by Zoey Draven
His eyes tracked over my body, taking in my hide pants and cloth tunic, before settling on my face. Arokan didn’t say anything about the clothes, however, just held the tent flap open for me as I ducked inside and he followed behind me.
When we were alone, I took a deep breath and turned to him, though my tongue felt tied, knotted in my mouth.
It was possibly the first time I’d ever been at a loss for words as I looked at him. Up close, he looked like a bloody mess. Black splatters of blood adorned his body, covering parts of his golden tattoos. His left side was covered in grime and dirt, as if he’d fallen hard. The pants he wore would probably take multiple washings to clean.
As if on cue, the tent flap parted and males brought in the bathing tub, followed by buckets of steaming water.
We were silent as they filled it and I only moved once they left us in peace. Arokan was watching me and I moved towards him slowly, remembering Mirari’s advice, remembering the story of Drukkar. Remembering that perhaps the horde king needed warmth most of all, considering the crusted and cold blood that decorated his flesh, remembering that he had the power to help my village, if I gave him reason to.
He would be my husband. Nothing would change that. And if we entered into this partnership, however unequal it might be, on good terms, perhaps we could be of use to one another.
Arguing with him, fighting against him would accomplish nothing. Unless he really pissed me off and then I would give him an earful, the consequences of that be damned.
He watched me with thinly veiled suspicion as I removed the golden belt around his waist, only fumbling with the clasp for a brief moment, before letting it fall to the floor.
My cheeks heated a little as I untied the laces of his pants. Before I pushed the waistband down, however, he caught my wrists, his narrowed eyes on me as he rasped, “What are you doing, kalles?”
“Helping you,” I replied, disturbed by how much I liked his voice. It was rich and dark and deep. Sinful and decadent. “You need to bathe.”
His fingers gave my wrist a squeeze, like he didn’t trust my intentions, like a warning, before he released them.
Taking that as his answer, I pushed his pants down his long, thick legs, swallowing the lump in my throat when his cock made its appearance.
I turned to walk towards the bath and he followed, his heavy footsteps padding on the plush rugs spread across the floor. I prepared the wash cloth and soap as he got in and heard him hiss in satisfaction at the warmth.
I knelt by the side of the bathing tub and waited for the warm water to soften the blood and dirt coating his skin. Arokan’s eyes closed and I felt a twinge of strange compassion for him. What Mirari had said, about the Ghertun, had surprised me. It made my thoughts about the Dakkari shift ever so slightly. It was obvious that he wanted to protect his horde, his people…that he would do whatever it took to keep them safe. How could I judge him for that?
“Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?” I asked softly.
His eyes opened and he regarded me carefully. “Would you have cared?”
“At the time…” I said and then decided to answer honestly, “I don’t know. We were both angry before you left.”
Arokan made a sound in the back of his throat, an acknowledgment. The water trickled when he lifted his arms, scooping it up to wet his shoulders and upper chest.
“Mirari told me about the Ghertun,” I said, my eyes going to his throat, at the little knick there scabbed over with blood. “I had no idea that there are beings like that living on Dakkar.”
“I have seen some humans do worse things than the Ghertun,” Arokan said. “I have seen Killap and Nrunteng do worse things too. And Dakkari. Beings like that have always lived here.”
The Killap and the Nrunteng were other races that had arrived on Dakkar, the same time around humans, though I’d never seen one. Their settlements were further to the east.
“Still,” he continued, “as a race, the Ghertun are the most dangerous. Dakkari, humans, Killap, and Nrunteng? Their dangerous ones are outliers.”
“I’m assuming you found the pack you were looking for,” I commented, my eyes trailing his flesh. The blood had just started to soften, so I dipped my wash cloth into the water, soaking it.
“Lysi,” was all he said.
Smoothing the cloth over his forearm, I focused on scrubbing the grime away as I said, “Next time, I would like to hear about your leaving from you. Not Mirari.”
