Captive Of The Horde King

by Zoey Draven

  He nodded hesitantly, but then said, “Come ride with me for the next stretch. Lysi?”

  I nodded and he helped me up onto Kailon’s back before he swung behind me. Once Mirari was back on her pyroki and she’d tethered the one I’d been riding to her, the horde continued forward again.

  “Luna,” my brother called when we passed. “What happened?”

  Arokan stiffened behind me, no doubt because my brother had announced my name to the horde members within ear shot. I didn’t mind, but I knew the Dakkari were particular about given names, so I would speak with my brother about it the next time we were alone.

  “I’m fine,” I assured him. “I’ll ride with you in a bit, alright?”

  He nodded and watched us as we passed, Arokan guiding Kailon back to the front of the horde. On the way, I caught Hukan’s glare. I simply acknowledged her with an incline of my head—a sign of respect, just because she was related to my husband—but then looked away. She’d ignored me for the better part of the past few weeks and I intended to do the same. I didn’t think she would ever accept me into the horde and I didn’t want to waste energy on a lost cause.

  It was the second day of travel already. From sun up to sun down, we rode at a slow pace, towards our destination. The night before, we’d camped in a small, empty clearing, laying down nothing more than pallets and furs while the warriors took shifts in watching over us. I set up my pallett by Mirari and my brother. Lavi slept near her warrior, who one day I hoped she would bind herself to, once Arokan gave him permission to take a kassikari.

  It wasn’t the most comfortable, but Arokan had come to me once his shift was over and his warmth had helped lull me into a deep sleep.

  Traveling with the horde was different than I’d expected. I’d expected long, drawn out days stretching from minute-to-minute, a sore backside from riding on a pyroki for the majority of that time, and restlessness.

  And to some extent, those things were a reality. But I didn’t expect to enjoy it, not as much as I did.

  “Are you sore?” Arokan asked me, one arm wrapping around my middle from behind as his other hand held onto Kailon’s reins.

  From the pyrokis, he meant.

  “It’s not as bad as before,” I told him. My time in the pyroki enclosure had helped build up my inner thighs and buttocks against their hard scales. “My brother is suffering though.”

  Arokan said, “We can provide padding if he wishes.”

  I shook my head, smiling. “He won’t take it. He’s almost as stubborn as you are.”

  He grunted behind me, leaning forward to nip my earlobe in warning. My smile died, my breath hitching, because he knew how sensitive my ears were.

  We hadn’t had sex since the night before we left camp. Going from having sex multiple times a day to nothing as we traveled with the horde was difficult.

  “I miss you,” I whispered to him, turning my head to look back at him.

  He growled, “Soon, kassikari. I promise.”

  Time couldn’t pass soon enough.

  When we took a break next, I switched back to my own pyroki and rode beside my piki and my brother towards the back of the horde train.

  “How do you feel?” I asked Kivan. “Are you sure you do not want the padding?”

  Just like I knew he would, he scowled and said, “No, I don’t need the padding.”

  Biting back a smile, I watched his expression pull lightly as he adjusted on the pyroki.

  “Regretting your decision to stay?” I couldn’t help but tease.

  He shot me a look. “I will remain wherever you are, Luna,” he said, “even if it means I have to ride on these damn beasts for the rest of my life.”

  I laughed, but caught Mirari’s chiding look out of the corner of my eye.

  “Brother,” I said, looking at him. “There’s something you should be aware of.”

  “What?” he asked, frowning, adjusting again on the pyroki.

  “The Dakkari are particular about names. About who knows them,” I tried to explain.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you should not use her given name for anyone’s ears,” Mirari chimed in, her tone clipped, her frown disapproving. “It is disrespectful to the Morakkari.”

  Kivan’s jaw dropped as he looked from Mirari to me and back again.

  “You’re joking, right?” he asked. “She’s my sister.”

  “Then address her as so,” Mirari argued. “You embarrass the horde and the Vorakkar when you use her given name.”

