Page 16 of Sold to Three Alpha Kings

“Should she die as well, my lord?”

My breath ceases.

“Yes.”

The grumpy King—the one with the white-blond hair and the cold stare doesn’t even look at me when he says it.

That’s almost the worst part—that my death, when it comes, apparently doesn’t require his eyes. Just the one flat syllable, cold enough to match everything else about him.

I raise my head, meeting the guard’s dark expression as his hand reaches for the hilt of his sword. In that moment, my life flashes before me like I’m staring death right in the face.

He draws his sword, his boots stomping on the floor while he approaches me with menacing footsteps.

I see the fine blade glinting in the light. Any second from now, that clean, cold steel will take off my head with a single swing.

The guard’s eyes are as icy as those of the King who gave the order. Dark and devoid of any kind of emotion. He’s going to end my life, and he won’t feel a thing. Because to him, killing me is nothing but a job he probably does on a daily basis.

It’s not fair that I have to go out like this. After all I’ve been through. After all the pain, the shame, the disgrace, and the ill treatment I’ve had to endure for 24 years, I thought I would eventually find peace, away from this cursed island.

I guess my peace awaits me on the other side. What a wasted life I’ve lived. I spent all my days as a slave. And now, I’m dying as not just a slave, but also a fraudulent person. How ironic considering that all my life, I’ve never defrauded anyone. Not once.

Tears stream down my cheeks as I close my eyes and lower my head, ready to have it chopped off.

Then I hear it, that bold, authoritative voice.

“Wait.”

I slowly reopen my tightly squeezed eyes to find the guard stepping away from me.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the previous King growls.

“Can you not see?” the other voice asks.

I raise my head. It’s the youngest of the Kings. He’s the one who stopped my execution, and he’s already standing next to one with the white-blond hair.

“She’s a slave,” he states simply, “Look at her. Bound, drugged, dragged in against her will. Whatever scheme those traders ran, I doubt she had much say in it.”

Something lurches in my chest—not relief yet, I don’t trust it enough for that—but something close to it. A door left open a crack.

“Careful, Sinth,” the King with the black hair says, his tone dripping with sarcasm and something that resembles mockery. “The supreme leader doesn’t like it when his decision is questioned.”

The mean King shoots a stern glare at the previous speaker, who doesn’t seem to care. Instead, he has a weird grin perched on his face like he’s trying to get under the mean King’s skin.

“So you agree with me then?” the one called Sinth asks the sarcastic King.

He exhales. “Well, yes. But not completely.” He tilts his head at me, green eyes assessing in a way that makes my skin crawl. “I mean, she might be a slave and all, but she could’ve spoken up.”

I swallow hard.

“She could’ve told us the truth the second we asked instead of standing there playing along.”

I’m tempted to defend myself and explain that I was just too afraid of the outcome. But at the last second, I end up not speaking at all.

He continues, “That would’ve been the braver move. Would’ve probably gotten her killed either way, but at least she’d have done something instead of just going along with it.”

I want to scream at him. I want to ask what exactly he thinks I could have said, bound and drugged and half out of my mind, surrounded by three men who’d already decided the traders were guilty of something.

But my throat’s too tight, and some old, worn-in instinct keeps my mouth shut. The last thing I want is to speed up my own execution if there’s even the slightest chance of surviving this.