Arokan stilled, his eyes cutting to me, glinting like ice. “Neffar?”
I ignored his word, focusing on cleaning his skin. But Arokan wasn’t to be denied for long, because he caught my hand, tearing the wash cloth away, before tilting my chin up to look at him.
“Neffar?”
I assumed, by his tone, neffar meant something like what.
Taking a deep breath, I said, “I don’t like being kept in the dark.”
Arokan was studying me, those yellow-rimmed eyes darting back and forth between mine, as if I’d asked him a riddle and he was trying to decipher the answer.
“I will tell you next time,” he finally said, dropping my chin, his gaze turning away.
I nodded, snagging the wash cloth again. “Thank you.”
“Have you eaten?” he asked next.
“Broth,” I answered.
He shook his head, muttering something in Dakkari. “You need meat. You cannot survive on broth.”
“I have for a long time,” I informed him.
A sharp breath through his nostrils told me he was frustrated. Probably tired too. I wondered if he’d slept since he’d left.
We lapsed into silence again as I washed him. Once his arms were clean, I moved to his chest, where a thick coat of blood remained just above his right pectoral muscle.
However, as I washed the area, noticing that Arokan stiffened, I gasped, seeing that the blood surrounding it wasn’t Ghertun blood, it was his own. Underneath the crusted blood was a deep slash that probably needed stitching.
“You’re hurt,” I whispered. “Should I go get—”
“Nik,” Arokan rasped. He pointed to a tall dresser, near the entrance of the tent. “There are sutures and dressings in there.”
I pushed up from the bathing tub and retrieved them—thin golden thread, a hook needle, a clear salve, and clean padding.
I placed them on the bed, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to stitch him in the water. It would have to wait until he was clean.
So, I quickly resumed helping him bathe, gently cleaning the wound before scrubbing the rest of him down. Only after his hair was clean did he rise from the tub. The front of my tunic was wet, but I paid it no mind as I watched him dry himself. It didn’t escape my notice that his golden tattooed cock was hardened, bobbing against his abdomen.
Strangely enough, my eyes lingered on it before I forced myself to look away. I would know it well soon enough, I thought, knowing that the joining celebration drew near.
Once he was dry, he sat on the edge of the bed, still nude, which I tried my hardest not to notice as I cleaned the wound for a second time…though my face burned.
Arokan noticed and commented, “Humans are strange about bare flesh. Why?”
Swallowing, I kept my eyes on the slash, making sure there was no debris or dirt inside it. “I don’t know. We just…cover ourselves around other people.” I gave him a pointed look. “It’s polite.”
Arokan made a sound like a snort. “I am not ‘other people,’ as you call it. You will know my flesh like it is your own soon enough.”
Goddess help me, I thought, now my ears burning. He said it so nonchalantly, like it was a given. In a way, it was.
“Humans are strange about mating too, it seems,” Arokan commented next, eyeing my expression. “Why? It is natural.”
I cleared my throat, reaching for the hook needle and easily threading the gold strand through, despite my trembling fingers. “I don’t know. It’s just…it’s a private matter.
We don’t usually discuss it so openly.”
“There is no one here now,” he murmured. “This is private.”
Startled, my eyes met his and for the second time that afternoon, my tongue was tied. To give me an excuse not to answer, I quickly pierced his skin with the hook needle and made the first stitch. He didn’t even flinch, which made me wonder how many times he’d done this.
“You know how to do this well,” Arokan commented, looking down at my neat stitches, when I didn’t reply.
“I worked as a seamstress in my village,” I told him softly. “Flesh and fabric are not so different.”
“I see you made your own clothing while I was gone,” he said.
“I didn’t steal the razor or the needle. I won’t have a way to kill you in your sleep if that’s what you’re worried about, horde king.”
He huffed out a small, startled breath and I felt it across my cheek. I hadn’t realized how close we were until that moment, but I could feel his heat along my side, could smell his scent.
