Captive of the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar, #1)

by Zoey Draven

“You believe you will be my whore, kalles?” he finally asked. Confusion made my brows furrow and I licked my lips as I said, “Isn’t that what you meant?” The horde king grinned, though it was small and dark. Still, it made my breath hitch.

“Nik, you will not be my whore,” he rasped, his voice deepening. I gasped, my body going tight when he brushed his fingertips over my pebbled nipple before thumbing it back and forth in a way that made my hands shake, the sensation foreign and new. “Nik, you will be my kassikari. You will be my Morakkari.”

“I will claim you in the old way, in the old Dakkari tradition,” he told me, which only confused me even more. “You will not be my whore, kalles. You will be my queen.”

“Kakkari is the earth—solid, nurturing. She gives us life. Drukkar is everything that supports her, a foundation for her to stand on. Rains, seasons, storms, heat. He can be violent and merciless at times, but she always opens for him, accepts him. Because of that, he loves her, he cares for her, and he punishes all that harm her.”

“I heard the courage in your voice before I ever saw your face. A human kalles daring to stand against the Dakkari… I was intrigued. I needed to see you. And when I saw your face, your eyes, I knew. Kakkari revealed you to me. I knew you would be my queen. You are strong and you are brave and you were loyal to your kin. That is why.”

“My mother had been mauled by one of your wild pyroki, outside the protection of our village,” I told her, holding her gaze, straightening. I stepped forward so that I was close, so that she would hear me when I whispered, “I killed her myself with a blade to ease her suffering. I was fifteen years old. So don’t tell me what I have the spine or the stomach for. You know nothing about me.”

He was watching me too, studying me with his strange, eerie gaze, before Arokan suddenly growled in the universal tongue, “Remove your eyes from my queen before I remove them from your skull, Ghertun.”