But I understood it. I knew hunger. I knew desperation.
What I also knew was that if I left the female there, she would die of her wounds. Her body was weak, malnourished. If infection took root, it would kill her.
AndthatI could not allow. I would not allow her to die. Not her. Not thiskalleswho had torn me open with sad, old eyes, withthissiefeathers clutched in her palm.
Not thiskalleswho Kakkari herself had marked for me…who’d just been whipped bloody on my orders.
“Vok,” I cursed, belly churning, crouching in front of her. Her breaths were shallow and her eyes were closed.
Shame filled my chest, though it was an emotion I was well-acquainted with, especially growing up on the streets inDothik. I’d clawed my way from the darkness and filth to become a horde king, but I’d never felt more like a fraud than at that moment.
A growl left me and I turned to the villagers, calling out in the universal tongue, my voice booming in the clearing, “Who claims this female?”
No one stepped forward. Not a single soul moved.
Was that relief I felt? That she was unclaimed? Or something else? Something darker?
I made my decision then. Careful of her wounds, I lifted her with ease, cradling her against my chest. She hissed at the jostling movement, her wounds pulling. Then she loosened in my arms, the pain finally overcoming her body. A small mercy.
I ignored the ripple of low murmurs that went through the villagers behind me, ignored mypujerak’sfurious, baffled expression, ignored all but Lokkas, mypyroki. I held out my hand for my loyal beast and he came to me, nudging his long, pointed snout into my outstretched, calloused hand.
Vodan approached me then, the tension between us palpable, the tension in the village thick.
“Vorakkar,” he hissed. “This is…you cannot take her. As yourpujerak, Imustadvise against this. The horde will not—”
“I am not the first to take avekkirifemale,” I told him. “I will not be the last.”
He sucked in a breath. “Surely you do not mean—”
“Enough,” I growled, my patience threadbare. “You have questioned me too much as of late.”
“You chose me as yourpujerakbecauseI question you,Vorakkar,” he replied softly, his eyes straying to the female in my arms.
“She will die if I leave her.”
“She was always supposed to die,” Vodan argued. “From the moment her arrow sunk into therikcrun, even before then, she was always meant to.”
I stilled, drawing in deep lungfuls of air to calm the maelstrom swirling inside me.
“Ready thepyrokiand the warriors,” I bit out at last, holding his gaze,daringhim to challenge me.
His jaw ticked. Finally, he inclined his head. “Lysi, Vorakkar.”
Then he turned from me, biting out orders to thedarukkarand they began to clear from the village.
I hefted thekallesonto the back of Lokkas before swinging up behind her, tucking her close. Taking mypyroki’sreins in one fist and using my other to steady her, my gaze connected with the village’s leader, a male who offered his given name much too freely, though I did not care to remember it.
He only held my eyes for a moment before he looked away, a muscle in his cheek twitching.
Circling Lokkas, I urged mypyrokiinto a run through the village’s open gate, kicking up dust in my wake.
“Vir drak!” I bellowed.
Answering cries from my horde pierced the air and I pushed Lokkas faster and faster, gaining distance from the village until it turned into a speck on the horizon.
The female in my arms didn’t wake once on the journey, though her blood soaked my chest. It soaked into my skin, marking me as certainly as the golden tattoos across my flesh.
When we reached the edges of our temporary encampment, I swung off Lokkas and brought thekallesdown gently, grim determination coursing through me as I carried her to where I slept.
