Captive of the Horde King (Horde Kings Of Dakkar #1) - Zoey Draven Page 0,68

food. But it’s dwindled over the years. And we were not allowed to hunt or to gather on our own food to fill that loss.”

“Those are the Dothhikar’s orders,” he told me, his expression grim. “We follow them because it is his will.”

I shook my head. “You punish those that try to feed their families,” I said softly. “How is that right? Your land is bountiful. Your game roams free and is plentiful. What is the harm?”

Arokan’s jaw ticked. “Humans and other settlements have long proven that they cannot follow our traditions. They destroy and burn our land—Kakkari. This is unacceptable.”

“Only because they need to be taught,” I argued gently. “We have been here for decades now. I was born here but even I know little of the land, how to plant in your soil successfully, how to hunt your game so as not to diminish the population. These things only require knowledge and knowledge is free.”

“It is never free,” he corrected softly.

“You said your pujerak told my village how to dry bveri meat when you sent him there,” I said. “That is knowledge. And because of it, it will keep my village fed for far longer than any of our rations have.”

“That came at a price,” he said. “You paid it. It was an exchange.”

“My only payment was agreeing to eat. That was hardly a price,” I said.

“Nevertheless, it wasn’t free. Eating gives you strength. That strength is useful to the horde…to me.”

My face heated at his implication.

“What if the villages make payment to you in some way?” I asked next. “In exchange for the rights to hunt, to grow crops.”

“That is not my decision. That is the Dothikkar’s decision alone,” he said, his tone warning me that I would get no further that night. But I would keep trying. I owed it to my village, to my race, to keep trying.

I changed the subject, perhaps not very tactfully, but I found I enjoyed speaking with him, even if we argued.

“Were you born in the capital?” I questioned. “Or within a horde?”

“In Dothik,” he answered.

“Is that why you know the universal tongue so well?” I asked next, remembering that Mirari said that most in Dothik were taught the common language.

“Lysi,” he answered. “My father believed that it would be useful, though I detested learning it. He was right. It is quite useful to me now.”

I let out a small laugh. “You might like me better if you didn’t know what I was saying.”

His grin was small but it sent a thrill through me. “I do not know. I enjoy your sharp tongue.”

“Do you miss Dothik?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the warmth building in my belly at his words.

“Nik,” he said immediately, which surprised me. Then again, I knew very little of the city. “It is a grand place. There are more luxuries and comforts than here in the wild lands, but I would never give up my horde for all of them. The spirit of the Dakkari is to roam, to follow the land wherever it leads us. That is freedom. It is what calls to me, to us all. Those in Dothik…they have forgotten that. The Dothikkar has forgotten that.”

Arokan of Rath Kitala…I could never imagine him any place else than in the wild lands, on the back of his pyroki, with a sword at his side, fighting for the safety of his horde.

Hukan had been right once again. Arokan had been born for this. He had been born to be a Vorakkar.

Panic infused my veins right then. I was beginning to suspect that my heart was being claimed, a little bit at a time, by the horde king whose naked lap I was straddling in that bathing tub.

He was unlike anything I’d ever imagined. And that scared me.

“Like you said,” he murmured, brushing his fingers against my hair, “Dothik is a place. My horde is my home.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Oh, Missiki,” Mirari murmured, squirming in discomfort. “I do not…I do not know if I can…”

My cheeks burned and I kept my voice quiet as I asked her advice, so even the guards outside our tent wouldn’t hear. “Please. He hasn’t…he hasn’t, erm, approached me in some time. I don’t know what to do.”

It had been four days since that night in the bathing tub when he’d told me about Dothik. Four days and three nights and Arokan still hadn’t touched me. Of course, he touched me during our baths before bed. He stroked my body and