Page 79 of Sold to the Nalgar
“My lords,” Zarokh’s voice was a razor’s edge. “Vuvak seeks to provoke. He forgets himself.”
He didn’t look at Cecilia, but he felt her watching, the conflict in her breath, her presence.
He added, a darker note creeping in, “And perhaps others forget as well. Let me remind them.”
The warlords lowered their eyes.
The weight of his power pressed down like a storm cloud.
He stepped from the throne, his long cloak sweeping the steps.
But just before he passed her, Cecilia, his furious, exquisite, changing human, he paused.
He brought his mouth close to her ear.
“You see now,” he murmured, so only she could hear, “why I cannot afford weakness. Not even in the form of something I… cherish.”
Then he was gone.
The court parted like shadows before a fire.
Cecilia was left standing there, adorned in finery, drenched in his bloodline, bound by chains of biology and fate, with a hundred alien eyes on her.
Wondering if she would ever be accepted.
Wondering if she could be.
CHAPTER 40
He didn’t say a word when the meeting ended.
Not as the lords filed out in silence, the scent of blood still hanging in the air. Not as he rose from his throne and descended the steps like a shadow with purpose.
Not even as he reached for her wrist—not roughly, but with command—and led her through the towering archways of the great hall, out past flanking guards and torchlit corridors.
Cecilia followed, heart thudding.
The halls wound upward. Past stone-carved balconies and iron-framed windows, past quiet alcoves filled with alien glyphs and strange relics. They climbed higher and higher, until the air thinned, and the ceiling disappeared entirely.
They emerged onto a parapet.
Open sky. Wind. Crimson light washing over everything.
The height made her stomach dip. They were on one of the tallest spires, a jutting platform with no guardrails, only a wide edge of black stone that overlooked the entire fortress… the entire world.
Zarokh let her go and strode to the edge, arms folded behind his back. His long cloak stirred with the breeze. The twin sunsloomed overhead, casting his shadow sharp and regal across the stone.
“This,” he said quietly, “is my domain.”
Cecilia stepped beside him. The air up here was different—cooler, drier, clearer. The city stretched out below, an intricate sprawl of onyx towers, open squares, and sleek, angular buildings that shimmered faintly in the sun’s dying light.
And beyond it… the wilds.
Forests thick with shadow. Jagged mountain peaks. Rivers like veins carved through blood-red soil.
It was… beautiful.
And terrifying.
