The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 674

Chapter 674: The Queen Says Checkmate

"Six counts?" He laughed. "You’re underselling me. I’ve moved more product through this continent than half your supply chains. You think this is my first time in chains? I’ve been in rooms like this before. Different throne. Different woman pretending she has the stomach for what comes next. I always walk out. You are sitting on a borrowed chair, sweetheart."

"Answer the question," Beta Griffin ordered.

"Not guilty. I’m a businessman. The parents sold them. The villages looked the other way. The border guards took their cut. Everyone had clean hands until someone got caught, and now I’m the villain?" He spat. "I’m the only honest man in this room."

"The court will now hear sentencing from the acting regent of Shadowclaw," the herald stated.

Serena looked at the man with zero emotion. Then she spoke a proverb in Cimmerian, known as the warrior’s tongue. One she wasn’t entirely sure if Shadowclaw still practiced, but she found it fitting so she used it.

"Stand behind your words or fall beneath them. For silence would have cost you nothing."

She switched back to the common tongue.

"One who trades the defenseless has forfeited the mercy of the just."

The proverb settled into the throne room the way verdicts settle into courtrooms: with finality, with weight, and with the specific atmospheric pressure that tells every person in the room that what comes next has already been decided and the deciding happened before the words were spoken.

"The accused has entered a plea of not guilty," Serena began. "Let the record reflect that plea. Let it also reflect that the accused confessed in open court to trafficking persons across this continent and acknowledged prior imprisonment for the same conduct."

She stood from the throne.

"On the charges of trafficking, abduction, unlawful sedation, aggravated imprisonment, criminal conspiracy, and forgery of sovereign documents, Alistair Creed, also known as Ronan Blackwell, also known as the Black Crown. This court sentences you to death. The sentence is final. There is no appeal."

Her voice carried zero tremor. Zero hesitation. Zero of the uncertainty that the elders had been searching for since she sat down and had failed to find.

The throne room erupted.

Elder Voss was on his feet. "The Luna lacks the authority to issue a capital sentence. This requires the Alpha’s approval and—"

"Elder Voss." Serena’s voice cut through his objection with a calm that was worse than volume.

WHOOSH.

The torches on the walls blazed gold and tripled in height.

Everyone went still.

Serena turned her head slowly to look at Elder Voss. "I respect the elders and your voice matters. But this is a direct order. The consequences of this decision fall squarely on my shoulders, not yours."

"Princess—" The color drained from Elder Voss’s face. "Luna. I must insist. Shadowclaw law requires the Alpha’s seal on any capital sentence. You are asking an officer in the room to commit an unsanctioned killing and every officer involved answers for it."

Serena turned to look at the room. "That is where you are incorrect, Elder Voss. I wasn’t asking anyone to carry it out."

The man in chains laughed. "You’re going to kill me? YOU? The bony little cunt who used to cry when they—"

A gold sword fabricated in Serena’s hands.

Kill one man the right way in front of the right people and you will never have to kill again. Reputation is a whore who works for free once you have paid the first night.

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