by Zoey Draven
I saw him as I walked towards the pyroki pen—Seerin’s pujerak. He was speaking with a female, who I knew to be his mate. She worked in the common bathing voliki and though she didn’t speak the universal language, she’d always been pleasant towards me and greeted me every day, despite how much her mate detested me.
They seemed to be arguing about something just outside their voliki. His brows were drawn together, the bright cold season sun shining across his face, and her cheeks were flushed in anger. She said something and then stormed into their home, leaving him to stand outside.
There were others roaming about, shooting him curious looks, but it was me that his eyes found after a moment.
There was something I’d often wondered about in the past month and I knew he had the answer. I didn’t know if he would give it to me, but I didn’t have a lot to lose in trying.
I went to him and asked, “Can I speak with you a moment?”
His ever-present frown was in place. I thought that he was a handsome male. Not nearly as handsome as Seerin, but I thought if he didn’t scowl so much, he would be very appealing. His mate obviously thought so, though perhaps not quite at that moment since they’d been arguing.
He didn’t reply, but I still turned regardless, walking towards the pyroki enclosure. I liked to watch them in their nests, though my regular presence often irritated the mrikro, the pyroki master. Then again, he was a cranky older male, who seemed irritated at most members of the horde, not just me. He loved the pyroki most of all.
I heard the pujerak’s footsteps after a moment of hesitation and when I reached the fence of the enclosure, I saw he was only a few paces behind me.
“Neffar?” he growled, his mood already soured from his argument with his female.
Pressing my lips tight, I looked at him carefully. He’d never liked me, even back at the village. It was him I’d spoken to first, not Seerin, that day the horde had come for me.
“What did you talk about at the council meeting that night?” I asked.
His eyes flared. He knew which council meeting I spoke of. The one where everything had changed. Seerin’s mood that night when he’d returned to the voliki, and in the morning before he’d ended us, had been so…strange. I often thought about that and I wondered what had been said that would make him so changed. The change in him had been like night and day.
“The council’s business is private and—”
“I need to know,” I said, looking up into his eyes, unflinchingly. Determination pulsed in my veins. “Please.”
His nostrils flared with a sharp breath and his features squeezed in an expression that I thought looked like…shame? But why?
After a long, tense pause, he finally murmured, “That night, we threatened to leave the horde.”
I inhaled a quick breath, stunned.
“Who?” I asked. “All of you?”
“The three elders on the council, the head warrior…and myself.”
“You threatened to leave?” I rasped, disbelief spinning in my mind. I reached out a hand to steady myself on the pyroki enclosure. “But your Seerin’s…you’re his closest friend. He loves you.”
I was in such shock that I didn’t even realize I’d used Seerin’s given name until the pujerak’s lips pressed together.
“I am his friend,” he said. “Or at least I was. I betrayed his trust with my bluff.”
So, he’d never meant to leave. It was only a manipulative ruse to get Seerin to end his relationship with me. It had worked too…until it backfired.
“He’s barely spoken to me since,” he said softly, his eyes shifting from me to the pyrokis.
It was a soft admission, one he probably hadn’t meant to reveal to me of all people, but it tore from him as if he couldn’t stop it.
He seemed to realize that because he straightened ever so slightly, swallowing, embarrassed.
“There were other factors, though,” he said gruffly, “that we brought to his attention. Other members of the horde had also announced they would leave after the thaw. Almost two dozen, many of them warriors.”
Discomfort made me shift. “Because of me.”
He didn’t confirm or deny it, which only added to my guilt. It started to make sense, why Seerin had changed so drastically that night. He’d been betrayed by a male he thought of as a brother, who had been at his side since Dothik. He’d been blindsided by his entire council, who’d threatened to leave. And not only that but he also risked losing a significant number of his horde.
Briefly, I squeezed my eyes shut, gripping the fence until my knuckles turned white.
“He didn’t tell me any of those things,” I whispered. All he’d said was that it had become clear to him that I couldn’t be his Morakkari.
Because he’d been backed into a corner by the advisors he trusted.
So what had changed? Even knowing that his council and horde threatened him, he’d still decided to come after me, to bring me back, to want me as his Morakkari regardless.
Seerin loved his horde but…
Is it possible that he loves me even more? I asked myself.
A sharp exhale squeezed my lungs. I’d told him I hadn’t believed him when he said he loved me and I remembered, in crisp detail, the distraught expression on his face because of it.
Movement inside my belly made me gasp and my hand came up to rest there despite the layers of clothing I had on.
“Neffar?”
“I think the baby moved,” I whispered, tears filling my eyes. It was such a beautiful feeling, that fluttering inside me. And my first instinct was to want to share it with Seerin, despite everything we had gone through in the past month.
The pujerak was silent and I blinked back the tears, hoping he wouldn’t see my raw, surprised emotion. When I looked up at him, he was staring at me, his brow furrowed, his jaw clenched.
“He needs you,” the Dakkari male told me.
My lips parted at his words.
