Throne of the Horde King, page 6
“Typically, lysi,” he murmured. He added, “And if I don’t, then I make my own.”
Swallowing, I slipped from his grip, ducking under his arm before he could react.
Reaching for the thin furs that were sprawled across my bed, I wrapped them around my shoulders, covering the bare expanse of my arms and the obvious outline of my breasts.
The horde king turned to watch me. His movements were lazy and slow as he leaned against my door, crossing his arms over his chest.
Standing next to the fire basin, I felt heat lap at my side. “It was unnecessary to scale the entirety of the temple walls. I was going to come find you tonight.”
He laughed, low and deep. “But I worked so hard to impress you, saila. What other male would scale your tower just to catch a glimpse of you again? Besides, we would not have been very warm in that dark, little cave.”
I was confused by the words. They almost sounded mocking.
“Who are you?” I asked quietly.
His laugh tapered off. He shifted slightly. “The Vorakkar of Rath Serok. Who are you?”
Which was strange too.
“I’ve never come across that name in the histories of Dakkar. And horde kings typically come from long ancestral lines, do they not?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped, which I thought was fascinating. When he saw me studying him, however, his lips quirked and the muscle smoothed away.
“I assure you, saila, I come from a very long line of kings.”
My brow furrowed, hearing that mocking tone again.
“Do you take to studying ancient histories often?” he asked, peering at me. Then he pushed off the door, stepping toward me again, which only served to spike my heartbeat.
“There is not much else to do here except read,” I answered him.
“And what of your own line?” he asked, cocking his head to the side when he came to stand in front of me.
I lifted my tail and settled it in my hands. There was a knot in the hair, so I untangled it gently before brushing through it as I deliberated how to answer that. The Vorakkar watched all this with intent eyes, and it flustered me when I realized it.
“My mother was human, my father Dakkari,” I told him, dropping my tail. “I never knew either one. I was raised here. The orala sa’kilan is all I know.”
“And you have the Seta Kalliri who claims you as her daughter,” he finished for me.
“Lysi,” I whispered, feeling a wave of guilt settle over me. She’d be furious with me for allowing a male to stay within the temple, especially without her knowing. But it only served to remind me why I’d needed to speak with him in the first place. “We must speak about the fog. About why you’re here.”
“You mentioned something about heartstones,” he said. “Tell me what you meant.”
Gone was the lilting, teasing, disarming tone. In its place was a hardened voice. The voice of a Vorakkar who expected to be answered. The shift was so abrupt too.
“I believe that the fog has happened before. Or at least a version of it,” I told him.
“The other priestesses know this too?”
“They are not convinced,” I confessed. “But I know that the Seta Kalliri believes me.”
“Because she is your mother,” he scoffed, looking briefly from me to look around my tower. His eyes caught on Bekkar’s history on my desk.
“Nik,” I said. “Not because of that.”
He moved to my desk and peered down at the book…and then at the stacks of parchment next to it.
When he lifted one, I bit my lip and said, “Please be careful with those.”
Those swirling eyes cut to me. A huff left his nostrils, and he gingerly replaced the thin sheet. Parchment had been hard to come by this last year. The last delivery we’d had from Dothik had been months ago. Our food stores were dwindling. The crops we grew deep underground were enough to sustain us with proper rationing. Our meat supply was running low too, though messages from the planet’s capital assured us that more was on its way to us.
No hordes had journeyed to us in the last year.
As such, I’d taken to scrounging around the temple for parchment scraps. Any I could find. I had enough to finish the book but only just barely.
“How are you so sure?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “What was this fog exactly?”
“It was a famine,” I informed him.
“A famine,” he repeated. “Vok, kalles, I do not think you understand what the fog is. What it does. It feeds on your strength and kills you when you are weak.”
“Just like a famine,” I argued, quirking a brow, feeling a small victory when he grumbled under his breath. “It was a plague in the soil. It turned it red and leached all life from it. All over the West. It produced no food during that time. It sickened those that lived near it. Many died.”
The Vorakkar’s uncut ear twitched. “When was this?”
“Two hundred years ago,” I said. “Roughly. The actual seasons in the original account are unclear. But I know it was around the mrok illa, the shining star. Which last happened—”
“Two hundred years ago,” he said softly.
I inclined my head. “The book dates to about that time as well. So that is why I believe it has happened before.”
“So why don’t the kalliris? What makes them doubt?” he questioned. “What makes you so certain that you’re right?”
I shifted on my feet, wrapping my furs around me tightly.
There was no getting around it, however. He would never believe me otherwise. He might not even believe me if I told him.
“Because Kakkari showed it to me,” I said quietly. “I saw it.”
Chapter 10
“What do you mean you saw it?” I asked, scowling.
The female stared at my displeased expression, but she didn’t seem frightened by it. Instead, she cocked her head to the side, studying it.
I stilled under her perusal.
Who is she? I thought again. Even in that silent question, I felt my frustration.
