My dream faded to a whisper when I woke.

  “Give her strength, Kakkari. Give her the strength to survive this world because I will be gone from it soon. I will give you my life in exchange.”

  When my eyes opened, I winced at the sharp pain throbbing at my temple.

  “Rei kassiri,” came his hushed murmur. I sighed, rolling into Arik’s warm body, wrapping my limbs around him tight and pressing my face into his wide, unyielding chest. “What is it?”

  His voice was husky and gruff from sleep, though I knew he’d slept very little through the night. He’d woken me often to his cock slipping between my legs and his lips at my throat, possessed with desire though I’d sworn I felt restlessness roving inside him too. As if he was seeking relief, as if he was seeking to release that restlessness into me.

  And I would take it from him gladly. I wanted to give him everything he wanted.

  But he will not give you everything in return, came my taunting, silent whisper.

  The voice I’d heard when I woke was not Kakkari’s. I’d heard it before, the lilting, strange, soft voice. It was my mother’s. My human mother’s. Or so I’d always assumed.

  It was my mother’s prayer.

  It was my human mother’s prayer to Kakkari that had given me this gift, which sometimes felt like a curse.

  My mother had sought help. And Kakkari had answered.

  “Sometimes,” I whispered into his skin, feeling the sharp pain in my temple begin to fade, “I think that nothing I do matters. That this gift is useless. Because all I see are memories or futures that I can never change. Kalloma can change her futures though. And the human queens of the hordes…you said they unleashed great power to protect those they love.”

  And what can I do? I thought, tired and morose from my dream. It always dampened my mood, whenever I dreamed of my mother and her beautiful voice. Usually I was alone in my foul mood. But now I was not alone. And Arik would bear some of it.

  “Kara,” came his voice, nudging my chin up so I was forced to meet his half-lidded gaze. “Everything you do matters. Vok your gift. You don’t need it. Because it was not your gift that led you here. It was not your gift that secured us two of the heartstones.”

  “It was my gift that led me to the heartstones, that led me to realize what their purpose was for the fog,” I reminded him.

  He chuffed out a sharp breath. “Nik, you came to that realization because you’ve read every damn tome in the orala sa’kilan and because you have a frighteningly good memory when it comes to stories and words. And all of those things threaded into your dreams.”

  His gruff sentiment had some of my foul mood fading away, my heart flipping in my chest.

  “And you?” I wondered. “Because when I came to that realization about the famine in the West, it was you I saw rising from the earth, with red veins under your skin and glowing eyes.”

  His lips quirked. “I cannot blame you for dreaming about me, saila. Who wouldn’t want to?”

  My laugh was surprised, the words expected and yet unexpected.

  “Arrogance is no better than wrath or greed,” I recited, whispering it over his skin once my laugh faded away.

  Arik grunted. His eyes glimmered in the low morning light that streamed in through his window. His bed was ridiculously comfortable, plush and warm with furs so soft they felt like silk across my naked skin.

  “Did your kalloma tell you that?” Arik murmured, his fingers curling around my hip. When he pressed close, I could feel his thick cock, hot and hard against my belly. “Because I embody all three of those things, and yet you are still in my furs beside me and you’re about to feel how greedy I truly am.”

  In a moment, I forgot my dream. I forgot the whispered words that had pulled me from it, spoken into my ear like my mother had been right beside me in Arik’s private quarters in Dothik, kneeling next to the bed where I slept. He broke me from the melancholy I’d felt rising in my breast, and I marveled that this was Arik’s own gift.

  When my lips met his, my horde king groaned, his fingers tightening over my hip so hard that I wanted them to leave a bruise. I wanted to be marked by him. I wanted to mark him too. With my teeth, with my nails, with my kiss, with my love. I wanted it to mean something. I wanted him to remember me before it was too late.

  “Hanniva,” I pleaded against his lips, ignoring the pinch between my thighs. He’d taken me more times than he ever had last night. I was feeling the effects this morning. But I didn’t care.

  His next groan was pained. He broke the kiss abruptly, pressing his forehead to mine as his tail wrapped around my ankle.

