The silence pressed in around me.....heavy, suffocating, absolute. This apartment that used to be my refuge now felt like a tomb. Four walls closing in, the ceiling pressing down, the floor opening up beneath me.
I was drowning on dry land.
And there was no one coming to save me.
The sun set outside my single window, painting the sky in shades of orange and red. Beautiful, if I'd had the energy to appreciate it. But beauty felt obscene when everything else was falling apart.
Darkness crept in slowly, filling the corners of the room, swallowing the light inch by inch.
I didn't bother turning on the lamp. Electricity cost money I didn't have.
Besides, the darkness felt appropriate. Fitting.
I lay there in the dark, listening to my own heartbeat, feeling my own breath, and wondered how long a person could survive on nothing.
Not long, probably.
Maybe that was for the best.
Sleep eventually claimed me, dragging me under into nightmares where I couldn't run fast enough, couldn't save anyone, couldn't do anything but watch everyone I loved disappear into darkness while I screamed their names.
When I woke in the morning....if you could call it morning when the sun barely penetrated the grime on my window....nothing had changed.
I still had forty-seven dollars.
Still owed fifteen thousand.
Still had no way out.
Still had two days until Friday.
Two days until I lost everything.
I forced myself out of bed, forced myself to shower in water that ran cold because I couldn't afford to pay the gas bill, forced myself to get dressed in clothes that hung loose on my too-thin frame.
I had to try. Even if it was hopeless, even if I knew it wouldn't work, I had to try.
I spent the day doing what I'd been doing for weeks: begging.
I went to every business in a ten-block radius, asking if they were hiring. Most didn't even let me finish my question before telling me no. A few were more direct: "We're looking for wolves only, sorry."
Sorry. As if that word meant anything. As if it changed the fact that being wolfless made me worthless in their eyes.
By late afternoon, I'd been rejected by fifteen places. My feet hurt, my stomach was eating itself, and I was no closer to finding a solution than I'd been this morning.
I dragged myself back to my apartment building, climbed the three flights of stairs because the elevator was broken...it had been for months, and stopped outside my door.
Something red caught my eye.
A flyer. Shoved under my door, probably blown there by the eveining wind with the corner sticking out like a bloody flag.
I bent down and picked it up, my hands automatically smoothing the paper.
Blood-red paper. Black ink.
My heart started pounding before I even read the words.
THE RITE
Women needed. One night. Compensation: 5 gold bars.
The Cursed Alphas seek willing participants for the ancient ritual.
Location: The Obsidian Hall, midnight.
You provide the body. We provide the gold.
Five gold bars.
My hands shook as I stared at the flyer.
Five gold bars was roughly fifteen thousand dollars. Maybe more, depending on the market.
Exactly what I needed.
For one night.
I knew what the Rite was. Everyone did, even if they pretended not to. An ancient ritual where unmated Alphas could claim women for a night. The women offered their bodies. The Alphas offered gold. It was legal, sanctioned by the old laws, but whispered about in dark corners because decent wolves didn't participate.
Decent wolves didn't need to.
But I wasn't a decent wolf.
I wasn't a wolf at all.
I stood outside my door, staring at the red flyer, my heart racing, my mind spinning.
One night. My body. Fifteen thousand dollars.
It was everything I needed.
Everything I'd been desperately searching for.
And all it would cost was one night with the Cursed Alphas.
I'd heard of them, of course. Everyone had. Lucian, Sebastian, and Nicholas Blackwood....triplet Alpha Kings who ruled the Northern Territories with iron fists and blood-soaked reputations. Vicious. Violent. Cursed by the Moon Goddess herself.
The rumors said they had until their twenty-sixth birthday to find their true mate or they'd lose themselves to their wolves completely, become feral beasts that would destroy everything in their path.
They were twenty-five now. Running out of time.
And apparently, they were hosting a Rite.
I unlocked my apartment door, walked inside in a daze, and sat down on my mattress with the flyer still clutched in my shaking hands.
One night.
Fifteen thousand dollars.
My mother's life.
The choice was impossible.
The choice was easy.
I picked up my phone, turned it back on despite the voicemails waiting, and searched for information about the Cursed Alphas.
Images filled my screen....three devastatingly handsome men with cold eyes and dangerous smiles. Articles about their ruthlessness, their power, their curse. Forum posts from women claiming to have participated in previous Rites, describing the experience in terms that made my face burn and my stomach clench.
"They used me completely," one post read. "Every hole, every way. I couldn't walk for days afterward. But the gold was real, and they paid exactly what they promised."
Another: "Most intense night of my life. Terrifying and exhilarating. Would I do it again? No. Do I regret it? Also no."
And another: "They're not gentle. They don't pretend to care about you. You're a body to them, a means to an end. But they're honest about it, at least."
I read post after post, my heart pounding harder with each one.
This was real. The Rite was real. The gold was real.
And tomorrow night, I could have everything I needed to save my mother.
All I had to do was survive one night with three Cursed Alphas.
I looked at my reflection in my phone's dark screen. Saw the desperation in my eyes, the hollowness in my cheeks, the defeat in the set of my shoulders.
What did I have to lose?
My dignity? I'd already lost that begging for jobs, begging for extensions, begging for mercy from a world that had none.
My body? It was just flesh and bone. It would heal. Physical pain was temporary.
My soul? Maybe. Probably.
But my mother's life?
That was worth everything.
I set the flyer on my mattress, smoothed it flat, and stared at the words until they burned into my retinas.
The Rite. One night. Five gold bars.
Tomorrow night.
Midnight.
Obsidian Hall.
I had twenty-four hours to decide if I could go through with it.
Twenty-four hours to decide if I was brave enough....or desperate enough....to sell my body to save my mother's life.
I lay back on my mattress, the flyer beside me, and closed my eyes.
I already knew what my answer would be.
I'd known the moment I picked up that red paper.
There was no decision to make. No choice to agonize over.
I would go, I would do whatever they wanted, I would survive one night.
And I would save my mother.
Even if it destroyed me in the process.
Even if I lost myself completely.
Some sacrifices were worth making.
Some prices were worth paying.
And as I drifted off into an uneasy sleep, the red flyer clutched in my hand, I told myself I was brave.
I told myself I was strong.
I told myself I could do this.
I told myself a lot of lies that night.
But the biggest lie of all?
That it would only be one night.
That I could walk away unscathed.
That three Cursed Alphas would take my body and let me go.
I had no idea what I was walking into.
No idea what they would do to me.
I had no idea that one night would change everything.