So many unanswered questions. There had been a hybrid child living in the orala sa’kilan for years. Did the other Vorakkar know? Did the Dothikkar know?
Likely not, I realized. The kalliris hadn’t wanted me to know about her presence. She’d hidden her face from view when she’d come into the atrium. The Seta Kalliri had been furious when she’d revealed herself to me.
Why the secrecy? Did the priestesses not know about the human queens on Dakkar?
A lapse of silence settled between us, and I took the time to study her.
Her eyes were gold. A purely Dakkari color, except her eyes had white in them. Like the vekkiri. She would be small next to a Dakkari female, her height and bone structure no doubt that of her mother.
Though…I remembered the outline of her body in her sheath dress. Her breasts had been full, tipped with tight nipples my mouth had watered for. Her hips flared out, wide like a Dakkari’s, meant to withstand a Dakkari male’s more primal lusts. And her little tail…I didn’t know why I was so fascinated by it. But watching her stroke the tuft at the end moments before, I had felt my cock tighten further in my trews.
She was no great Dakkari beauty. That was clear. Her human genetics collided too strangely with the Dakkari ones. Her face was round instead of long. Her cheeks were full, her lips too small, her nose too pointed.
So why couldn’t I look away?
Why was my cock beginning to throb in my trews the longer she stared me down?
I smiled, though it was a dark thing and I certainly felt no humor at that particular moment.
The female blinked and seemed shaken enough to finally respond to my question with, “I saw it in a dream.”
“A dream,” I repeated slowly.
That wiped the smile right off my face. I’d climbed the vokking tower for nothing. She didn’t have the answers I sought. She was of no use to me.
“Lysi,” she said, raising her chin like she was proud of it.
“And last night I dreamed that I was fucking a horde of females, but you don’t see that coming true anytime soon,” I growled out.
She blanched, shrinking back from me.
“You…you don’t believe me?” she asked, the question incredulous, like she hadn’t expected that.
Cursing, I looked away from her, back down to the desk. Writing I didn’t know how to read. A failing that shamed me. But back in Dothik, growing up the way I had…I dealt with Dakkari. With people. Not with words. Instead of learning how to read, I’d chosen to learn the universal tongue. Language was more important than ink across a page.
However, I’d never felt more lacking as a horde king than right then. Freezing in the North Lands. My pelt covered in ice. My cock still frustratingly hard. Standing with a hybrid female that told me about her dreams. And looking down at a book that might be the account of the famine she spoke of. But would I know?
Nik.
All the while, the fog in the East Lands grew. The Vorakkar of Rath Okkili had been assigned to the territory for the season, but I knew that it would be my turn next. My horde that would be at risk next.
Unless I found the answers to stop the fog before then. It was unpredictable. Wild. Every horde was on edge.
“I don’t believe you,” I told her, in no uncertain terms. “I don’t know you, kalles. I thought that you knew something the kalliris were trying to hide. But I was wrong. I think they are as lost as we all are and are trying to save face.”
She glared at me. Her spine straightened.
“If you don’t believe me, then how do I know that you have a scar running down your back? Because I saw that in a dream too.”
I barked out a laugh. Turning from the desk, I approached her. Her ears were getting red, the very tips of them, in her anger. I found that…eye-catching.
Still, I purred down to her, “Saying I have scars down my back is like saying I wear cuffs around my wrists. They are marks of a Vorakkar. Everyone knows this. Even you. Even as sheltered as you are up in this frozen wasteland. But you are no better than the fortune readers on the streets of Dothik. At least I can respect them because I know what they want. What they are hungry for. Money. Gold. You? I have no idea what you want or how you benefit from telling me these things.”
I had stepped into her space. My tone was like a lover’s gentle whisper, but the actual words held venom. Lifting my hand to her cheek, I pushed strands of long, black hair away.
“Maybe you are trying to help, saila,” I said, pressing my lips together. She was just a girl. She might only be a handful of years younger than me, but she had no experience beyond these walls, if what she told me was true. “Maybe you think you are.”
“I’m not speaking of the Vorakkar scars,” she hissed, hands at my chest to push me away from her. My palm fell away from her cheek in surprise, and I stumbled back a few steps, my hip catching on the edge of her desk before I righted myself.
At her words, I felt a chill run down my spine.
“I’m speaking of the one that was there before,” she continued, glaring at me, fire lighting up her eyes. “The one on the right side of your back. That starts under your shoulder blade and ends at the base of your tail.”
I froze.
“How do you know about that?” I asked before stalking toward her again, though she turned from me, heading toward the door of her room with angry strides of her own.
“I’m calling for my kalloma,” she said, grumbling under her breath. “You are not allowed to—”
When she opened the door, I slammed it shut with a firm shove from behind her. She gasped, outraged, but I grabbed her and spun her, pressing her against the door and keeping her there.
“I’ll scream for the Seta Kalliri,” she threatened, narrowing her eyes. Her chest was heaving.
“Then do it,” I challenged her, knowing she wouldn’t. “But before you do, saila, I want you to tell me who the vok you are and how you know about that scar.”