  Kivan scowled at her, “You should mind your own—”

  “Enough,” I cut in, sighing. Mirari and Kivan had butted heads often during our travels, even before we’d left the camp. I didn’t know why, but it was getting tiresome.

  “Luna, this is ridiculous,” Kivan argued.

  Mirari’s eyes bulged in irritation and I said, before she could, “My piki is right, Brother. It is the Dakkari way. You must respect them.”

  “But our way is calling someone by their name,” Kivan protested, anger flushing his cheeks. “We are not Dakkari, so why does it matter?”

  “I don’t want to argue,” I said, trying to keep calm. “But you live with the horde now. You will respect them, do you understand? You may call me by my name when we are alone, but if we are not, then you will not use it.”

  Kivan looked at me, his jaw clenching in frustration.

  “Yes?” I said, needing to hear it.

  “Fine,” Kivan said, looking towards the landscape to the left of us. Tall peaked mountains rose from the earth, more and more as we traveled south.

  I sighed, exchanging a look with Mirari, before we all dropped into an uncomfortable silence. Finally, I said softly, “Are you upset with me now?”

  Kivan shook his head, meeting my eyes. “No. It’s just…it’s different. Not just about the names. About you. About seeing you with him. About this all.”

  I nodded, understanding what he was saying. “Sometimes different is good,” I said gently.

  “I haven’t decided that yet,” he replied, stubborn as always.

  Mirari made a sound in the back of her throat, like a scoff, and my brother scowled at her. They were like two petulant children with one another and I shook my head, rolling my eyes.

  “What is so terrible for you?” Mirari demanded. “You are protected. You are fed. You are not dressed in those dirty rags you came in. You have your family, the Morakkari. That is the most important thing of all. Family. Yet, you complain like a spoiled youth, over and over again.”

  Kivan gritted his teeth and turned away.

  I cast a look at Mirari, surprised by her venom, the anger in her voice. Even Lavi, who only caught some words she recognized, looked at her with a furrowed brow.

  Mirari looked down, seeming to realize that she’d gone too far. Everything she said was—to a certain extent—true, but Kivan needed time. Just like I’d needed.

  “Forgive me, Missiki,” she said softly. “I did not mean…”

  “Perhaps it is my brother who you should apologize to,” I said, my tone gentle. “Not me.”

  Her shoulders sagged and she looked at my brother. Even though it looked like the last thing in the world she wanted to do, she forced herself to say, “Forgive me, nevretam. It is not my place to criticize you.”

  Kivan looked at her, though he too seemed embarrassed by her apology.

  “It is just that,” Mirari continued, looking up at me and then Lavi and then settling on my brother, “you should be grateful just to be with your family. You should not take that for granted. It is a gift.”

  Kivan’s brow furrowed, sitting up straighter in his seat at her tone.

  “I do not have family, you see. I have never known them, ” Mirari confessed and my heart clenched at the sadness I heard in her voice. “I was grateful when the Vorakkar accepted me into his horde, though I did not have a line, though I was simply an orphan from Dothik. I worked hard to show him I belonged and then h
e gives me the great honor of serving the Morakkari, though I was an outsider before.”

  I frowned, reaching over to squeeze her hand, our pyrokis bumping together. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that she’d been an orphan. She’d never spoken of it.

  It must be why she disliked my brother. Though he had suffered as well back in the village, he’d come into the horde with Arokan’s approval, but he had rebelled against it, had shown his displeasure readily, when Mirari had seen her acceptance into the horde as a fortunate blessing.

  “So you see,” she continued, holding my brother’s gaze, “though you may not understand now, better things await you, if only you try to accept them.”

  I could see Kivan processing her words. Something in his gaze changed and I knew that Mirari confessing she’d been an outsider struck something within him. He’d been an outsider too, even before I’d left.

  “You are right,” he finally said softly, blowing out a breath. “I should be more grateful. I have been treated well and I have been reunited with my sister. Perhaps I should be the one asking for your forgiveness.”

