The Ghertun went quiet. The chains around his neck rattled as he turned to look at me, no doubt reading the seriousness of Arokan’s tone. “Horde queen, you are human. You come from an understanding, emotional race—”
“Do notaddress her!” Arokan growled, losing his temper again.
The Ghertun ignored him. “Convince your mate to have mercy on me. I mean no harm.”
His words shook me. The pleading in his tone. I remembered, not long ago, that I had the same desperation in my voice when I’d addressed Arokan, when he’d come to take my brother’s life.
“Enough!” Arokan roared, standing from his throne. “Tell me where your pack isnow. I am running short on patience, Ghertun.”
The Ghertun looked up at my husband, craning his neck to see him, bloodied and weak. Pity rolled in my belly again and I bit my lip when Arokan descended the steps of the dais.
“Does it matter?” the Ghertun asked, though his voice wavered. “I am dead, regardless of what I tell you. You will slaughter my pack if I say.”
Arokan unsheathed his sword and the ringing of it echoed across the clearing.
My breath quickened, my eyes widening. Last night Arokan said I had to do my duty asMorakkari, that it would be something I didn’t like.
This was anexecution, not a trial. He’d lied to me. He’d always known what this was. He’d never expected the Ghertun to answer.
But Arokan expectedmeto stay silent and watch. To do myduty.
“I am not my father,” Arokan said, his voice cold and hard. “I will not make his mistake by taking mercy on a Ghertun spy.”
Hisfather?
With that, Arokan raised his sword. The Ghertun made a sound, a knowing, small sound.
That sound wrenched something inside me.
Before I knew what I was doing, I stood from my throne and yelled, “Stop!”
Chapter Seventeen
Arokan froze.
A murmur went through the horde.
Though I heard warning bells in my head, I descended the dais, that pendant bobbing on my chest.
“There has to be another way,” I said, reaching out to touch Arokan’s arm, the arm in which he held the sword.
Slowly, he turned to face me and I knew I fucked up from his expression alone. As if the shocked faces of the kneeling Dakkari, as if the guards surrounding the Ghertun weren’t exchanging looks or slightly lowering their swords didn’t tell me so already.
“Neffar?” Arokan hissed at me, turning his back to the Ghertun. He loomed in front of me, so tall and broad that he blocked some of the sunlight, that I had to crane my neck up to look at him.
“Please, don’t do this. Anexecution? For a crime he hasn’t committed?” I cried out. “All he is guilty of is being found near the camp. Is that enough to kill him for?”
“You are untainted,nekkar,” Arokan said, though his tone was low and dangerous. I flinched. He’d never called menekkarbefore, which I now knew meanthuman. “You do not knowanything.”
“But he is—”
“Enough,” Arokan hissed. “Do not dare to challenge my—”
A cry of surprise tore through one of the guards and before I knew it, I heard the heavy rattle of chains.
Arokan swung back around, pushing me back to protect me with enough force that I fell on my backside, my elbow hitting the groundhardwhen I tried to break my fall.
I watched in horror as the Ghertun scout—who had managed to tear his chains from the guard’s grip, though the collar around his neck seemed bloodied for it—swiped out his sharp claws at the nearest Dakkari warrior, raking them down his thigh. The warrior cried out in pain and fell to one knee as dark blood began to well up.
