her nose. I didn’t know that humans bled red. The sight of it made discomfort coil deep in my belly.
She was so pale. She’d always been but it seemed like the last of her color had been leeched from under her skin.
“This was not our doing,” the male said, his voice so soft I almost didn’t hear him over the roaring of my heartbeat. “I give you my word.”
I chuffed out a sharp exhale. Like his word meant anything to me.
My sword was lying next to Nillima and I unsheathed it immediately after I laid the kalles down.
Turning to the Killup, I trained it between us.
His eyelids twitched as his black, glassy eyes flicked down to the tip. He remained standing, his long arms still at his sides. He didn’t move for the stone blade tucked into the band around his thigh.
I was familiar with Killup. There was even one living among my horde, perhaps the only Killup among the hordes, though I knew of a couple who had been accepted into outposts at their Vorakkars’ discretion.
“You are their leader?” I asked. She’d done it again. My rage had been dulled. That frantic thing within me, that beast that demanded blood, had been calmed. Was that the reason for her blood? Had that been the reason for her collapse?
“Vorakkar,” the Killup said, his gaze flickering again to the sword held between us. “Like she said to you, we did not want to harm you.”
Blood from the gash across my chest said otherwise.
“We were surprised to find our sarl slaughtered.”
Sarl? I thought. Then I remembered. That was what the Killup called the jrikkia.
“They attacked my pyroki,” I growled. “They ambushed us. I do not regret killing them all and I would do it again.”
The slits of flesh on his neck flared and I tensed. I knew that some Killup had the ability to emit toxins into the air with their gills, though I did not know if it was by choice or not.
“They strayed further than I thought,” was what he replied and I watched as the gills closed once more. Even still, I kept my distance. “We have been searching for them.”
“Where did you send the others?” I demanded.
“Away,” he replied. “Away from you.”
Intelligent male.
“Then why did you stay?” I rasped.
His gaze flicked to the vekkiri kalles behind me.
“Curiosity,” he said, surprising me. His head tilted. “You journey with a human? Away from your horde?”
My gaze narrowed, beginning to think clearly for the first time since I spied the Killup through the trees, since I saw them press a blade to the leikavi’s throat. The need to protect her, the ferocity of that emotion, had surprised even me.
Begrudgingly, I lowered my sword and sheathed it at my hip. The Killup seemed to relax as I did.
The Killup had never been our enemy. They kept to themselves, abided by our laws, and respected Kakkari and our earth.
It didn’t explain why a pack of them were so far west, however. When I’d found Bissa a handful of years ago, the lone Killup child of my horde, he’d been but an infant, abandoned and hungry. A darukkar and his wife had taken Bissa in, raised him as their own, loved him as their own.
“How do you know where my horde is?” I questioned, turning back to the vekkiri behind me.
“We have journeyed far. The last horde we saw was one to the south a half moon cycle ago. We have not come across any since.”
“And why have you left the eastlands?” I asked, crouching next to Vienne.