Page 44 of The Horde King of Shadow

I huffed out a sharp breath just as he rounded the bed. I blinked quickly, catching a shadowy glimpse of bronzed flesh. Naked bronzed flesh. And there was something in his grip. A leather cuff?

“What are you doing?” I squeaked when he dropped down beside me. On the floor. In the nest of furs and blankets he’d made me.

“Sleeping,” he answered. Without asking—the high-handed male—he dragged my ankle toward him, securing the leather cuff. This cordage was shorter than the one he’d used at the citadel and on the clifftops the last two nights—though I hadn’t slept once on our journey.

The other cuff he attached to his ankle, and he tugged on the strength of the cord, testing it.

When he was satisfied, he let out a deep sigh and fell back beside me. And I fought with everything in me not to inspect his body with hungry curiosity, my skin practically buzzing with the need. I’d seen statues of naked men before…but none had ever quite looked like Sarkin. I’d also seen plenty of naked bodies in my lifetime. Most Dakkari were not shy about nudity, but I’dgrown up more sheltered than most, even when we’d lived on the wildlands.

“Shy’rissa,” came the tired word. “Sleep,” he translated.

I felt the heat of his body, making me even warmer. The tug at my ankle was oddly…comforting.

Yet it felt like a grip too. It was impossible to ignore.

“You’re…you’re…”

“Naked?” he asked, voice groggy. “This time tomorrow night, you’ll be my wife. You will get used to it.Shy’rissa.”

Well, when he put it likethat…

There was a swooping sensation in my belly when he murmured those words, like I was falling off the edge of the cliff all over again.

“Veekor,” I whispered.

“What?”

“Veekor.It meanssleepin the old Dakkari language.”

Sarkin shifted. Above us, I watched the flames from the fire in the hearth flicker along the walls. If only to keep my gaze off him.

“Veekor, then,” he rasped.

I hid my smile when I turned my head.

“Shy’rissa,” I said.

Chapter 16

SARKIN

“Today?” Mazra asked, her eyes nearly bulging out of her sockets. “Karath, surely you can’t mean?—”

“Today,” I said, my tone final. “She begins her rider instruction this week. I want Lishara’s blessing before that happens.”

Mazra wrung a dirtied towel in her hand. “I—I?—”

Behind her, her kitchens were already bustling, the Karag under her command obeying her like they would me. Mazra was a force of nature when she wanted to be.

“There doesn’t need to be a grand feast, Mazra,” I told her, reaching forward to squeeze her arm. The older cook took great pride in her ability to throw celebrations for the horde. She had been slowly preparing for one, to celebrate our return to the Arsadia…but she hadn’t expected to throw a wedding feast with little notice. “A simple meal would suffice.”

“Of course there needs to be a feast!” Mazra said, her head snapping up, frowning in her confusion. “Oh, on Muron,Karath, there will be a feast.”

Feranos had been watching this exchange with a raised brow, but he kept his tongue firmly behind his teeth.

“We don’t have any decorations though. No banners, no spark showers,” she lamented.

I placed my hand over hers when it began to wring the towel too tightly. I wondered if she wished it were my neck, for giving her such little notice that I would take a wife today.

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