Then a Dakkari horde had stolen it all away. The Ghertun took what was left.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“My father always called me Vivi,” the little white-haired creature lying against my chest told me. Softly, she said, “He was killed by aVorakkar.”
I tensed.
Her words from our journey to my horde returned to me. She’d told me she’d learned to fear theVorakkarsbut would not tell me why.
Now I knew.
There was a lingering question in her voice…and that unspoken thing made me pull her off my body. There was a wet sound between us as my seed leaked from her and I reached over towards the furs hanging close to the fire basin, the ones I used to dry off after baths. I cleaned my cock first, still slick from my come and her own.
“What are you asking me?” I growled softly before turning towards her. Even though irritation made my voice gruff, I tried to be gentle as I wiped my seed from between her thighs.
Her breath hitched. I saw she was tender, a little reddened. Some blood had mixed with my seed and the sight of it made me angry all over again. The tension was just bubbling under the surface of my skin, waiting to break free.
I’d almost lost control with her. In a bad way. Then again, I’d been trained to.
That thought cut me. A flash of a memory rose before my eyes. Ofherbody on top of mine, of her golden eyes glowing in the darkness, and her gold-painted lips smearing across my skin. She’d always painted herself for our…encounters.
Nausea roiled in my belly—my still hardened cock finally began to soften—but I breathed in deeply, throwing the spare furs back towards the fire. I swore I could smell that cloying, overly spiced perfume that Mala had always worn across her neck in the air.
But then I smelledkuveriwhen Vienne shifted on the furs and I sucked in a lungful greedily,needingit to ground me before my mind took me to other places, places I didn’t want to go.
I refocused my attention on her, opening my eyes to pin her in place. She was watching me carefully, with a similar expression to the one she wore when she used whatever power it was that she possessed over me. But I didn’t feel the telltale tingling, that strange buzzing sensation that thrummed the air between us.
“You are asking me if I killed your father?” I rasped. I neededthisanger. I neededthisanger as a distraction before my mind fragmented. Already, I could hear the rushing in my ears, already I was looking towards the shadows behind her.
My little Vivi didn’t say anything. She merely stared up at me—when had I stood from the bed?—and I wondered if she needed this distraction as well.
I huffed out a breath. Sex never relaxed me. Not fully. The aftermath always made me feel restless and I was half-tempted to throw Vienne back onto the furs for another round, if only to expend some of the energy building inside me. But I would hurt her if I did. I didn’t think Icouldbe gentle this time, not with her accusation making my temple throb and irritation at her making my blood heat.
I wondered what had brought this little standoff about.
Because you called her Vivi, I remembered.
“You see,leikavi?” I said, narrowing my eyes on her. “Names do have power. They have power to make you feel things you might not want to.”
She blinked, surprise evident in her gaze. Then…guilt?
“Nik,” I growled, the taste of her still coating my tongue. “I have never killed avekkiriin my life. Nor have I ordered any of mydarukkarto.”
“You…you haven’t?” she whispered. Her startled expression made me feel like I was being scraped away on the inside.
“If you think me such a monster,Vivi, if you think it wasmethat killed your father,” I snarled at her, “then why did you beg me to fuck you? What does that makeyou?”
She gasped, unable to contain the hurt and shock in her expression. She opened her mouth but no sound came out.
I didn’t wait. Instead, just like last night, I jerked my discarded trews up my legs and shoved into my boots, my tail waving wildly in irritation behind me. My temple throbbed harder.
That was when I saw it. A shifting in the light in the corner of myvoliki.
Nik, nik, nik, I thought but I felt helpless and unable to look away,wantingto see her.
Despair pierced me, my grief rising up like it did every single time I saw her. My sister’s shadowed figure stood next to the empty chests that were meant for adeviri, an offering to myMorakkari, my future wife. Gifts that I should’ve been accumulating and collecting for her over these long years asVorakkar. But since I never intended to take a queen, I hadn’t bothered and the chests sat empty and discarded, a constant reminder that if I couldn’t protect my own family, I had no right to take a wife for my own…or make a family of my own.
“Davik,” came Vienne’s voice, but it sounded like she was far away.
