The chains bit into my wrists, cold and unyielding, as I was dragged across the stage. The crowd's jeers sliced through the cavernous hall like knives. "Wolfless! Disgrace! Useless spawn!" Every word stung, but I had learned long ago that anger made me visible, and visibility got you killed.
I stumbled, catching the scent before I even saw him. He was there,tall, commanding, and lethal, a shadow that swallowed the light of the chandeliers. My heart slammed against my ribs, and I knew: he was my mate. Or at least, he should have been.
The Alpha's eyes locked onto mine. Dark, calculating, burning. He didn't hesitate. He walked forward, slow, deliberate, every step demanding the attention of the crowd. He didn't glance at the auctioneer. He didn't glance at the other bidders. He stared at me.
"Is she wolfless?" someone sneered from the back.
"She'll fetch a high price regardless,another voice said.
The Alpha's lips curled, not in amusement, but in something sharper, darker. "One hundred thousand," he said, his voice cutting through the chatter like a blade.
Gasps echoed around the hall. Murmurs erupted. A wolfless girl? That price? For vengeance, yes. For torment, yes. Freedom? Never.
I swallowed back bile, my pulse hammering in my ears. They didn't know. They didn't see what he did,the way his scent clung to me, how my body betrayed me, how the mate bond throbbed silently beneath the chains. The connection didn't lie, but I had learned to survive on lies.
The auctioneer raised an eyebrow. "Sold. To the Alpha of" he paused, checking his scroll...Lunaris pack.
My stomach dropped. The Alpha who had ruled my nightmares, the man I had been told I must fear more than death, had bought me. Not to save me, not to protect me. To punish me. To make me bend. To ensure I suffered for crimes I had not committed,or at least, for crimes he believed I had committed.
The chains rattled as they tightened one last time, an audible reminder of my new reality. My father's face swam in my mind. His decision: sell me, leave me, discard me like a broken tool. My half-sister was gone, and I was all that remained. I had survived everything, and now I was on the auction block.
The Alpha descended the steps from the platform, his boots clicking against the wooden floor like gunshots. Every step was a warning. Every movement radiated dominance, control, and a precision that promised pain if I so much as breathed wrong.
He stopped a mere foot from me. His eyes scanned my body as if weighing my worth, his scent flooding my senses, making me shiver despite myself. He thinks I killed her. He thinks I'm responsible for everything.
"I hope you're ready," he said, low, almost a growl, "because I intend to enjoy every second of breaking you.
The words should have terrified me, but they didn't. Not completely. They ignited something in me,a fire I had hidden, a wolf I didn't yet know could awaken. I lifted my chin, meeting his gaze. If he wants to play a game, he should know I don't lose easily.
He smirked at my defiance, slow, almost amused, though the flicker of irritation in his eyes betrayed him. Bold. Reckless. Alive.
"Take her," he commanded one of his guards. The chains clinked as I was pulled toward him, but not violently,he wanted control, not accidental damage. He stepped aside, letting me move on my own.
My boots scraped the wooden floor as I walked. Every step was a choice. Every breath was mine, even if the rest of me wasn't. I felt the pack's eyes on me,some curious, some hungry, all measuring. I had become property, but property can still think. Property can still strike.
He followed silently, his presence pressing against my back like a living wall. I smelled the faint metallic tang of his wolf under the Alpha scent, strong and uncompromising, and the mate bond throbbed in my chest with each heartbeat. He's mine as much as I am his… but he doesn't know it yet.
The guards led me to the carriage waiting outside. Leather seats, locked doors, the kind of transport meant to remind you that escape was impossible. He climbed in opposite me, eyes unblinking.
"I should have killed you when I first saw you," he murmured, almost conversationally, but every syllable dripped with menace. "Yet here you are. Alive. Breathing. Defiant. Insolent."
I didn't answer. I let my silence speak. Let the chains speak. Let the air between us thrum with tension, sharp and unrelenting.
The carriage rattled forward. Outside, the city lights blurred past. Inside, the silence was deafening, heavy with unspoken threats.
And then, a flicker,a twitch of his wolf's instincts sensing mine. A bond that shouldn't exist, and yet pulsing anyway. He smelled me. I smelled him. And in that instant, I knew the truth: my life was no longer my own.
But the game had only just begun.
If he thought he had bought a defeated girl, he had no idea.
The chains may have bound my wrists, but they could never chain my mind. And I was already planning my first move.