  Mirari blinked and then looked away. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was embarrassed, though I didn’t know why.

  “Perhaps,” Mirari said lightly.

  Even still, I looked at my brother, saw him looking at Mirari with a peculiar expression, as if he was just seeing her for the first time. Hope and pride made me smile. Perhaps Mirari’s words would be a turning point for him, something for him to think about. When my brother met my eyes, I nodded at him, pleased with what he said.

  Then I spied something behind him, in the forest we were riding next to.

  My breath hitched and the color must’ve drained from my face because Mirari asked, “Missiki, are you going to be sick again?”

  The being darted behind a tree when I spotted him, but I would recognize the sheen of his grey scales, the unmistakeable curve of his razor-sharp teeth anywhere.

  A Ghertun.

  A scout.

  He’d been watching us.

  Chapter Thirty

  “You are certain, kalles?” Arokan asked, his expression serious, his eyes rapt on me.

  When I’d urged my pyroki into a run towards the head of the horde, when I’d told my worried husband in a hushed, urgent voice about the Ghertun I’d seen, he’d immediately stopped travel and quickly ordered his warriors out into the forest to search for him.

  Now, I was standing next to him, behind the line of warriors that acted like a barrier between the forest and the horde as we debated what to do. The search party had returned and told Arokan they saw no sign of a Ghertun, or even the tracks of one, which I said was impossible.

  “Yes,” I said, holding his gaze. “I saw him. He hid when I spotted him. Right there!”

  Arokan’s eyes went above my head, his eyes surveying how large the forest was. I could practically see his mind working and then his pujerak, his second-in-command, approached us.

  “Your orders, Vorakkar?” he asked, looking between us.

  Arokan was silent, still thinking it over. Finally, he shook his head, looking at me, and then his pujerak before he said, “We cannot risk splitting up the horde. The forest is large. If we cannot even track the scout, it would be impossible to locate his pack. I will not send half the warriors away when we may need them, in case of an ambush.”

  The pujerak inclined his head.

  Arokan continued. “We are a day’s travel away from the new camp. We keep the horde together, keep the warriors alert, and we send a scouting party out once we settle. Lysi?”

  “Lysi, Vorakkar,” the pujerak said. Then he walked away, relaying Arokan’s orders to the rest of the horde warriors.

  Arokan turned to me and I whispered, “I know what I saw, Arokan. He was there.”

  “I believe you, kalles,” he murmured, reaching out to touch the golden markings around my wrist. His eyes went to the forest again and then he looked back at me. “You will ride with me until we reach the camp. No exceptions. Tell your brother and your piki they may be near you as well.”

  I nodded, rubbing my arms when I looked back at the forest. A feeling of unease settled over me. How long had the Ghertun been tracking us before I’d seen him? He could have been watching us for miles.

  “Luna,” he murmured softly, reaching out to cup the nape of my neck. I turned my eyes to him. “I will always protect you. You have nothing to fear.”

  I gave him a small smile. I nodded and said, “I know.”

  He tilted his chin towards where my brother, Mirari, and Lavi were standing, speaking quietly. “Go tell them to ride up front. Hurry back. Kailon awaits.”

  Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep that night, especially since Arokan didn’t join me on the pallet. He’d stayed up through the night with the warrior watch and I only saw him again at sunrise, when we left our temporary camp for the last and final day of journey.

  Shortly, we moved away from the large forest, leaving it behind—and the Ghertun with it, much to my relief—and I noticed that the landscape began to change again, going from empty stretches of land and forests, to more mountainous regions of tall hills and low valleys.

  “There is a small Dakkari outpost not far from here,” Arokan murmured down to me. “It is called Juniri. We enter the southlands now.”

  Everything was new to me. I’d only ever been outside the walls of my village once and one time only. Now, I was covering miles and miles of strange, foreign land with my Dakkari horde king. And I felt like the world had opened to me. I felt free.