  “We cannot,” he rasped. “I know I was rough last night with you.”

  “I liked it,” I whispered.

  His eyes glowed. “And I did too.”

  “Then why—”

  “We also have another meeting this morning. I told everyone to come at dawn, and I cannot be distracted by you, no matter how much I want to be.”

  Understanding speared through me, even though I had the strangest urge to whine.

  “All right,” I whispered. “We? Does that include me too?”

  “Lysi,” he said, dropping one last kiss across my lips before pulling away. “I know better than to try to keep you away.”

  I watched him slide from the bed, and I rolled into the place where his body was still outlined in the furs, seeking his warmth and inhaling his scent. He smirked as he watched me, keeping me in his vision as he went to his chests and began to pull out a fresh tunic and trews.

  I sighed. Devastatingly handsome. I wanted to look at him forever. Giddiness mingled with excitement and nerves in my belly as my gaze ran over him.

  Then he ordered, “Now tell me what you dreamed.”

  I blinked, feeling the wave of memory mix with that familiar wash of melancholy. Only this time it was softer. Not as sharp.

  “My mother’s voice,” I told him softly. “My birth mother.”

  Arik’s eyes narrowed, and he paused momentarily in dressing to turn to me. “You hear her voice?”

  “Sometimes,” I told him, pushing up from the bed on one outstretched arm. My breasts swayed as I righted myself, Arik’s gaze briefly dropping to them, to my swollen nipples he’d sucked and bit teasingly throughout the night, making me gasp and squirm. His eyes darkened, but then he shook his head, meeting my gaze once more.

  “And you don’t like to hear her?” he guessed.

  “It’s not that,” I told him, not entirely sure how to explain it. “I love hearing her voice. I love every time I learn something new or when another puzzle piece of her slots into place. But I—I think she made a bargain with Kakkari. For me. I hear her prayer in my dreams often. I think she gave up her life willingly to the goddess for me to have this gift. And it hurts me to know that it was for nothing. That I don’t have the power to truly change anything.”

  I’d never even told Kalloma this. Not only because whenever we spoke of my birth mother, I sensed it made her uncomfortable. And so it was easier not to speak of her—even about this. Even about what I knew to be true.

  “Kalloma told me my mother brought me to the orala sa’kilan and then she left. But I don’t think she ever did,” I whispered to him softly. “I think she died there. In the temple. I think she took her own life there as a sacrifice to the goddess. For me. And I think Kalloma never wanted me to know.”

  Arik’s brows drew down. His tunic was forgotten, his trews only half-laced when he approached the bed once more. He tugged me to its edge, his warm, calloused palms cupping my cheek.

  “I’m sorry, rei kassiri,” he murmured, his thumb stroking the bridge of my nose. “You never asked her? Directly?”

  “Nik,” I said softly. “Maybe because a part of me doesn’t want it to be true. Even though I already know. Deep down, I already know.”

  Just like my vision yesterday. I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want Arik to turn his back on me. I didn’t want to feel the crushing break in my chest.

  But deep down…I already knew what would come to pass.

  I gave him a wobbly smile, reaching up to clasp his Vorakkar cuffs, hot and unyielding beneath my palms. “Ignore me,” I told him. “My dreams always put me in a strange mood. And I know today is important. I know today we need to be focused.”

  He’d told me we would journey to the priestesses’ temple here in Dothik. I assumed the meeting this morning was about how that would happen.

  Arik frowned. “Like I could ever ignore you, saila.”

  We held one another’s gaze for a long time, my heart in my throat at the sentiment I heard behind his words.

  He cared for me. Deeply. But I didn’t know if it was foolish, or perhaps my own inexperience, to hope that he cared for me the way I cared for him.

  When I turned my head, I brushed my lips against his palm. It was dawn now—I could see the rays of the sun sliding against the walls.

  “Where did you put my satchel?” I asked. “The Sorakkar gave me those dresses. One of them is still clean. I’ll wear that today.”

