by Zoey Draven
Hukan retrieved materials from a chest of drawers and returned to the table, slowly lowering herself down across from us. Her eyes ran over me again. I was so used to Dakkari averting their gaze that I was surprised how uncomfortable it made me.
“You continue to wear your nekkar clothes,” she commented. “You do not think you are Dakkari now?”
I blinked.
Arokan whistled out a low breath. “Kivale,” he said, though whether it was a name or a warning, I didn’t know.
“Your queen should be proud to wear Dakkari adornments,” Hukan said and I was stunned at her tone, at the way she looked at Arokan. All the while, she continued to lay out her materials like nothing was wrong. She was criticizing me though we’d just met. “It is a disrespect to you, Arokan. A disrespect to us all.”
I sucked in a breath at the sound of his name, disbelief spreading through me. I thought no member of his horde was supposed to know his name, much less speak it.
Except one, I remembered. He said that none knew his name except one.
Who was this female to him?
“Enough,” he said, his tone sharp and Hukan stilled, her outstretched hand freezing over a needle. When I looked over at him, I saw his barely concealed anger. “I do not care what she wears. She is human. She is Dakkari now too. You cross lines in speaking to my queen this way. Even you, Kivale.”
He was…defending me?
“Forgive me,” Hukan finally said, after a brief uncomfortable pause, though she only held Arokan’s eyes. “You know I am just an old fool.”
Looking down at my pants and tunic, I’d never realized that the way I dressed would reflect poorly not only on me, but on Arokan. I’d never even thought that it could be considered an insult.
“You can ask my queen for forgiveness, Kivale,” Arokan said, his tone still sharp, like a blade.
Hukan met his eyes then she looked down at the table, rearranging her needles and pots of gold slowly, before she met my gaze.
“Forgive me, Morakkari,” she said. “I forget my place.”
“You gave your opinion,” I replied a moment later, because I wanted to keep the peace. “There is nothing to forgive.”
She blinked, her lips pressing together.
“I am human,” I said. “I’m not ashamed that I am and I won’t apologize for what makes me feel comfortable.”
I sensed Arokan’s gaze but I held her eyes. Hukan reminded me of the seamstress I used to work for back at village. Hard as nails, that woman, and she constantly tested me at every turn with her sharp words and cranky attitude. I was used to criticism, just from people I was familiar with. One thing I did know, however, was that if I didn’t stand up for myself from the beginning, I would always be lesser in her eyes.
Hukan looked away first and my fingers twitched, relieved. She looked down at the pots, picked up a clear salve, and asked, “Do you wish to go first, Vorakkar?”
I blinked. Arokan would get markings that day too?
Arokan held out one wrist in reply, his irritation still evident. Hukan spread the salve just above his gold cuffs in a thick band, wrapped all the way around, waited a moment, then wiped it away.
Despite the slight tension in the tent, I was soon distracted by the process of tattooing. I watched as Hukan cleaned her needles and then dipped one in the gold, balancing the pot between two fingers with ease. Quickly, she jabbed the needle into Arokan’s flesh, re-dipped the needle, jabbed again, re-dipped, jabbed, re-dipped, jabbed. Over and over again until she had an outline of a wide band spanning the space above his cuff.
Though she was incredibly quick and talented with her needle, the process was slow, quiet, and tedious. But there was a mesmerizing beauty about it, a subtle art. It was apparent that Hukan had done this many times before.
Soon, one wrist was done. The tattoo was almost as wide and thick as his cuffs, one solid band of gleaming gold. It was beautiful and it made his skin shimmer in the light.
Arokan’s other wrist was done in the same slow, intricate process until the two tattoos were virtually identical.
His eyes met mine and he said, “Now you, kassikari.”
I didn’t show my hesitation when I reached my wrist across the table. I didn’t need to give Hukan any more reason to dislike me. With an almost clinical touch, she repeated the cleaning process, spreading the salve over my wrist.
She dipped the clean needle in the pot, but paused, looking up at Arokan before asking something in Dakkari.