“Nik, kalles, I am not worried about that,” he murmured. We lapsed into silence as I finished up the stitching. Only when I cut the thread and spread salve over the closed wound did he say, “You will need to wear the Dakkari ceremonial dress tonight.”
My lips pressed together as nerves stuttered my heartbeat. Softly, I said, “I’m sure the piki already have it prepared.”
Arokan grabbed my wrist gently when I finished placing the padding on his chest. It looked like he wanted to say something, but then his jaw ticked and he looked away, releasing me. He stood and pulled on a pair of fresh pants from his trunks.
Then he said, “I will see you at the tassimara tonight.”
With that, he ducked through the entrance and left.
“You’re welcome, Vorakkar,” I grumbled to the empty tent, wondering what the hell had just happened.
Chapter Eleven
“You can’t possibly want me to wear this, Mirari,” I exclaimed, eyeing the ‘ceremonial Dakkari’ outfit in horror and dread.
Or rather the lack of an outfit.
Stomach knotted in nerves, I pressed three of my fingers to my lips, trying to keep it together. It was bad enough that I was going through with this tassimara at all, bad enough that I would freely give my body to a horde king who seemed cold and surly most of the time. Bad enough that I would most likely live out the rest of my life among the Dakkari, never to see my brother again.
And now this.
The ceremonial outfit was only a short, hide skirt, embroidered with beautiful gold swirling stitching accompanied by a heavy gold necklace. The necklace had one wide strand that wrapped around my throat and one thick plate that hung at the level of my breasts. My bared breasts.
“Where’s—where’s the top?” I asked, my voice sounding breathless and light.
“No top, Missiki,” Mirari replied, taking a pot of gold paint from Lavi. She dabbed her fingers into it and then smeared it over one of my pebbled nipples, making me screech in surprise and dart away, rounding the bed. The necklace bobbed against my breasts, cold and heavy.
“What are you doing?” I cried, looking down at my nipple.
Mirari eyed me carefully and then let out a long sigh. “This is the Dakkari way, Missiki.”
“N-no,” I said, holding out my hands when she approached me. “Stop.”
“Missiki, this is for the Vorakkar. You must.”
“How does this have anything to do with him?” I cried out, my voice climbing higher and higher in my panic. My heart was racing fast and my rushing blood was loud in my ears.
This might just be my breaking point. Out of everything, a short skirt and painted nipples had broken me.
“He will take the gold into his mouth tonight, consume it so it is a part of him,” Mirari explained, as if she were talking about how clear the skies were today and not about Arokan licking my nipples clean. “It is the Dakkari—”
“The Dakkari way, I know. I know,” I whispered, staring at the little gold pot like it was a blade in her hands.
Goddess help me. What was with the Dakkari and gold?
I knew there was no escaping this. Just like everything else that had happened thus far.
Inhaling a sharp breath, I snatched the pot from her grasp and said, “I’ll do it myself.”
Mirari let me have the pot and shuffled backwards, to stand next to Lavi, who I thought looked a little amused.
Hands trembling, I painted my nipples and areolas gold until they glittered in the candlelight of the tent. Once I was done, I tugged the necklace plate, encrusted with red jewels, so that it helped cover my breasts. But it wasn’t enough.
“You are ready,” Mirari announced and another jolt of fear and nerves shot through me.
I felt like a stranger again, that desperate emotion rising inside me. I’d allowed Mirari and Lavi to have their way with me. They’d brushed and dried and volumized my hair until it fell in soft, big waves down my back. Into the strands, they’d threaded in little gold beads and cuffs that I heard jingle whenever I moved my head.
To my face, they’d taken a surprisingly light hand, only outlining my eyes with thin, gold strokes, bringing out colors in my irises I hadn’t even known I’d possessed. To my cheekbones and lips, they’d dusted both with a shimmery gold powder.