The last test of the Trials was always public. It was possible she’d learned of the scar from someone who’d been present, who’d seen my back before the whipping…but the priestesses of the orala sa’kilan were sheltered for a reason. If they didn’t even know about the human queens on Dakkar, how likely was it that she’d know about one damn scar?
Not very.
She was still glaring at me, and I knew I’d fucked up. I’d misread her, which very rarely happened. I’d been dealing with criminals, with prostitutes, with mercenaries, traders, gamblers, drunks, soldiers, merchants since I could speak.
I could be charming. I could be mean. I could grin as I was slitting someone’s throat—mostly figuratively, though that bastard from the Western District a few years ago had deserved it. I could make myself into whoever I needed to be. I’d run the most extensive network right under the Dothikkar’s nose because I dealt with people all the vokking time. And in many cases, misreading someone led to death.
So how had I misread this female?
This slip of a female who had lived her whole life in this temple reading books all day?
Her chest was heaving wildly.
“Tell me why you’re angry.”
She gaped at me. “Because I’m trying to help you and you treat me with condescension and derision. Are you insane?”
“I’m sorry for that, kalles,” I said easily, choosing the last word carefully, knowing she wouldn’t take too kindly to me if I called her saila right now. She’d liked when I’d called her that. But if I uttered it now, she’d likely slap me across the face, Vorakkar or not. “I’m sorry. I have had bad experiences with people who claim they possess Kakkari’s gifts. All of them were liars.”
My words gave her pause. I watched as she blinked.
“You’ve dreamed of me before,” I said, processing the words and forcing myself to entertain the idea that what she said was real. “You’ve seen the scar before.”
Her jaw set and tightened. Then she looked between us, realized that I had pressed my body against hers to keep her from moving. Those golden eyes widened, and she struggled.
“Kalles,” I growled out, feeling her body wiggle against my cock. Hissing, I said, “Cease moving. And talk to me, lysi?”
“Lysi,” she finally bit out, glaring up at me again. It was possible I had a kink for females who hated my guts because I felt my cock only thicken with her rage. How fucked in the head was that? “But it was only a dream, Vorakkar, so you cannot possibly have that scar. I must have made it up.”
I’d really struck a nerve in thinking she was lying. Or not lying, exactly, but not believing her. Mentally, I told myself that I could never do it again or else I tempted her ire.
People had certain tics. Things that were set boundaries, hard lines that most could not cross. This was hers. I would do well to remember it.
“So you have a gift, kalles,” I said, ignoring her sarcasm. She had a temper. I…liked that. “Tell me about it.”
That gave her pause. I wondered why.
When she said nothing, I prompted, “There are others that have Kakkari’s gifts. Two human queens of the hordes, for example. The horde king of Rath Drokka. You remember those fortune readers I spoke of in Dothik? One of them actually did have the gift of foresight, though it was limited to the span of a day. And—”
“The human queens?” she whispered, her eyes widening almost comically. I watched her black pupils dilate. She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
Watching her carefully, I told her, “Horde kings have taken humans as their queens. There are five human Morakkari now. The majority of them have already given their Vorakkar children.”
I felt her legs tremble against me, but I pressed her harder into the door to keep her from sliding down it.
“You did not know?” I asked. “You did not know that you were not alone?”
The look she gave me…
Vok.
It twisted my heart, and I thought long ago that nothing could made it ache again.
But the look was so wounded. So full of despair. Frustration. Anger.
Longing.
“You are not alone,” I told her. “Not in your gifts, nor in the circumstances of your birth. You are the first, lysi, but you will never be the last.”
“Tell me about them,” she pleaded, her eyes hungry for more. “Tell me. Hanniva. Please.”
“Everything has a price,” I murmured, cupping her face in my palm. “I will give you something, and you will give me something. That is how Dakkar operates outside these walls.”
She frowned. Genuinely bewildered.
How different we were. Priestesses—and by extension the orala sa’kilan—placed no value in money. The hordes were much the same, though they placed value on territories, on tradable goods, on the quality of those goods and the experience of their horde members. Saruks too.
But in Dothik…
Gold was life.
My life had been nothing but a series of transactions. If I’d learned nothing else, it was that everything could be bartered and bought.
“It is your turn, saila,” I prompted her gently. “Tell me about the heartstones. I will listen, I promise.”
“I already told you,” she said, lifting her chin, dislodging it from my grip. “So if that is the way of the world,” she repeated, “then you owe me something else before I say anything more.”
A low chuckle rose from my throat. I was so very rarely surprised, but she’d surprised me twice this night.
“Very well,” I said. “What is your price?”
“If I tell you everything I know?” she asked, swallowing. “Everything I know about the heartstones? Everything Kakkari showed me?”
“Lysi.”
It surprised me when her expression turned from fragile to determined.
“If I tell you everything,” she said, “then I want you to take me with you once you leave. That is my price.”
Chapter 11
“Neffar?” the horde king rasped, clearly baffled. “Take you where?”
