body and back up. Not in a way that made me uncomfortable, but it struck me as assessing.
“Did he sleep last night?” the male asked, keeping his voice low.
I flushed.
“Not much,” I hedged.
“The night before?”
I felt the color in my cheeks deepen further.
“Not much,” I repeated. The male blew out a sharp breath. “Are you…are you his pujerak?”
The dark-haired male tilted his head at me. His eyes weren’t red, like Davik’s, but rather gold. He looked to be around Davik’s age, however, a Dakkari male in his prime.
“Lysi, I am,” the male rasped.
“What does Drokka mean?” I asked next. “Unless you’re not allowed to say.”
The pujerak’s gaze went back to the voliki’s entrance. “Drokka is the Vorakkar’s line and the designation for this horde. He is the Vorakkar of Rath Drokka. We are all Rath Drokka because this is our home and horde. You see?”
Davik of Rath Drokka.
I nodded. I shifted on my feet and then winced when I felt a deep muscle pull slightly.
The pujerak frowned at my wince. His eyes ran back down my body and then up again, as if searching for something. But I didn’t know what.
“Would you like to check on him?” I asked. “Just to make sure he isn’t…unwell.”
The pujerak’s eyes widened. Then he laughed, the sound making me start.
“Kalles, here is some advice. Let him sleep,” he said once his laugh faded. “He needs it. When he goes without for too long…”
He trailed off, his expression sobering. I thought of the shadows in the voliki last night and Davik’s stricken expression.
“He needs it,” was what he repeated, not saying anything more. Already, he was turning his back to me. Over his shoulder, the pujerak said, “When he wakes, tell him to find me. Tell him a thesper has come from Dothik.”
“A thesper?” I called after him.
“He will know,” was all the pujerak said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
My voliki was empty and quiet when I woke.
There was no sign of Vienne. For a brief, startling moment, I wondered if I had dreamed her up entirely. If she was just the next phase of my fragmenting mind after hallucinations of those I’d killed.
Then I scented kuveri. In the furs on my bed. The place where she’d lain beside me was disheveled. Someone had placed more fuel onto the fire and the food on the low table was half-eaten.
When I looked down at my body, I found I was dressed in my trews, still in my boots. Confusion descended before I remembered that I’d gone out to the plains, half-hoping I’d find an ungira, before I’d returned the voliki, returned to her, and slept.
Vok.
I felt rested. Recharged. Yet my head was pounding and I needed food. How long had I been asleep?
And where was Vienne?
I didn’t need to wonder for long because just as I pushed up from the bed, someone entered without announcement…and only one being would dare, only because she didn’t know any better.
The white-haired kalles ducked inside, struggling to carry a food tray that was almost twice as large as she was. Her arms shook with the effort but she stopped in her tracks when she saw me sitting up in my bed.
“You’re awake,” she breathed.
My brow furrowed. Just how long had I been asleep?
“Three days,” she answered, as if I’d asked the question out loud. Perhaps I had. She struggled towards the table with the tray before setting it down loudly. Some broth from a bowl spilled out but she paid it no mind. Instead, she straightened and looked at me with an assessing gaze.
My body tightened in response to her almost immediately, my nostrils flaring, my cock beginning to stir in my trews. She looked disheveled. Her hair was tied back but tendrils had come loose to frame her face. Something dark stained her cheek, which smeared when she wiped the back of her hand across it. But she was flushed, her eyes bright. She was wearing another tunic of mine—telling me she’d gone searching through my chests—but the same pants.
I drank in the sight of her like she was sweetened wine.
“It’s night now,” she told me, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Where have you been?” I asked, my voice hoarse and husky. Unused.
“Today? With Lokkaru again. I spend my days with her.”
I stilled, wondering if the elderly female had remembered anything about the heartstone as I slept. I didn’t think it would happen but Lokkaru’s mind was unpredictable at best.
I stood, rolling out my neck. That was when I noticed a washing