  Arik frowned, but he stepped back when I slid from the bed. “I’d prefer if you didn’t wear his gifts,” came his grumbled words.

  Some of the tension melted away in the room with the familiar argument. We’d had it after we left the saruk, and we’d bickered over the nice gifts for the majority of an afternoon until Arik had taken his frustrations out on me against a damn tree.

  He’d been jealous. Of the aging Sorakkar, who loved his queen very much.

  “He should know better,” came Arik’s growl. “To give a female something like that, who obviously had already been claimed. Especially by a Vorakkar,” he spat out. “It was an insult.”

  “Oh?” I teased, keeping my voice nonchalant though his words filled me with an intoxicating thrill. “Is that what you did at the saruk? You claimed me?”

  His eyes narrowed, the dangerous glint of them in the dawn light making my belly flutter.

  His grin was feral. “Wasn’t it obvious?”

  I gave him a small smile, still standing naked next to his bed. “You haven’t given me any dresses, so what else am I supposed to wear?”

  “My own vokking tunics,” he grumbled under his breath.

  Then he scoffed, reaching into another chest, pulling out my worn satchel which had certainly seen better days. He handed it to me and watched with his hands on his hips as I pulled open the flap and fished out the shimmering, dark, silky material of the Sorakkar’s gift. Deep blue in color and trailing to my ankles, I thought the dress would blend in with my cloak and wouldn’t draw too much attention.

  “I’ll send for as many dresses as you like, saila,” came his promise, making me smile though I ducked my head to hide it. “And when they come, I’ll have that one shredded for fire fuel.”

  I barked out a short laugh as I pulled on the shift dress, which clung to my hips and breasts. It was only held up by slim straps on my shoulders, but on the whole, it was a modest dress, especially when considering the clothes I’d seen worn in the saruk and even within Arik’s own horde. Some females had been practically naked. Some of the males, even more so.

  I knew what he was doing. Trying to distract me. After my dark admission about my mother, he was giving me something else to latch onto, to pull me from that place I’d rather not visit. And it was working. I was grateful for it.

  Arik was jealous, there was no mistaking that. But I knew he was playing it up to make me smile, to help me forget, at least for a little while.

  When I was dressed, I stepped into his arms, winding mine around his neck. His fingers clenched into the silk. Yesterday already felt like it had happened years ago.

  “I’m ready,” I told him.

  “I haven’t decided if you’ll come with me today, saila,” he admitted. “I don’t want you to be upset if I decide to keep you here. To keep you safe.”

  I flashed him a smile, one that had his expression pinching in wariness. Because he’d told me once that he could never deny me.

  “Of course,” I told him. “You know I’ll do whatever you say.”

  He groaned.

  Because he knew the opposite was true, especially because we were in Dothik.

  And I wanted to see it all.

  This city was Arik. I could never fully understand him without understanding Dothik.

  “I mean it, Kara,” he warned.

  I smiled again. Leaning forward, I brushed my lips against the middle of his chest, looking up at him beneath my lashes.

  “I know. I do too.”

  Chapter 46

  We’d been sitting in the meeting room for hours.

  Shortly after dawn, Arik had led me down the two flights of stairs to the first floor and led me through weaving hallways until we reached another stretch of rooms.

  Inside, I was greeted with two familiar faces—Bakkia and Kalik—and four unfamiliar ones.

  Well, not entirely true.

  I’d frozen up when I recognized two. The two Dakkari I’d seen standing behind Arik in my vision—a male and a female, who I learned were called Ulli and Errana. The remaining two males were Vala and Kiro.

  “Sleep well, kalles?” Bakkia asked me, a knowing twinkle in his eye, when we’d both stepped into the meeting room.

  “Very,” I replied hesitantly, confused.

  Arik shot the older male a stern look, but then I watched him take command of the room. It wasn’t something I’d witnessed at his horde because I’d really only seen him during the nights there.

  But this Arik?

  I could see why they followed him. Why they hung on his every word and obeyed his every order. Ulli had leaped up to secure me a chair, and Arik had only needed to jerk his head toward it.

