“My only payment was agreeing to eat. That was hardly a price,” I said.
“Nevertheless, it wasn’t free. Eating gives you strength. That strength is useful to the horde…to me.”
My face heated at his implication.
“What if the villages make payment to you in some way?” I asked next. “In exchange for the rights to hunt, to grow crops.”
“That is not my decision. That is theDothikkar’sdecision alone,” he said, his tone warning me that I would get no further that night. But I would keep trying. I owed it to my village, to myrace, to keep trying.
I changed the subject, perhaps not very tactfully, but I found I enjoyed speaking with him, even if we argued.
“Were you born in the capital?” I questioned. “Or within a horde?”
“InDothik,” he answered.
“Is that why you know the universal tongue so well?” I asked next, remembering that Mirari said that most inDothikwere taught the common language.
“Lysi,” he answered. “My father believed that it would be useful, though I detested learning it. He was right. It is quite useful to me now.”
I let out a small laugh. “You might like me better if you didn’t know what I was saying.”
His grin was small but it sent a thrill through me. “I do not know. I enjoy your sharp tongue.”
“Do you missDothik?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the warmth building in my belly at his words.
“Nik,” he said immediately, which surprised me. Then again, I knew very little of the city. “It is a grand place. There are more luxuries and comforts than here in the wild lands, but I would never give up my horde for all of them. The spirit of the Dakkari is to roam, to follow the land wherever it leads us. That is freedom. It is what calls to me, to us all. Those inDothik…they have forgotten that. TheDothikkarhas forgotten that.”
Arokan of Rath Kitala…I could never imagine him any place else than in the wild lands, on the back of hispyroki, with a sword at his side, fighting for the safety of his horde.
Hukan had been right once again. Arokan had been born for this. He had been born to be aVorakkar.
Panic infused my veins right then. I was beginning to suspect that my heart was being claimed, a little bit at a time, by the horde king whose naked lap I was straddling in that bathing tub.
He was unlike anything I’d ever imagined. And that scared me.
“Like you said,” he murmured, brushing his fingers against my hair, “Dothikis a place. My horde is my home.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Oh, Missiki,” Mirari murmured, squirming in discomfort. “I do not…I do not know if I can…”
My cheeks burned and I kept my voice quiet as I asked her advice, so even the guards outside our tent wouldn’t hear. “Please. He hasn’t…he hasn’t, erm,approachedme in some time. I don’t know what to do.”
It had been four days since that night in the bathing tub when he’d told me aboutDothik. Four days and three nights and Arokanstillhadn’t touched me. Of course, hetouchedme during our baths before bed. He stroked my body and touched me in places that made me bite my lip and try to hold back a moan. But anything more, even when we lay in bed at night, was nonexistent.
And I was slowly losing my mind because of it.
My body felt like a stranger’s once again. I was almost constantly aroused because of his teasings, my bodyneedingrelease. My skin felt sensitive to the touch. I’d woken up that morning in an empty bed with my hand between my legs and I’d been so tempted to release some tension myself. But Mirari and Lavi had entered shortly after and I’d sighed in frustration and let them dress me for the day instead.
But now, as Lavi finished braiding my hair, I wanted to know what Mirari thought.
“Is it…is this strange?” I asked, worried about her reply. My eyes went over to the chests that lined the tent wall and my belly burned. It wasn’t the first time I wondered if Arokan was releasing his own tension elsewhere. And that thoughtcutdeep. It made jealousy swarm my veins.
The only thing that didn’t make me completely lose it over that was that I didn’t know when he’d have thetimeto seek out another female. He went about his duties during the day with hispujerakand his advisors and at dusk, he collected me from the enclosure and we trained together until long after nightfall. After which, we retired to our tent.
Mirari lowered her voice and said, “It is,Missiki. I am sorry to say. Dakkari males are very…very needful.”
My stomach dropped, my eyes closing. I knew it. I knew something was wrong.