“Before he realized you had left the horde,” he continued, “he was not himself. He wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t eating. He was…spiritless.”
My chest pulled in agony at the Seerin he was describing. Because I couldn’t imagine him that way…although I’d seen a hint of it two nights ago. He’d seemed defeated.
“You are not the Morakkari that I would want for this horde. I have not made that a secret, even to you,” he murmured, reminding me of that night he’d approached me on the training grounds. “However, I realize that you are the kassikari he wants and needs. If he were any other male, if he was not a Vorakkar, he would have joined you to him long ago. I have no doubt in my mind about that.”
My throat tightened at his words. They meant a lot coming from him.
“As his pujerak, I thought I was doing the right thing, trying to steer him from you. But as his friend,” he said, his voice growing deeper, gruffer, “I feel ashamed of what I have done. As his friend, I knew that you were always going to be his choice.”
My hand shook when I pushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “I don’t like this side of you,” I informed him. “You’re almost being nice.”
He didn’t hesitate as he replied, “Once I walk away, I will forget it ever happened, kalles.”
A sudden, wobbly smile appeared on my face and I looked away from his eyes, staring over the pyroki enclosure. A short distance away, the mrikro frowned at us both, but minded his own business, mucking out the nests.
“My mate is upset with me because I told her what I have done,” he admitted. “She thinks the honorable thing to do is give up my position as pujerak. She thinks the honorable thing to do is stand by my word and leave the horde.”
“Seerin wouldn’t want that,” I told him. “It would hurt him if you truly left. You know that.”
“I do not want to leave,” he said, his gaze sliding over to me. “And I realize that if I am to stay, then I must make amends with you first before he would ever consider forgiving me for my dishonorable acti
ons.”
My lips twitched ever so slightly. “You want to use me to get back in Seerin’s good graces?
“Lysi,” he said, unashamed about that. I appreciated his honesty. It made me like him even.
“I’m alright with that,” I told him.
His shoulders loosened.
“Thank you for telling me,” I said after a brief moment of silence. “Even though the council’s matters are private, I appreciate it.”
“He disbanded the council two nights ago,” he told me softly. “It does not matter anymore.”
After my initial shock had passed, I asked, “Why would he do that?”
“Because, kalles, he can,” he rasped, turning towards me. “I have always known that he would be one of the great Vorakkars of our race. He will be remembered long after his time. And now, it seems, he is finally realizing that himself. He does not need us.”
I shivered slightly, though it had nothing to do with the cold afternoon wind.
“And you will be at his side,” he added. “Will you not?”
I didn’t answer him as we stood there together, watching the pyrokis.
I did, however, feel the answer echo deep in my chest.
Chapter Forty-Three
Pushing away the list of names of those that would leave after the thaw, I rolled my stiff neck and groaned at the ache that throbbed in my back. I’d been hunched over the table for most of the day and my body was finally rebelling against me.
Twelve was the official number my horde would lose. Not as many as had previously threatened to leave, but I was relieved to see two of the council elders’ names among that list. The head warrior, the third elder, and Vodan chose to remain.
Before, seeing such a loss to the horde would’ve been devastating news. Now, I saw it as an opportunity. I would lead the horde through the Hitri mountains and settle us in the southlands. If the hebrikki herds were as plentiful as I suspected they’d be and if we chose to base beside a river, I could journey to Dothik or the outposts and open my horde to twice as many as we would lose. Growth was the key—growth was the goal. The most successful hordes on our planet had grown into permanent outposts settled around Dakkar like markers of history and prosperity. That was the mark I wanted to leave. An outpost of Rath Tuviri. It was where I wanted to rest, once my time as Vorakkar was over.
Behind me, the entrance to the council’s voliki—though there was no more council, so I supposed it was simply mine now—pushed open.
As I turned, I stilled when I saw it was Nelle who’d ducked inside.
“Your pujerak said you’d be in here,” she said, her eyes flickering between me and my surroundings. The voliki itself was nothing exceptional, so there wasn’t much to see.
“You have been speaking with my pujerak?” I asked, still surprised that she’d come to seek me out. We hadn’t spoken for two days.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s actually quite pleasant once you get past the scowl.”
The sound I made wasn’t quite a laugh, but rather an acknowledgement of the truth of her words. And those words were so inherently Nelle that I felt my heartbeat triple in speed, wondering if she was finally loosening her guard around me.
Then she bit her lip, her eyes dropping to the floor for a brief moment, to the thin rugs that were maroon and gold in color.
“Is there something you need, kalles?” I asked, keeping my voice soft in the quiet of the voliki. It was late and dark outside. I’d been inside longer than I’d anticipated, but I found the work kept my mind off the female standing in front of me.
“Yes,” she said. “I was wondering if you have time to come to the training grounds with me. I…I have a proposition for you.”
My heart thudded until I thought it would beat from my chest. Swallowing thickly, not wanting to raise my hopes, I rasped, “A proposition?”
“A bargain,” she amended. “We like bargains, you and me. Isn’t that right?”