“Rath Kitala,” he replied.
“Rath Kitala?” Hukan repeated slowly, her eyes narrowing.
“Lysi,” he replied, his brow quirking, as if challenging her, as if daring her to question him.
My own brow furrowed, watching the exchange, confused by it. Hukan’s lips pressed together again and then she made the first jab into my wrist, though it was aggressive.
Eyes widening at the sharp pain, I shot a look at Arokan, almost in betrayal. He hadn’t even flinched, hadn’t moved, during the whole process of his markings. I’d decided that it couldn’t hurt that badly.
It hurt like a bitch. Though, I suspected, after Hukan’s second, third, fourth jab, that she was a little rougher with me than she’d been with Arokan. She certainly seemed to put more muscle into it.
Arokan’s lips quirked at my outraged expression, but he remained quiet, simply watching me.
Soon, a slim band began to take shape across my wrist. It wasn’t solid, like Arokan’s, nor was it nearly as wide, but it was in the same swirling design as the markings across his biceps, across his chest, across his shoulders.
Soon, she started work on a second band, about half an inch higher from the first, in the same design, though the pattern looked slightly different.
Though tears welled in my eyes at the shooting pain, I blinked them away, not wanting Hukan to see. It felt like I had something to prove to her, so I took pride in the fact that whenever she looked up at me with a searching gaze, my features were expressionless, my eyes dry.
Relief went through me when she released my wrist, wiping away some of the blood that welled and coating the gold in the clear salve.
It was only a momentary reprieve, however, because she gestured impatiently for my other wrist.
So, I gritted my teeth, sent a withering glare over to Arokan, and she began work on the next set of markings.
It seemed like hours later when it was done.
Once she released me, I felt shivery from the pain and my face was probably pale, but I looked down at my wrists, turning them to see every inch.
“They’re beautiful,” I said softly, looking up at Hukan.
She ignored me, simply cleaned and packed up her materials before redepositing them in her drawers.
Arokan stood and helped me up, placing his hand on the small of my lower back. His heat felt nice.
“Kivale,” he murmured, inclining his head. “Kakkira vor. Thank you for your time.”
Then he urged me to the entrance of the tent.
“Let me speak with your Morakkari a moment,” Hukan said before I stepped outside.
Arokan hesitated, watching her with narrowed, suspicious eyes. He looked at me, then jerked his head and ducked outside, leaving me alone with the older female. I would rather be alone with a hundred pyroki, I thought.
“You are not good enough for him,” Hukan said, simply, her voice quiet and hushed. “He made a mistake in choosing you.”
I froze, my back straightening, her words stunningly…hurtful.
“Do you dislike me because I’m not Dakkari?” I asked, keeping my voice level and even. “Because I’m human?”
“Nik,” she said. “I dislike you because I think you are weak. I think you do not have the spine or the stomach to be a Morakkari. Not like his mother.”
His mother?
My brow furrowed and I lowered my voice so Arokan would not hear. “You know nothing about me.”
I sucked in a breath when Hukan reache
d out to grip my raw wrist, right over the markings she’d just made across my flesh. She squeezed and pain sizzled through me, making me dizzy. “These are the same markings that his mother had. It is a disgrace that they mark you now. He might not see that now. In time, he will. He will realize how wrong you are for him, for the horde.”
I tugged my wrist from her grip with a strong pull, making her stumble. Her gaze flashed up to me in surprise.
“Don’t ever touch me again,” I hissed.
Her jaw clenched, her eyes narrowing, but she wisely held her tongue. Fury rose, hot and quick. I’d never liked bullies and there was no doubt that she was one, despite her age.
“My mother had been mauled by one of your wild pyroki, outside the protection of our village,” I told her, holding her gaze, straightening. I stepped forward, so that I was close, so that she would hear me when I whispered, “I killed her myself with a blade to ease her suffering. I was fifteen-years-old. So don’t tell me what I have the spine or the stomach for. You know nothing about me.”
