I would need to wait until everyone was asleep before I visited the horde king again. But I couldn’t stomach being in the belly of that pit of desperation and hunger a moment more.
* * *
Emmi’s jawwas tense when he saw me approach.
“Next time,” he ground out to me, “give your food to Kaila. She actually needs it.”
I looked straight into his eyes. Whatever he saw in my gaze—whether it was my disgust or my anger at his demand—made him take a step back. There was a flash of a familiar expression. One the horde king showed me a time or two.
As if he didn’t know who I was. As if I’d taken off a mask and revealed someone completely different to him underneath.
Emmi had known me almost my entire life. Though he’d never been cruel to me, he hadn’t been particularly kind either. And I was done letting others think I was beneath them just because of the way I spoke.
My words were strong and clipped and clear when I said, “Everyone needs it.”
Emmi glowered at me but I didn’t stay in his sight for long. I slipped through the door, the hinges churning so loudly I feared that Benn would hear them on the floor above.
Closing the door behind me, I went to the horde king, kneeling beside him. With parted lips, I took in the sight of him, my gut roiling with sudden nausea.
His face was bloodied, a large gash across his cheekbone. A blade wound. From his own sword?
His lip was split. Blood was dripping into his left eye from a gash across his brow bone. And his shoulder…it looked raw again.
The expression he wore was thunderous. Black waves of rage seemed to roll off him and again, I was reminded that this was partlymydoing.I’dled him here. Tothis.
The tears that had threatened to well up in the meal room came now. They made my vision bright and glassy until all I could see was his blood.
It was clear what had happened. Benn had made it obvious he wanted to keep the horde king weakened. In pain. It was the only way to control a being so powerful, so strong.
But another part of me knew Benn. He was cruel. He’d taken it further than another might because he liked to watch others suffer. He liked to feel powerful and in control. To see another weak only served to remind him of his own strength.
Benn must be getting off on the idea of having ahorde king of Dakkarwithin his grasp. He must relish the thought that he could strike and cut and kick one, taking out decades of aggression and anger on a male who had fed him for a frost season, a male who’d chosen mercy instead of suffering.
I was glad I hadn’t eaten this night. Because I would have vomited the contents of my belly regardless.
His jaw was tense, a muscle jumping. He held himself stiff against the pillar. It took me a moment to realize that he might be in pain but it was his pride that suffered too. To be tied and restrained and beaten—especially at the hands of a man like Benn—would’ve made any male seethe.
“Rowin,” I whispered, reaching forward to touch the edge of his jaw.
I didn’t know why I did it. But I wanted him to look at me.
His head snapped towards me, those red eyes freezing me in place.
“Is that your name?” I asked, unafraid of the withering look he sent me.
“How do you know that name?” came his growl.
Swallowing, I told him, “Because a male from your horde used that name when he was calling for you.”
He shifted, leaning towards me.
“When?”
“Yesterday morning,” I told him. “You were right. I did go into the fog. And I walked within it and before I realized it, my feet had taken me towards the western edge."
“Did you see him? This male?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