When I looked at myself in the small mirror they’d brought, I hardly recognized myself. My chest was heaving with shortened breaths as I took in their handiwork. My hair had never been fuller and my face seemed softened by the gold powder. My eyes looked desperate and wild and I couldn’t stand to look at myself for long, so I turned the mirror away.
“I’m ready,” I whispered, taking in a long breath. Better to get this over with.
Night had fallen hours ago. One of the darkest nights too, considering it was a ‘black moon.’ Or a new moon, as the humans called it. Mirari and Lavi guided me from the tent and when I stepped outside, shivering a bit in the cool air, my eyes found Arokan’s. He was waiting for me.
Breath hitching, I took him in. He’d gotten ready elsewhere considering that he wore a hanging fur cloth and not the pants he’d had on when he’d left the tent earlier. His hair was loose and long down his back, his tail was decorated in gold cuffs, and his eyes were lined in black, making the yellow ring of his irises that much more intense.
My belly quivered. He was watching me with a silent ferocity that made me feel like prey and when I straightened, the necklace bobbed at my bare breasts, drawing his gaze there.
Even from a distance, I heard him make a sound, almost like a growl. It made my nerves jump even higher, especially when I noticed he stood next to his pyroki, which was freshly painted with gold lines, whose reins he held in his large, six-fingered grip.
My palms went sweaty at the sight of the beast.
A part of me, the cowardly part, wanted to turn and dart back inside the tent, to hide there for the remainder of the night and bolt from the camp at my next opportunity, to try and brave the wild lands to navigate my way back home.
That was suicide, I knew, but I was afraid enough to want to try. At least, the unreasonable and emotional part of me wanted to try.
I’d made a promise, I reminded myself.
With that thought, my feet—which were bare and unprotected—guided me to Arokan, though I stumbled a bit. The clearing in front of the tent was empty, the whole camp was quiet, though a gentle yellow glow emanated over it, which seemed strange. Silently, Mirari and Lavi slipped away, threading around the quiet tents, disappearing from view.
Until it was just Arokan and I. And his beast.
He didn’t speak. He held out his free arm, extending his hand towards me, and with a final breath, I took it. His hand was warm and mine was cold. My whole body trembled though I desperately tried to stop shaking.
Arokan gripped me to him, pulling me close so that I felt the fur cloth covering his genitals brush against my bare belly. The fur tickled, it was so soft.
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br /> But I was beyond laughter when I looked up at him.
“Are you frightened, Luna?” he asked me and I stilled when I heard my name fall from his lips, so unexpected that for a moment, I forgot my nerves. Forgot everything.
Then I remembered. Remembered who I was, why I’d come here. Remembered the young girl that had been forced to grow up too soon, remembered the years of hard work, of hard struggle, to provide for Kivan in an unfair universe.
I was strong.
I was Luna. Not kalles or Missiki or Morakkari. At least not yet.
Luna.
Bright stars shone down, glimmering in the absence of the moon light. Some of the stars I didn’t recognize. Some of them only made their appearance when the moon was dark.
“I am,” I whispered, which was difficult to say. I was frightened. I wouldn’t pretend otherwise.
I’d grown up trying to put on a strong front, trying to lie to myself that everything was alright, for Kivan’s sake. But right then I realized I didn’t need to lie anymore. I didn’t need to protect Arokan from the truth and I certainly didn’t need to impress him.
It was…freeing.
I could be strong and still be frightened. That night, I just needed to be brave and I would be.
Arokan inclined his head in acknowledgment, but didn’t say anything in reply, which I was surprisingly thankful for. Instead, he made a clicking sound in the back of his throat and his pyroki inclined his head, bowing so that it would be easier for me to climb on.
Remembering the unforgiving hardness of riding a pyroki, I hesitated. Truthfully, I would rather parade myself naked around the entire camp than get on the back of the intimidating creature again, but Arokan was watching me, studying me.
So I climbed on with the help of the horde king, though I surely flashed him in the process. The short skirt barely concealed my lower half and with my thighs splayed wide over the pyroki’s back, I felt exposed and on display.