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

by Zoey Draven

the Dakkari—the native species, the species whose will they all had to obey—had a similar skin color to humans. Like darkened honey, tanned from the sun from their nomadic lifestyle. Golden tattoos across their flesh flashed as they walked, their long, black, coarse hair swaying around their waists as they inspected the village. Behind them, a long, flexible tail flicked as they walked, slightly curled so it wouldn’t drag on the ground.

I stared at that raw meat, thought of my hungry village with our dead crops and withering Uranian Federation rations, and turned my head away. Their beasts were eating better than we were.

I was still his pawn, his plaything. For a reason I hadn’t yet discovered, he’d chosen me to be his obedient little wife. He wanted me tamed, he wanted me quiet.

“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.”

It was as heavy as it looked, and I felt that heaviness, that jealousy settling in the valley of my breasts like a boulder.