by Zoey Draven
“And her son is a Vorakkar,” I said softly. Hesitating, I added, “The Vorakkar of Rath Tuviri. You took her name.”
His gaze sharpened, though he ran a gentle hand down my bare back, settling his palm over the swell of my buttocks.
“It is the only name I have,” he said. “It is my name too, not only hers.”
Because he’d never known his father.
“Do you ever wonder about him? About your father?” I whispered, tracing a path down his chest, following the golden markings inked into his flesh. “About who he is or where he is?”
“Nik,” he said. “I have not thought about him for a long time.”
I nodded, though I frowned.
“Do you ever wonder about your parents?” he murmured.
My brow furrowed. “More so when I was younger. I used to wonder what my life would be like with them. I used to think we would be happy together if they were on Dakkar and not…gone.”
“And now?”
I sighed. “Now I think it was better that they never reached Dakkar.”
“Why?”
“It would’ve been difficult to feed three,” I said simply.
My father would’ve needed to spend long hours hunting. I thought of Grigg and how he offered extra credits for sexual favors from the females. I wondered if my mother would’ve given in to feed her family. I wondered if I would’ve eventually given in if I’d stayed.
No. Even then, I would have rather starved.
I’d always been so relieved, so happy to know that my parents had been a love match. I was glad to know that the hard years in our village wouldn’t have diminished that love.
Seerin was frowning when I focused my attention back on him. For a moment, I wondered if this was how my parents had felt about one another. I thought that my mother’s grief would’ve been justified after my father had been killed. Because thinking about Seerin simply gone from this world? It didn’t make sense to me. It was unfathomable.
“But I’m here now,” I said softly. Looking to lighten the mood, I said, “And I think it’s time I finally make good on my promise to be your alukkiri.”
He allowed the change in subject, though his eyes told me he knew what I was doing. He jerked his chin up and I climbed off him, stepping out of the bathing tub. Seerin stood after me, helping me dry off as I shivered slightly before drying his own skin.
“Leave it off,” he rumbled when I reached for my tunic. I paused at the command and then released the material. “I will keep you warm enough tonight, rei thissie.”
Wicked demon, I thought, watching as he went to his cabinets and returned with the familiar bottle of oil. He handed it to me and I uncapped it, pouring a small amount in my hands, noticing that it smelled earthy and pleasant. A droplet of water from my damp hair landed on my chest and ran over my breast. Seerin’s gaze followed it and it felt like his tongue—not his eyes—was tracing its path.
Reaching up, I smoothed the oil over the tops of his shoulders, where I’d first seen the dryness of his skin, before running my palms down his arms. Despite the fluttering I felt between my legs, I was all business at first, working the oil into his flesh methodically and thoroughly.
He made a sound in his throat when I ran my fingertips over his dusky nipples and I quickly ran my hands over his ridged abdomen, biting back a smile. After I finished his front, I went around his back, my smile dying a little when I saw his Vorakkar scars up close for the first time. His back was nothing more than scar tissue and I wondered how he’d managed to survive it.
Gently, I smoothed my hands over his flesh. His skin felt tight underneath my fingertips, but I made sure to reach every inch and when I was done, I couldn’t resist leaning forward. I pressed a soft kiss to the middle of his back and let my lips linger.
He stilled. A harsh sound emerged from his throat.
“Nelle,” he rasped.
My hands trailed down to his firm buttocks and I spread the oil there too. They were muscled and tight and I kneaded the flesh as a choked laugh came from him.
“You will be the end of me, starling.”
For a moment, I froze. His words were so similar to his pujerak’s, yet I knew Seerin had meant it only in teasing.
“Nelle?” he asked, sensing me still. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I replied, my voice coming out husky. I came around his front and reached for more oil. “I’m already halfway done,” I murmured, smiling.
His cock was throbbing and swollen. It twitched at my words and twitched again when I kneeled in front of him.
I ignored his cock and spread the oils over his legs, his calves, the back and front of his thighs. That same possessive streak hit me as I rubbed, suddenly grateful and relieved that he’d never taken an alukkiri, that another female had never done this to him, as far as I knew.
Because it felt intimate. I could feel every rippling muscle, every shift in his body. I could feel his heat and power and the way he tensed and relaxed whenever I hit a sensitive place.
When I was done with his legs, I set my eyes on his cock before craning my head back to meet his gaze.
His grey eyes were hooded and intense, looking down at me on my knees in front of him. I was kneeling before a Vorakkar but I didn’t feel powerless. I felt strong.
“Here too?” I whispered.
His exhale was sharp and his hand reached down to drift across my lips. “Kiss it first, rei thissie.”
With my thighs squeezing together, I asked, “Is that part of an alukkiri’s duty?”
“Nik,” he rasped. “But you are mine and as my female, you will learn every part of me. As I will learn every part of you.”
Thud, thud, thud. My heartbeat beat out a quick, excited rhythm in my chest at his words. I liked him calling me his entirely too much.
Grasping the base of his cock, I pulled it down, away from where it pressed tight against his abdomen. Leaning forward, I felt a little shy as I kissed the glistening head, letting my lips linger on his heat even as I met his eyes.
