“So that means you are free to choose a mate?” he questioned next, something in his tone making my brows raise.
I surprised myself with my chuckle. His small, crooked grin caused embarrassment to rise within me.
“I’ve never considered it,” I told him. At least, not within the horde.
I’d always dreamed of having a mate, of having love, of having children. So many children.Family. But my yearnings always seemed so unattainable that I’d written them off as fantasies. Fantasies I visited whenever I got overwhelmed with loneliness, though they always seemed to make me feel lonelier…so I tried not to think of them at all.
Yet when Seerin had spoken of aMorakkari, when he’d whispered to me in the dark that I wasn’t alone as he kissed me, I’d felt that similar yearning, returning to me in full force as if it had never left. Only, in addition to that yearning, there’d beenhope.
I cleared my throat when it felt tight. I was shivering, I realized. I walked a short distance away, replacing the bow and the quiver of arrows on the weapons rack.
“I hope I can choose a mate soon too,” the warrior told me with another shameless grin. For a moment, that grin made me feel better.
I chuckled again, though it felt like the last thing I wanted to do.
“Can I walk you back to yourvoliki?” he asked quietly, when he realized I was done in the training grounds.
“Yes,” I said, giving him a small smile. “I would like that.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
From the shadows, I watched Nelle and the young warrior—Odrii was his given name—walk away from the training grounds, towards hervoliki.
A savage feeling had risen in me when I’d first heard them speaking, when I’d heard the young warrior flirt and hint at mate courtship. Though Nelle likely wouldn’t understand his meaning, Odrii had essentially announced his interest in her. If other Dakkari had been present, it would have seemed like a formal declaration of courtship.
The only reason I stayed rooted in place and didn’t tear off after them was that Odrii was still a young warrior. A young warrior who I had not yet given permission to take a mate. He needed to prove his place in the horde, to me, before I formally granted him the luxury.
Still, I was not used to jealousy when it came to a female. When I’d been young, I’d certainly felt envy. Envy for food, for warmth, for nice trinkets. But never for a female.
Until Nelle.
I’d always prided myself on my steel-clad control. My control had helped me through the Trials. Not letting emotion guide me was what made me a better leader to my horde.
But this ball of jealousy knotted my chest and made it hard to think. She’d declared that I had no interest in her as my wife and soon, her words would make their way around the horde. Others would approach her without a doubt. They would see the same things I saw in her…her bravery, her optimism, her strength.
I clenched my fists so tightly I felt my claws puncture my palms. Because I had not officially declared her as mine, others would be free to pursue her.
Vok.
I stared at her arrows, still sticking out from the pole she’d aimed them at. It was the flag of my shield, of my horde, of Rath Tuviri. Worried about the frost, I’d followed her out here when I realized she hadn’t immediately gone to hervoliki. But Odrii had reached her first.
I pressed my palms to my eyes, cursing quietly under my breath. My thoughts and wants were jumbled, my body still lusted for her, yet I remembered the way my words had cut herdeeply. I’d seen it plainly on her face. She’d always been easy to read.
She’d been nervous to touch me. Nervous, yet curious. She’dwantedto. And the moment she had, the moment she had begun to explore that curiosity I so desperately wanted to satisfy, I’d pushed her away. Earlier she had opened up to me about her parents, about Jana, who had rejected her.
And I’d done the same.
My chest felt tight with the knowledge. But she’d frightened me in a way I hadn’t been frightened before.
Because it had felt soright, hearing her call me her own. She’d looked at me like I was her own too, like she owned me as I owned her. It felt fated. It felt otherworldly.
And it was a warning. A reminder that if I jumped in too deeply, I would never find my way out. I would be lost in her and a part of me feared I wanted to be.
Jolted and uneasy, I’d put the necessary distance between us. I thought it was the kinder thing to do.
So why did I feel like a monster again?
* * *
