“Because if that’s not why you’ve come, you can leave right now, horde king,” she informed me.
My eyes narrowed. Very rarely had she called me ‘horde king.’ And I didn’t like it. It felt cold, impersonal.
Which was how my words last night had made her feel, I was reminded.
My chest squeezed, making me growl.
“No?” she asked quietly, her lips settling into a firm line. “Thengo.”
Morakkari.
The word was echoing through my mind before I could stop it.
This was what aMorakkariwould do if herVorakkardispleased her. She would have a spine of Dakkari steel and wouldn’t break.
Nik. If I wanted this fixed between us, I would have to crawl back on my hands and knees because she would demand nothing less.
But aVorakkardidn’t kneel before anyone.
She’d told me once that she didn’t hold grudges. That she didn’t react to things as others might. I knew all she wanted was an apology and an explanation. I knew all she wanted me to say was that Ididcare for her.
“Rei thissie—”
Belatedly, I knew it was the wrong thing to say.
“Don’tcall me that,” she said quietly, laying her brush down on the cabinet, furrowing her brow. “Because I’m not yours. Last night, you made that very clear to me.”
My jaw clenched. It was a mistake to come here. I saw that now.
But how much longer could I stay away from her? I was drawn to her like a bondedpyrokiand each passing moment away from her felt like it was taking its toll.
What I feared had already happened, I realized. I craved her. I needed her.
“Go,” she said softly. There was a crack in her expression, one that tugged at my gut. It was her hurt and it ate at me, knowing I had caused it. “Please.”
With one last, lingering look, I did as she requested. I ducked back through the entrance, away from her, though everything in me wanted to stay.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“TheVorakkarannounced the frost feast,” mylirillatold me, glancing up at me from the piles of cloth in her lap.
She was creating a tunic for a female I’d seen briefly, while she’d tasked me with easy repairs, tears and holes.
“Finally,” she added. “I expected it to happen already. Thebikkuare already in a frenzy.”
“Bikku?” I questioned, threading my needle through a pair of hide pants. My hands felt blistered from my morning in the weapons tent, but I’d gotten close to pinching the fletching just right and I’d been on a high ever since.
“The females who prepare our meals,” she said. “Who do you think makes all the food?”
Just another one of my curiosities satisfied. “I’d always wondered. Where do they make it?”
“They have a tent towards thepyrokienclosure.”
“The one next to the baths?”
“Lysi.”
I’d been there over two weeks now and I learned something new about the encampment constantly.