My breath left my lungs in a rush and I said, “Lysi, we do.”
When she turned to leave, I could only follow helplessly. All she had to do was look at me and I’d do anything she wanted. The power she held over me was humbling and frightening.
The training grounds were a short distance away. We didn’t speak as we entered. In the far corner of the enclosure, the target that the mitri had made her was still standing. Many warriors even used it now, not just her.
We stood only an arm’s length away. The setting was so familiar to me that it squeezed at my chest, yet everything had changed since the last time we’d been here together, making bargains.
Nelle looked up at me. We hadn’t spoken since two nights ago. The emotions from that night still felt raw inside me.
“You did hurt me, Seerin,” she said softly. “You hurt me and I was blindsided by it.”
I found myself holding my breath, not daring to breathe as I absorbed her words and the way they cut me all over again.
“You hurt me and a part of me wanted to hate you. I needed to if I was ever going to survive it and even knowing that, I couldn’t,” she said.
“Nelle—”
“And I don’t think that you’re a monster,” she said. I realized what she was doing. She was finally responding to me, when I’d begged her two nights ago to tell me something, anything about her state of mind. “And I think that if our paths had never crossed, I would have simply drifted away by now. I was on the verge of becoming completely numb to life before you came. It was a big fear I had. And I think your goddess sent you to me. I think you were always meant to wake me to this life, to the beauty of it. Though perhaps I needed to remember the pain of it first before I could rebuild myself.”
Stunned, I could only listen, her words wrapping around me like a vice.
“Your pujerak told me what the council threatened you with that night,” she said after a brief pause.
My jaw ticked in response.
“It wasn’t just a choice between your horde and me, Seerin, like I thought,” she said. “It was a choice of your oldest friend and the loyalties you had to him, of the dreams you’ve always had for this horde from the beginning, of the expectations placed upon you as Vorakkar, of the pressures you faced because of that. It was a choice between all of that and me.”
I couldn’t deny her words.
“And in the end,” she murmured, “you still chose me. Why?”
Brow furrowing, I rasped quietly, “You know why, thissie. You have always known why.”
“Because you care for me?”
“‘Care?’” I repeated. “‘Care’ does not even begin to describe what I feel for you, Nelle.”
She hesitated, drawing in a small breath. “Because you love me then?” she amended, her expression vulnerable and open.
“Lysi,” I affirmed. “I do. I love you. And even those words feel as though they are not enough. Simple words cannot describe this feeling, thissie. They never will.”
“I know,” she whispered and my breath hitched.
Suddenly, she walked the short distance to the weapons rack and plucked off the same bow and the same sheath of arrows she’d used for our previous bargains.
When she returned to me, I asked, “Do…do you feel that you can love me again? Can we heal from this?”
“Maybe that’s where the bargain comes in,” she said after a moment. My lungs squeezed, my eyes darting to the bow and arrow. “What do you want if I miss, demon king?”
I was filled with longing and memory at the familiar title, but also with dread knowing her skill with the bow.
“You will connect with your target, thissie,” I said. “You always do.”
“What do you want if I miss, Seerin?” she repeated, setting the sheath of arrows at her feet.
“If you miss,” I started, “I want you to promise that you will never love me again. I want you to swear that you can never see a future for us, that you will never be my Morakkari in this life.”
All the possibilitie
s were almost too painful to say, but only served to highlight that I knew she would not miss.
“I could miss on purpose if I wanted those things,” she pointed out softly.
Fear squeezed my heart. I realized that too, but at the very least, I would have my answer. I was so wrapped up in my fear that I only watched as she nocked her arrow, steadying the bow not at the mitri’s target, but at the far post that had served as our original target, in the darkened corner of the training grounds.
I was so wrapped up in that fear that I didn’t realize she didn’t specify what she wanted if she hit her target. Until it was too late.
Her arrow whizzed from the bow, perfectly formed Dakkar steel cutting through cold air. I watched it travel, briefly, and in another moment, its short journey was over. It embedded itself into the far post, right in the middle, a perfect shot.
My relief was short-lived.
At the very least, she didn’t miss on purpose, but her success meant she could ask for anything she wanted…even my promise to stay away from her, to forbid me from pursuing her further, to make me swear that the only thing we would ever share in this life was our child. Not a future, not our love, ever again.
A part of me expected it after what I had done, after the hurt and grief I’d put her through.
The words stuck in my throat, but I forced myself to ask them.
“What is it that you want from me, Nelle?” I asked quietly.
I didn’t think I moved a single inch. My body felt frozen, suspended in time at that very moment because I knew that whatever she said, it would change us. It would change everything. But time was merciless and it moved us forward, regardless of if we were ready.
Her bow hung from her grip. Her eyes consumed me but I had nothing left to give. She had everything.
“I want a kiss, Seerin.”
The words floated between us, calm and simple and beautiful. They poured into me and wrung the breath from my lungs. They sped my heartbeat and sparked disbelief and blinding hope in my chest. They made my fingers curl into my palms and then I was stepping forward, closing the distance between us.