A rough growl echoed around the voliki, followed by his loud, audible swallow.
“Again,” he rasped.
Between my thighs, my clitoris was throbbing. I remembered him there, licking and kissing and suckling softly. I wanted to reciprocate that pleasure because I wanted him to feel as good as he’d made me feel.
Holding his gaze, I kissed him again before running my lips down to the middle of his shaft. I kissed him there too.
His hand came to the back of my head. His voice came out even rougher. “Again.”
I kissed the tip. Then my tongue darted out to slowly lick the underside of the swollen head, testing, gauging his reaction.
His hips jerked, seemingly of their own accord, and Seerin hissed, “Vok, rei thissie.”
“Again?” I whispered.
His eyes pinned me into place. I felt his hand tighten in my hair, as if afraid I would move away.
“Lysi.”
That time, I licked up the whole length of his thick shaft, feeling his cock throb against my tongue. Seerin’s breath came out harsh and he murmured something in Dakkari, though I couldn’t make out a single word.
“What now?” I asked him, wanting to please him. But I was inexperienced in these things. I didn’t know the first thing about pleasuring a male like this.
He choked out an almost pained laugh at my eager question. “With the exception of biting, rei thissie, anything you do to me feels good.”
“Tell me.”
His swallow was audible.
“Open,” he rasped, brushing his fingers against my lips. I parted them at his words and he gently eased the head of his cock inside. His voice was roughened as he said, “This is where I am most sensitive. Suck me here, kalles.”
A harsh growl burst from his throat when I immediately did as he instructed. His shaft was thick and engorged, but I widened my jaw as best as I could while still suckling on the tip. The beginnings of his seed pushed
from the head, wetting my tongue, and I lapped at the slit for more, finding I liked the earthy, musky taste.
“Vok, Nelle,” he groaned harshly, his hand tightening on the back of my head.
The muscles in his thighs trembled slightly as I lapped and sucked. As I moved from the head, over to the side of his cock, I saw his bump, just over the base of his shaft. I remembered, when he’d been so deep inside me, how it had lined up perfectly with my clitoris, how it had throbbed and heated and pulsed against me.
I reached out to touch it, my fingertips still oiled after running them over his body. His hips jerked when I brushed my hand over it. It was hot and hard, just like his cock.
“What is this called?”
“Dakke,” he growled, those eyes piercing into me. Oh yes, my demon king liked me exploring him very, very much.
Leaning forward, I kissed him there too, causing a harsh breath to exhale sharply from his chest. When I dragged my tongue over it, his body rippled. When I sucked it, just like I had the head of his cock, he froze completely.
Before I knew it, I was off the floor of the voliki, in his arms, and then my back was on his bed, the furs tickling my tingling skin.
It seemed I’d pushed him too close to the edge, judging by the darkened, focused look on Seerin’s face. I opened my mouth to ask him how sensitive his dakke was, but the words died completely in my throat when he immediately pushed my thighs wide…and drove deep, deep inside with one claiming thrust.
Seerin fucked me wildly, his oiled skin slapping against my own. And all I could do was grip his shoulders and receive him. I was already incredibly aroused from exploring his body, from watching his reactions as I sucked and licked his cock, from his dakke grinding into me, that when my orgasm began to crest, I wasn’t even surprised.
“Lysi,” he growled in my ear. Gently, he bit the column of my neck again and then rasped, “Come on my cock, rei thissie. Vok, I can feel you!”
The intense pleasure made me cry out, made my hips buck against him and my spine arch. In the midst of my orgasm, I perceived his thrusts quickening.
“Too close already. Kassikari, you would have made me come all over your sweet little tongue.”
Seerin threw his head back and he bellowed to the domed ceiling of the voliki as his seed burst from his tip. His hips continued to rock into me as his heat coated me deeply. His head dropped into my neck, his hair falling over my heavy breasts, and I wrapped my arms around him as he spent the last of his seed into my body.
We laid there in quiet for a moment as we both recovered. When Seerin rolled us until we lay on our sides and pulled the furs over us, I pressed a kiss to his strong, marked chest.
I tilted my face back to meet his eyes. His fingertips caressed my bare shoulder and his other hand clasped the swell of my hip.
“Is it always like this?” I whispered.
I didn’t know what I was asking. I didn’t know whether I’d meant the sex…or something deeper. Or both.
Seerin seemed to know, however.
“Nik,” he said back. “This is you and me, Nelle.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
My breathing was ragged and my voice was hoarse when I groaned, “I have created a monster, rei thissie. An insatiable monster.”
Her laugh trickled in my ears even though she was straddling my hips and my seed spilled from her cunt. Even though she’d just come so hard she’d left the imprints of her dull little claws in my flesh.
“You always say that,” she murmured, leaning down to brush her lips across my own.
“Because it is true,” I growled, keeping her hips anchored on me when she moved to slide away.