A sharp breath whistled out from her flat nostrils when I pulled away.
I turned my back without a second glance and stepped out of the tent, away from that cloying incense.
Once outside, I felt like I could breathe again.
Chapter Fourteen
“Are you well, Missiki?” Mirari asked as we walked together though the thick forest spread behind the Dakkari camp. Lavi flanked my other side and Arokan had given me a guard, who trailed behind all three of us. When I’d protested that I didn’t need to be watched like a child, he’d only looked at me, grunted, and then turned away to go about his duties for the day. And the guard still followed.
My wrists still throbbed from Hukan’s markings, the skin surrounding the gold slightly reddened. Mirari told me to keep the salve on it and to wrap it in cloth, which I did.
“Do your markings ache? We should return to camp. I can fetch you the healer,” she asked.
No, I didn’t want to go back. Not yet. Arokan had told me not to venture far when I told him that I needed fresh air, that I couldn’t stand another long afternoon trapped in the tent. Surprisingly, he’d relented with little argument. After what Hukan said, I needed to clear my mind.
With a look over my shoulder at the guard, I said softly to Mirari, “A female named Hukan did my markings.” I was unsure if I was supposed to say her name out loud, but I was beyond caring. “Who is she?”
Mirari blinked, looking down at the forest path. The forest was overgrown and thick in places, but the path that Mirari led us down seemed maintained, as if Dakkari trekked through it often.
“She did not take to you, I assume,” Mirari ventured, her voice hesitant and light.
I was slowly becoming to trust Mirari. She’d never given me a reason not to, despite telling Arokan that I refused to eat when I first arrived to the camp. Though she often told me her purpose was to obey me, she was always honest and didn’t shy away from the questions I asked.
I relied on her for information and I was thankful for the things she’d told me, especially since I understood the Dakkari very little.
“No,” I answered her. “She did not.”
“She would not,” Mirari admitted, with a certainty in her voice that surprised me.
“Why?”
“I do not…” she trailed off, casting a glance behind her shoulder at the guard, who stayed ten paces back. “I do not know if it is my place to say. I would not wish to anger the Vorakkar.”
“The Vorakkar is not here and I will not tell him,” I told her. “Please. I need to know what I’m getting myself into, how to handle her.”
Mirari relented, “She is a blood relation to the Vorakkar. She is very protective of him.”
My lips parted. “How is she related?” A thought occurred to me and I asked, “What does Kivale mean?”
Mirari’s shoulders sagged. “Hukan was the older sister of the Vorakkar’s mother. Kivale is a term of respect, honoring that blood line.”
Hukan was Arokan’s aunt.
Damn.
“Hukan is very protective of her line, Missiki,” Mirari explained. “Her aversion to you is expected. Pay her no mind. She is old. Her years in this life, the tragedies that she has faced within her line, have left her bitter and angry.”
What tragedies? I wondered. Did Arokan experience the same tragedies too?
That didn’t make me feel any better. She’d known Arokan’s given name, which meant that she was close to him. I’d known that. Still, she’d gotten under my skin, she’d managed to hurt me. I told her something that I’d never voiced out loud before.
She thought I was weak, that I wouldn’t be able to do my duty when it came to the horde. In a way, I suspected she was right. I was out of my element, thrown into a life I wasn’t prepared for. I’d never even wanted to be queen to Arokan’s horde and I sure as hell didn’t ask for it.
But now, it didn’t matter. I was queen. It was done. Arokan had chosen me for reasons I still didn’t understand and his aunt hated me for it.
“Is she the only relation the Vorakkar has within the horde?” I asked.
“Lysi,” Mirari said. “She is the last female of their line. He is the last male. Unless you bear the Vorakkar a daughter and a son.”
I went quiet, processing her words. I couldn’t force Hukan to accept me. She merely tolerated my presence because of Arokan.
Whatever needs to happen will happen, I decided. It was best not to dwell on it.