  Gone was my teasing, sensual, jealous, thoughtful lover. In his place was a focused, patient, driven, direct horde king who knew the maps of Dothik, which were spread out on a table before us, like he’d come to know my own body.

  He will make a good king, I couldn’t help but think.

  And I knew they all saw it. They all believed it. Or else they wouldn’t be here.

  Like he was Bekkar in the flesh, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I hung on his every word. Whenever he spoke to me directly, asking about information about the priestesses, asking about information he actually didn’t know, I had the strangest urge to duck my head and break his gaze in respect. As if I didn’t still feel the stretch of him between my legs or taste him on my tongue from his long kiss before we left his rooms.

  This was my lover. But this was someone else entirely too.

  I was just now realizing it.

  And it made him all the more devastating. All the more ruinous for me.

  Because, without a shadow of a doubt, I knew that I’d never meet anyone else like Arik. I’d never experience another male like him again. He was it for me. He was all I would know, all I wanted to know.

  “Nik,” came Arik’s voice. He was frustrated. I could see it in the lines of his body, but I didn’t hear it in the growl of his voice. “Unless the security around the temple has changed since I was in Dothik last, I know there are ten guards stationed around it at all times. Every few minutes, they walk the perimeter, lysi?”

  “There’s more now,” Kalik added, leaning forward to tap on the map, gesturing toward an alleyway that I saw was titled the Twentieth Limb. “A robbery happened from here last season. Four males broke into the temple because they learned how to time the guard rotation. They took jewels, gold. Even the damn goblets the priestesses drink their havvia from.”

  I stilled.

  “They drink havvia?” I asked quietly. “That’s…surprising.”

  “Your priestesses do not?” Errana asked me, her eyes narrowing. I thought at first that she didn’t like me. I had wondered at first if it was because I was half-human and half-Dakkari, if she didn’t like the look of my face, which was decidedly human. Or I had wondered if, perhaps, she had feelings for Arik. Feelings like my own. But shortly, I’d realized that wasn’t the case. It was Ulli she cared for, the male who never left her side. And it wasn’t distaste for me. It was distrust.

  All of them were mistrustful of me. Even Bakkia. Even Kalik. It didn’t matter that Arik brought me to them. It didn’t matter if Arik trusted me or not. It mattered that I was a stranger to them and that they were watching out for their leader, for the male they’d known nearly all their lives.

  I didn’t mind the mistrust. I understood it. Likely, I would react the same way because I, too, wanted to protect Arik at all costs.

  It relieved me, truthfully. They didn’t care that I was a hybrid. They didn’t care that I looked different than them, that I was physically weaker and smaller than them. They only cared about Arik.

  “Nik,” I told her, folding my hands in my lap as Arik’s thigh pressed into my own. We were seated next to one another at the table, and I’d found his warm, sturdy presence comforting and distracting. “Not anymore. Havvia is taken in the old way of prayer. It’s a…”

  “Drug,” Arik finished for me.

  “And it can be dangerous,” I added, tilting my head to the side. “The priestesses in the orala sa’kilan used it hundreds of years ago, until one of the priestesses died from it. It’s incredibly addicting.”

  “Did your kalloma ever use it?” Arik asked me, pinning me with that gaze.

  I took in a deep breath, licking my dry lips. “I know she took it once when she was here in Dothik, but she never drank it again. She said the experience was not something she wanted to feel. She said it made Kakkari seem further away, not closer. And if the Laseta Kalliri studied under my kalloma, then I am surprised that she allows it to be taken among her priestesses here. The Seta Kalliri is very much against its use in prayer.”

  “This is Dothik, leikavi,” came Vala’s drawl. Beautiful one, he’d called me. Arik gave a sharp growl of warning at Vala’s address to me. Jealous, indeed, I thought, reaching over to squeeze his thigh with a warning of my own. Vala coughed, hiding his discomfort. “Drugs are commonplace. Especially for the priestesses. We have it on good authority that the Dothikkar himself takes havvia every night. He has the Laseta Kalliri deliver it to him and lead him through his prayer.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49