  Looking at my brother’s expression as he gazed around told me he felt at least an inkling of what I felt.

  Arokan called for a break in travel mid-morning, so the horde could rest for a brief while and take their second meals before we made the final push towards the new camp. We stopped at the base of a tall, jutting mountain, the ground covered in a type of red dirt that stained my feet when I slid down from Kailon’s back.

  Just in time too, I couldn’t help but think, biting my lip and taking a deep breath. Nausea had been roiling through my belly all morning, but I’d managed to keep it at bay, so as not to alarm Arokan or stop the horde’s travels. But I didn’t think I could keep it in any longer.

  So, I dismissed myself shortly after we stopped, claiming to Arokan that I needed to empty my bladder, and Mirari and Lavi came with me, a guard trailing not far behind. Once the guard gave me privacy, I found a secluded spot, out of eyesight of the horde, and heaved what remained of my evening meal the night before into the red dirt. I hadn’t eaten that morning, still too nervous about the Ghertun, so unless my nausea was some kind of virus…I thought that it might be caused by something else entirely.

  “Missiki,” Mirari said quietly, coming to crouch beside me, a fresh cloth already out of her travel satchel.

  I counted the weeks in my head. When women had gotten pregnant in my village—though that occurrence was rare since there weren’t many young females—it had always taken more than a couple months from the time of conception for morning sickness to begin. It was entirely too soon for mine to begin unless…

  Unless Dakkari females had a different pregnancy term than humans.

  I took the cloth from Mirari, wiping my mouth, before looking up at her. Lavi was hovering nearby too and Mirari said something to her. Lavi nodded and disappeared.

  “No,” I whispered. “I don’t want Arokan to worry. Not now.”

  “I sent her for water,” Mirari assured me. Relieved, I blew out a breath, before another wave of nausea hit me and I threw up again. Mirari soothed me as best as she could and when Lavi returned, she had me take a cooling sip from the cup, which helped.

  Not once did I experience my bleeding time when I’d been with Arokan. My cycle had been relatively unpredictable at the village, due to a low supply of food and a high supply of stress. I hadn’t thought anything of it, but now, I was beginning to suspect that perhaps my horde king had go
tten me pregnant that very first time, the night of our tassimara.

  When I looked into Mirari and Lavi’s eyes, I knew they suspected what I did.

  “Should I send for the healer?” Mirari asked quietly.

  “No,” I said. “The guard will report to Arokan. Besides, I’m not even sure. It’s only been a couple mornings of this.”

  Mirari watched me and then said, “The healer carries special Dakkari herbs and mixes for this purpose, Missiki. You wish to be sure?”

  “She can tell me if…if I’m pregnant?” I whispered, shocked. “How?”

  Mirari nodded and then looked at the cup of water. “I can be discreet. Relieve yourself in here and I will have her test it with her herbs.”

  My cheeks burned. “You want my urine?”

  “How else can you test for a baby, Missiki?” Mirari asked, confused, frowning.

  I blinked. Humans had always…waited.

  “Alright,” I said, taking the cup. Mirari nodded and gave me a little privacy as I did my best to pee in the small cup.

  Once I was done, she took it from me. We emerged from behind the mountain once I was sure the worst of the nausea had passed.

  We rejoined the camp shortly after and Arokan reached out for me when I found him sitting with his pujerak, a few warriors…and my brother, much to my surprise. My horde king settled me in his lap and I smiled at him when he fed me some dried bveri meat, though I worried my stomach would rebel.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mirari leave and go seek out the healer, a middle aged, large-set, no-nonsense female I’d seen multiple times around camp. I watched them speak briefly as I bit my lip, only half-listening to Arokan speak with the pujerak as they ate.

  The healer’s eyes connected with mine, even from a far distance. I inclined my head in a brief, subtle nod and she blinked, dropping her gaze in respect, before she took the cup from Mirari, said something to her, and left.

  I closed my eyes briefly in relief.