A cracking branch made me stiffen and our heads jerked towards the sound. But through the density of the forest, I could see nothing or no one.
Memories of my mother rose, though I tried to push them back. Suddenly, I was fifteen again, alone in the icy forest during the cold season, desperately looking for my mother, a tangy, metallic smell permeating the air. Something had been watching me, something had been following me.
“We should turn back now, Missiki,” Mirari said, breaking me out of that particular memory. “We have gone far enough.”
I nodded, my heart beat drumming in my chest, and we turned around, heading back towards the camp. I heard another branch snap behind us and we picked up the pace, none of us talking until we reached the edge of the camp again. Even the Dakkari feared the beasts in the wilds, it seemed.
A small burst of relief made me exhale a sharp breath when I saw the busy camp, much busier than it had been that morning. A short distance away, I saw my tent, but the thought of returning filled me with restlessness so I turned away.
“Missiki,” Mirari called, questioning.
“Let’s walk through camp and see if anything needs to be done,” I said in return.
She sputtered, protesting, and hurried her pace to keep up with me, as did Lavi. “Missiki, you are Morakkari now. You do not help with these things. The Vorakkar would be most displeased if—”
“What am I expected to do here?” I asked, stopping to turn towards her. “I need to do something.”
“I do not know what the Vorakkar’s plans are for you but I do not—”
I cut her off by saying, “Well, let me go ask him. Where is he?”
Mirari’s gold painted eyelids fluttered in shock.
“What do Morakkaris do exactly?” I asked instead when she didn’t reply.
“They—they keep the Vorakkar pleased, so he can lead effectively.”
My eyes bulged and I choked out a small laugh. Then I realized she wasn’t joking.
“You can’t be serious,” I said. “Any female could ‘please’ him, if that was the case.”
“Not any female could provide him heirs,” Mirari returned.
My lips pressed together. So was I nothing more than a breeding vessel, a whore with a queen’s title?
I thought of his treasure chests lined against the wall of the tent, remembered that they were filled with female adornments and pretty things, chests I assumed were for the females who ‘pleased’ him.
Something cut me at that thought. Something that confused me. Something that felt an awful lot like jealousy, like possession.
So this is how it is, Luna? You have sex with him once and now you think he’s yours?
But he was, wasn’t he? By all rights, he was my goddamn husband, whether I’d asked for it or not.
“That doesn’t work for me,” I said, my spine straightening. My eyes went to the guard, still hovering behind Lavi. “Take me to the Vorakkar.”
The guard’s eyes met mine. A scar slashed across his face, across his cheekbone, the bridge of his nose.
His gaze went to Mirari, though she stayed silent.
Finally, he said, in clumsy, unpracticed universal tongue, “He is training now, Morakkari.”
“Then take me to where he trains.”
The guard’s jaw clenched but then he inclined his head in a nod. I followed him when he cut a path through the camp, heading in the direction where the celebration had taken place last night.
As we drew nearer and nearer to what I assumed were the training grounds, I heard the ringing clash of blades, of metal on metal, of male grunts, of bodies being flung to the earth.
Nothing prepared me for the sight of those sounds, however.
Nor the sight of Arokan fighting with a sword, sweaty, his muscles shifting and flexing, an intense look of savage concentration on his face, as he took on three Dakkari opponents.
Last night, when he’d been driving into my body, he’d worn a similar expression.
I swallowed, feeling a flutter of arousal at the memory of it, which I definitely didn’t need to be feeling.
The guard halted far enough away from the clearing, giving the males ample space for their training session and I froze next to him, watching the scene in front of me with morbid fascination.
Arokan quickly side-stepped when an opponent came at him, moving so fast that he was like a blur. He blocked another opponent’s blade before it took him in the side and with a bellow, he pushed him back before landing a kick in the center of his chest, making the male fly across the clearing.
Throwing out his arm in a graceful arc, he slapped the flat edge of his sword against the third opponent’s thigh before ramming his thick fists straight across his nose, making the male’s head whip to the side before he landed hard.