Selah’s POV
“Fifty thousand gold coins for the girl, I’ll add an extra ten thousand for your time,” the dark-haired stranger said.
Then he tossed a clinking leather pouch onto the wooden table in front of the auction block.
I just knelt there on the ground and watched everything unfold.
I still could not get over the new mate bond and what it could mean, all I could do was stare at this man who looked so much like my murderer, with bitterness in my mouth.
“See to it that the girl is washed and fed before she is brought to my carriage,” the man ordered.
“She is very filthy.”
“Washed and fed?” The warden snorted and wiped his nose with the back of his dirty sleeve.
“Lord Garrick, we don’t wash and feed our merchandise here. You bought the bitch as she is. If you want her clean, do it yourself.”
Lord Garrick’s expression did not change, and neither did he argue.
He simply gave a brief nod, turning on his heel to leave the platform.
Seeing my new owner walk away, I tried to stand to my feet.
But before my legs could even move forward, the warden lunged forward.
His rough, calloused hand clamped around my upper arm, yanking me backward with a violent jerk.
“Hold on a minute!” The warden shouted after Lord Garrick, his fingers digging so deeply into my skin that I knew it would leave a dark bruise right over the older marks from the guards.
“The sale does not include walking her out personally. There are procedures here at the Blood Moon Market. She needs to be processed first, so you can wait outside.”
Lord Garrick stopped, then slowly turned back around.
I did not fully understand what happened next, because it was over before my mind could process it.
One second, the warden was standing over me, his foul breath against my neck as he barked out his rules.
But the next second, there was a terrible, wet crunch beside me, and the warden was suddenly flat on the ground.
A dark pool of blood was rapidly spreading around his head.
The other patrons immediately exclaimed in shock, scrambling backwards and away from his body.
And Lord Garrick was standing right where the warden had been, his broad shoulders relaxed, with fresh, bright blood dripping from his knuckles.
The market went silent.
The shouting bidders and the whispering Shadowwalkers, the rowdy human soldiers, all of them froze in place, hardly daring to breathe.
Lord Garrick pulled a white kerchief from his pocket, casually wiping the blood from his fists.
Then he straightened his leather coat, lifted his head and looked out at the stunned crowd.
“Whoever touches her next will end up the same way,” he said.
His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried to every dark corner of the cavern.
Then he turned around and began to walk away.
I scampered off the wooden platform, stumbling slightly as I followed my new owner.
My body was shaking uncontrollably at what I had just witnessed.
I did not know what in the world I had been handed to.
Ashen was cruel with his words, and he had killed people who inconvenienced him, but this was something different.
I could tell by the way this man moved that he did not enjoy killing.
I was sure he tried to avoid it at all costs.
But somehow, he had killed a man for me.
“Keep up, girl,” the warden’s assistant muttered from a distance, but he was too terrified to come near us.
We walked through the wooden doors, and I followed him outside, stepping out of the stuffy cavern.
I inhaled deeply, getting fresh air for the first time in three days.
The wind also bit into the open cuts on my face and arms, stinging the wounds that I hadn’t even remembered having until now.
My sheer, tattered dress didn’t do much to shield me from the cold.
There was a large, black wooden carriage waiting at the end of the road, apparently for us.
Lord Garrick walked up to it, grabbed the brass handle, and pulled the door open.
Then he stepped aside, holding it for me.
But my feet glued to the dirt path.
I looked inside at the darkness of the carriage, then up at him, my mind going haywire.
I didn’t know what to expect once those doors closed.
Was he going to hurt me for running earlier?
Was he going to lock me away?
Was I going from a bad life into a worse one?
Lord Garrick looked down at me, noticing my hesitation.
A dry amusement touched his eyes.
“I am a werewolf, girl, but I won’t eat you. Get in.”
I looked up into his face, and I wanted so badly to ask him why he bought me.
Did he have any plans of being cruel to me, or was he just like Ashen?
He was looking down at me with kind eyes, though he wasn’t smiling.
Finally, I broke eye contact and stepped into the carriage, easing into the bench.
He followed me inside a second later and closed the door behind him with a thud.
The carriage immediately began to move, jostling us as the horses took off down the bumpy road.
He sat directly across from me, and I made sure not to look away.
I kept my eyes on him because I was terrified of what he might do to me if I stopped watching, if I wasn’t constantly on tenterhooks.
The bloodless face of that warden still flashed in my mind.
But Lord Garrick didn’t make any sudden move toward me.
Instead, he turned his head and looked out of the window for the entire ride.
After what felt like hours, the carriage slowed to a halt.
I looked out my side of the window and saw a sprawling mansion standing on top of a high hill.
The fence looked ancient and guarded.
Lord Garrick opened the door got down first, leading the way inside the mansion.
It was just as I would expect the house of a werewolf to be, all dark furniture and blazing torches.
“Tilly!” he called out the moment we stepped across the threshold.
A moment later, a squat woman in her middle age hurried down the hallway.
“Yes, Lord Garrick?” she asked, bowing her head.
“Is this the Oracle?”
I’m not an Oracle!
I tried to speak out, but all that came out was a croaky.
“Yes, the Oracle. Take her,” Lord Garrick ordered her, gesturing toward me.
“Have her thoroughly cleaned up, give her proper food and then place her in a room close to my quarters.”
Tilly gave my tattered dress, my silver hair, and the dried blood on my lip a look of pity.
She nodded quickly.
“Right away, my lord. Come along, dear.”
Tilly turned and gestured for me to follow her up the grand staircase.
As I walked along with her, a strange impulse made me stop on the first step.
I looked back over my shoulder.
Lord Garrick was standing exactly where I had left him in the center of the foyer.
He was watching me walk away, looking like a man who had just secured a prize.
For what felt like the millionth time that night, a chill ran down my spine.
I wondered if this his sudden interest in me, this strange kindness, had anything to do with me being a so-called Oracle.
Did he know what this body really was?
I turned away from his piercing silver eyes and kept walking into the dark corridor.