Page 2 of Sold to the Nalgar
Velkar bowed his head slightly. “They are rare. Coveted. There are not many left unclaimed. Not… pure ones.”
“Is she intact?” Zarokh asked.
Velkar’s mouth curved in amusement. “Of course. The Dukkar know better than to cross you. She has not been touched.”
Zarokh leaned back in his seat, fingers curling against the carved armrests. His thoughts did not drift toward the woman—yet—but toward the implications. The logistics. The price. Procuring a human was not a matter of coin. It required dominance. Influence. Power.
And for years, he had refused. Others—warlords with lesser minds and hungrier appetites—had indulged. But Zarokh had stayed above such distractions.
Until now.
Velkar tilted his head, studying him. “I’m surprised, Warlord. You’ve never been one to… indulge.”
“I am restless.”
The words hung in the air like a blade suspended mid-swing. Truth, sharp and simple.
But it was more than restlessness.
There was a fracture beneath his calm. A flaw etched into his blood. The very mutation that had made him faster, stronger, more enduring than any of his peers… had also rendered him incapable of producing heirs. The Lacris did not speak of it. Not openly. But he knew. And so did they.
He could command a city. He could crush a legion. But his bloodline would end with him.
And perhaps, in the privacy of his thoughts, that truth had festered longer than he cared to admit.
Velkar gave a slow nod. “War is endless. Victory… predictable. Perhaps you seek a different kind of conquest?”
Zarokh’s gaze shifted once more to the map. “There is only so much blood one can spill before the silence afterward becomes unbearable.”
“Then let this… new thing occupy that silence.” Velkar’s smile was all teeth. “They say human blood is unlike any other. Sweet. Addictive.”
“I’ve heard the stories.”
Velkar stepped forward, lowering his voice. “The Dukkar vessel is en route to Daxan. She’ll be delivered directly to your sanctum.”
Zarokh nodded once, slowly.
“A challenge,” he murmured. “Something that fights back.”
Velkar turned to go, but paused at the threshold. His tone, when he spoke again, was casual—too casual. “What are they like?”
Zarokh raised an eyebrow. “Humans?”
Velkar stepped back into the light. “Yes. Why are they so hard to acquire if they’re so… weak?”
Zarokh exhaled slowly. “You know the answer. Earth is distant. Remote. Surrounded by a volatile, resource-poor system and tucked in a backwater arm of the galaxy. It is shielded. Not technologically—but politically. Their solar system is isolated, difficult to access. Expensive.”
“But the Dukkar have a route.”
“They do,” Zarokh agreed. “And they were going to decimate that world. Strip it for blood, bodies, and fuel. But then…” He tilted his head slightly. “A Marak intervened.”
Velkar’s brows lifted. “One of the ancients?”
Zarokh nodded. “And not just any. Karian. The oldest. The most feared. Even the Dukkar hesitated.”
Velkar let out a low breath. “That one is not to be trifled with.”
“No,” Zarokh said, his voice like stone. “He is not.”
