Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,1
returned.
“It’s a secret,” he said, sitting down on the ledge, “so don’t tell anyone.”
Who would I tell? I thought.
Hesitantly, I sat down next to him, this Dakkari boy who looked more and more like a Dakkari warrior every day, and his tail came to rest in the empty space between us. Silence stretched between us too and I felt flustered, my tongue tapping restlessly at the roof of my mouth.
“You shouldn’t listen to them, Maeva,” the Rukkar said quietly, his eyes scanning the horizon of the sea. “They only have power over you if you let them. Nothing they say to you is true.”
His words sounded final and certain. In awe, I realized this was his power. I realized this was why so many revered him. Why so many believed that he was destined to become one of the greatest Vorakkar of our time, surpassing even his father’s legacy.
His words had somehow become deeply etched into my mind and I felt sudden confidence bloom because of it.
Because if the Rukkar didn’t think I was ugly, or stupid, or useless, then surely I wasn’t.
How could I be when he said otherwise?
The Rukkar turned to look at me then. Those molten eyes seemed to read every single thought racing through my mind. Those molten eyes darted back and forth between mine and I wondered what he saw. I wondered what he thought of a scrawny, gangly human girl with brown and freckled skin, and curly, long hair that was always left in a tangled mess from the wind. I wondered what he thought of my tail-less body and the way my eyes had white in them when his did not. I wondered what he thought of my differentness, of my strangeness.
Desperately, I prayed to Kakkari that he did not see our differences at all. Desperately, I wanted him to think I was pretty, like he no doubt thought of Laru, the great beauty of the horde.
“Do you want to know another secret, Maeva?” the Rukkar asked me quietly.
Maeva. It meant ‘warm winds’ in Dakkari. Like the winds the day I was found abandoned in a forest when I was three by a Dakkari hunting party. The day my father and mother and sister had become my father and mother and sister.
I didn’t dare breathe, wide-eyed, as I nodded my head quickly.
He smiled then, his sharp teeth flashing in the afternoon sunlight, just as another wave crashed into the cliffs below, sending sea spray between us, misting the air until it sparkled.
“My given name is Kiran,” he told me. “I want you to have my name. Because names have power and if you ever need to use mine, you’ll be able to.”
Delighted shock went through me, knowing the magnitude of the gift he’d just given me.
Then I did something that shocked the both of us.
“Kiran.”
The name left my lips like it had always been waiting there. Like I had always known it. Like I had just been waiting for permission to speak it.
The first word I had ever spoken aloud…and it was his name.
His soft chuckle filled the space between us and I went dizzy with the sound, my heart fluttering madly, as more spray from the sea coated our skin.
It was then that I gave Kiran of Rath Okkili my heart. That day when I was eight years old. Right there on that sun-dappled cliff overlooking Drukkar’s Sea, in a private little corner of the world I never knew existed.
Like a fool, I believed he would never break it.
Chapter Two
When I was fifteen, Kiran came of age.
While females came of age at sixteen, Dakkari males came of age when they were twenty. It was something I’d always found amusing and my mother had told Laru and me that it was because males needed longer to mature. Though, with a sly smile on her face, she said that some never did. My father had chortled in the background when he heard her, as if in agreement.
At twenty, Dakkari males could begin training as darukkars, as horde warriors. It meant they could leave the saruk, to live and train in Dothik amongst the Dakkari king’s, the Dothikkar’s, warriors.
The Rukkar’s path was always meant to be different than his peers, however. Not only would Kiran leave his home at twenty to train in Dothik, but he would stay beyond that time as well, to begin preparing for the Trials. The Vorakkar Trials. They were held every five years, though the Trials did not always produce