It had been a month since I returned from my journey to Dothik. A month of bitter cold, of ice and snow, of fierce windstorms that sometimes made it impossible to venture outside. A month of my female in my furs, of her laugh and kisses across my flesh, of lying in quiet at night as the fire crackled in the voliki, memorizing her soft eyes as though I needed to imprint them onto my very soul. As if they weren’t already.
A month of a deep-rooted, consuming happiness for perhaps the first time in my life.
Her contented sigh drifted across my lips and she pulled back.
“I miss you already,” she whispered, which was something she’d often expressed before we had to leave one another for our daily duties.
My thissie had always been open to me. She never hid her emotions and I read what she so easily expressed without difficulty.
What I had begun to see over a month ago in her eyes had blossomed and grown. A combination of desire, friendship, respect, curiosity, confidence, and complete acceptance, as though she knew her love changed everything.
She’d never verbally said it to me. She hadn’t needed to.
It was I that held back, however, despite everything that had transpired between us.
“My council meeting may run into the night,” I told her. “We begin planning for our journey south, once the thaw comes.”
She nodded. She got quiet whenever we referenced the end of the cold season, as if she didn’t want to think about it. Because she believed I would have her returned to her village, as I’d once told her. After all, I had still made her no promises, though the knowledge settled like acid in my belly.
“You will like the Hitri mountains,” I told her softly, after a lengthy pause.
Her eyes flickered to me.
“And the forests beyond them,” I added. My eyes went to Blue’s feathers, still around her neck, and said, “You may even see the thissies you are so fond of. They make their home in the southlands.”
Nelle swallowed and I felt a stinging pinch of guilt. My words were what she’d needed to hear after so long, but I thought, perhaps naively, that she would realize she would be staying with the horde. That I would not—nik, could not—send her away. Not now. Not ever.
“I think I will like them, Seerin,” she said softly before a small, hesitant smile touched her lips.
It is settled then, I thought.
I gave her one last kiss and then pulled her off me. I rose from our furs, where she’d spent every night with me. My eyes couldn’t help but go to the deviri, to the three closed chests that lined the wall of the voliki.
Inside them were gifts for my chosen Morakkari, to present to her after the tassimara, the joining celebration. Gold, jewelry, fine silks, hair adornments, and precious gems were within. Items that I had collected for her during my time as Vorakkar, from Dothik, from the Dakkari outposts or other hordes we’d passed along our journeys.
My thissie didn’t care about gold or riches. One of her favorite gifts was the rock that Arlah, the seamstresses’ young boy, had given her. It sat on my cabinet, next to the dagger I’d given her, as if she couldn’t stand to be parted from it. The Dakkari steel bow I’d brought back for her from Dothik—a more appropriate size for her—was leaning against the wall next to the cabinet.
My Nelle liked her gifts. She didn’t care what they were, just that they were given freely.
Crouching in front of one of the deviri chests, I pulled open the lid and took a jeweled pendant from within, one whose color matched the shimmering thissie feathers hanging between her breasts. Its delicate chain was gold and the gem was small, but brilliant in its beauty. It would suit Nelle perfectly.
When I returned to her, she was sitting up in bed, watching me. She stilled when she saw the necklace, her eyes flickering in surprise as I clasped the chain around her neck.
It was shorter than Blue’s pendant and settled just between her delicate collarbones. I touched the gem, feeling it already begin to warm from her skin.
“It’s beautiful, Seerin,” she said softly, looking down at it before meeting my eyes.
“Then it is perfect for you, rei thissie.”
She flushed, pleased with my words and my gift, touching the necklace.
I began to dress, aware that her eyes were on me the entire time. When I was done, I leaned d
own and pressed another kiss to her warm lips, lingering long enough to make me question my decision to leave that cold morning.
“Thank you,” she whispered between us.
With a growl, I pulled away.
“I will return to you later, starling.”
And with one last look, I forced myself to leave.
Later that evening, long after the sun had begun to sink behind the Hitri mountains, I finally made my way to the council’s voliki towards the front of the encampment.
When I ducked inside, I found the elders, my pujerak, and my head warriors were already within.
Angled looks turned to me and one of the elders, who’d been speaking in a low tone, ceased abruptly when I appeared. I straightened to my full height and shrugged the pelt from my shoulders, hanging it near the entrance before studying my council.
A strange tension permeated the air, but one I’d grown more familiar with in the last month. This wasn’t the first time I’d caught them speaking in hushed tones prior to my arrival. And I knew that it couldn’t go on.
When I stepped up to the high table, I said quietly to all of them, “You must think I am a fool if you believe that I will tolerate whispered words behind my back. You must think me a fool, indeed.”
My head warrior, Ujak, shifted on his feet. Only Vodan met my eyes.
“Look me in my eyes and tell me,” I said, cutting my gaze to the elders, to the three that stood across the table. “I will not allow this to continue so we may as well discuss it now.”
No one spoke. When I looked to Vodan, his jaw ticked, but his eyes were knowing. They said, I already warned you this would happen.
The back of my neck tingled. I rasped, “Tell me what you were speaking of. Now.”
It was one of the elders who finally spoke.
“You intend to take the vekkiri as your Morakkari, do you not?”