Captive of the Horde King (Horde Kings Of Dakkar #1) - Zoey Draven Page 0,1

in pants that encased their legs, others in small pieces of cloth that revealed the expansive muscles of their thick thighs. My mother had told me the Dakkari hordes were nomadic warriors serving their king…and they looked like warriors. Primitive warriors so strong and big that no one dared to breathe in their presence as they walked through our village.

Unlike the other alien species that were spread out on the surface of Dakkar, the Dakkari—the native species, the species whose will they all had to obey—had a similar skin color to humans. Like darkened honey, tanned from the sun from their nomadic lifestyle. Golden tattoos across their flesh flashed as they walked, their long, black, coarse hair swaying around their waists as they inspected the village. Behind them, a long, flexible tail flicked as they walked, slightly curled so it wouldn’t drag on the ground.

Their eyes were like black pools, their circular irises a golden yellow that contracted and widened with light. They had no whites in their eyes like us. It was eerie, spine-tingling to look into them. But a strange part of me had been fascinated. A strange part of me had thought them beautiful.

That day, a day that had started out like any other, had taken a shocking turn when one of the Dakkari males saw Mithelda—a young, timid blonde, eight years older than me at the time, who’d always been kind—and, promptly, taken her.

He’d captured her, tore her away from her aging parents and young sister, and the Dakkari had left as quickly as they’d come.

No one spoke of it. No one in our village saw Mithelda again, though news from another human settlement, four days travel away, had seen her with a horde as they’d passed, riding one of the black-scaled beasts, in the lap of a Dakkari male. The human settlement had reported she’d looked beaten, abused. Yet, no one dared to interfere.

From that day on, if the lookouts saw evidence of a horde approaching, all women in the village donned cloaks and hoods, to conceal our faces. Just in case.

Which was why, on that evening after the burning field, after a lookout had come running into the village with news of a horde approaching fast, I put on my thick cloak, tied back my brown hair, and pulled up the hood.

Kivan watched me, his fingers fumbling nervously.

“Luna,” he said, his voice trembling. “I—I just want you to know that I—”

“Shhh, Kivan,” I said, going to him. He was seated at our modest table, rocking the broken chair back and forth on its three legs. Crouching in front of him, so that we were eye-level, I squeezed his shaking hands and said, “I will always protect you. Mother made me promise, remember? You have nothing to fear.”

“I was only trying to bring life back to our crops,” he explained, as he had a thousand times since that afternoon. “I heard that on Laperan, they burn crops to—”

“We are not on Laperan,” I replied gently, squeezing his hands, meeting his eyes. “We are on their planet. We must respect their ways. And today, we did not.”

Tears filled his eyes, which shocked me. I’d never seen him cry since Mother died. Not once.

“I didn’t mean for it to burn so much,” he rasped. “You’re right, Luna, I am a fool.”

“Stop,” I whispered, guilt eating at my chest, wanting to comfort him. It may very well be the last time I saw him, no matter what happened that night. “You were only trying to help us. It was an accident. I will speak with them. I will make them understand. Yes?”

Kivan shook his head, unable to meet my eyes, as his tears slowly dried up. But I stayed crouched at his feet, listening to the silence of our home, the silence of the village outside our doors.

“I love you, brother,” I said, lifting his face. “It will be alright.”

“They will give us up,” he said. He meant the villagers, our friends and neighbors, in an effort to spare themselves from the Dakkaris’ wrath.

Truthfully, I couldn’t even blame them for it.

“I will make them understand,” I repeated, my tone hardening. Because I had to.

It wasn’t much longer before we heard the horde approaching on their black-scaled beasts. It was like rumbling thunder, which sometimes boomed across the planet during violent storms.

Closer and closer, they came.

Until the thunder stopped all at once and I heard the sounds of heavy bodies dismounting outside the walls of the village, of deep,