Lyra Pain came first.
A dull throb behind my eyes, my mouth dry as sandpaper, my wrists aching from being bound too tight behind my back.
“Look who’s finally waking up.” I forced my eyes open, and the world swam into focus slowly, dim lighting, exposed pipes overhead, the smell of rust and mildew thick in the air.
I faintly recognized the building to be a warehouse.
I was in some kind of warehouse, propped against a cold metal pole, my hands zip-tied behind it.
“Where am I?” My voice came out cracked, useless.
“Somewhere you’re about to make us very rich.” The man crouching in front of me was the same one from the alley, the leader, his sharp grin catching the light.
“Sleep well, sweetheart?” “Let me go.” I yanked at the restraints, ignoring the way the plastic bit into my skin.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.” “Oh, I know exactly what I’m doing.” He reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, and I recoiled from his touch like it burned.
“I’m selling an unclaimed mate to the highest bidder.
Do you have any idea how rare that is?
How valuable you are right now?” My stomach churned.
“Nobody’s going to pay for a person.” “You’d be surprised.” He straightened, gesturing around the warehouse, and for the first time I noticed the space wasn’t empty.
Men and women lined the walls, murmuring amongst themselves, some in expensive suits, others dressed like they belonged in the underbelly of whatever city this was.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Alphas, kings, wealthy pack members who want a mate without waiting for fate to hand them one.
You, sweetheart, are a very hot commodity.” “I already have a mate,” I snapped before I could stop myself.
Something flickered across his face…surprise, then greed.
“Even better, bidding just went up.
A mate who’s already bonded to someone means whoever buys you gets the pleasure of breaking that bond themselves.
Some men pay extra for that kind of thing.” Bile rose in my throat.
“You’re disgusting.” “I’m a businessman.” He crouched again, tilting my chin up with two fingers, forcing me to look at him.
“Now, you’re going to sit there and look pretty, and if you cause trouble, I will make sure the buyer knows you need to be broken in before delivery.
Are we clear?” I didn’t answer, just glared at him with every ounce of hatred I possessed, and he chuckled like I’d amused him before standing and walking away, barking orders at the others.
My wolf paced anxiously beneath my skin, snarling at the restraints, at the men watching us like we were nothing more than merchandise on display.
For once, I didn’t fight her instincts.
I let her fury fuel me, because it was better than the fear threatening to swallow me whole.
Darius.
The thought of him hit me out of nowhere, sharp and unbidden.
I didn’t even know his last name, didn’t know anything about him beyond the way he’d looked at me like I was the only woman in the world, and yet some small, foolish part of me wished desperately that he would burst through those doors and save me.
Stupid.
He wasn’t coming.
He didn’t even know where I was, and even if he did, why would a king bother saving a thief who stole from him and ran?
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the leader’s voice boomed out, echoing off the metal walls, and my stomach dropped as he gestured toward me.
“Tonight, we have something truly special.
An unclaimed mate.
Fully bonded, ready for claiming by whoever wins her.” Murmurs rippled through the crowd, a few appreciative, most simply calculating, like they were assessing livestock at a market.
“Let’s start the bidding at fifty thousand.” A hand went up almost instantly.
“Fifty.” “Sixty,” another voice called.
My pulse roared in my ears as the numbers climbed, higher and higher, men and women bartering over my life like it meant nothing.
I yanked harder at my restraints, ignoring the pain slicing across my wrists, desperate for any kind of give.
“Eighty thousand!” a gruff voice shouted from the back, and the leader’s grin widened.
“Eighty going once…” The warehouse doors exploded inward.
Splinters of wood and twisted metal flew across the room as bodies surged through the opening, and for one disorienting second, I thought rogue reinforcements had arrived to steal me away to some other buyer.
Then I saw him.
Darius stood framed in the wreckage of the doorway, chest heaving, eyes blazing gold with his wolf pushing right at the surface.
He hadn’t bothered with subtlety, hadn’t bothered with a quiet extraction.
He’d torn the doors clean off their hinges.
“Darius,” I breathed, and it came out half sob, half disbelief.
His gaze swept the room once before landing on me, and the fury that twisted across his face was unlike anything I’d ever seen.
A low growl tore from his throat, inhuman, promising violence to anyone stupid enough to get in his way.
Chaos erupted.
Buyers scrambled for exits, rogues who’d been guarding the perimeter shifted into their wolf forms, snarling and lunging at the men pouring in behind Darius.
I recognized one of them as Kieran, his beta, moving with brutal efficiency as he cut down anyone who dared stand between him and me.
“Get her!” the leader screamed, backing away from Darius like he’d seen death itself walk through that door.
“Kill the girl if you have to, just don’t let him…” He didn’t finish his sentence.
Darius crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, claws extended, and the sound that followed made my stomach turn.
“Lyra!” Darius’s voice cut through the chaos, and I watched him fight his way toward me, tearing through rogue after rogue like they were nothing more than paper.
“Darius, behind you!” I screamed, spotting movement in my peripheral vision, a rogue lunging at his exposed back with a blade glinting under the warehouse lights.
He spun just in time, catching the attacker’s wrist and snapping it with a sickening crack, but two more rogues surged forward to take the first one’s place, and then three more behind them, and I realized with dawning horror that this warehouse held far more men than I’d initially thought.
“There’s too many of them!” I shouted, straining against my restraints.
“Darius, watch out!” He didn’t listen, didn’t stop, cutting a bloody path straight toward me with singular, terrifying focus, and just as his fingers finally brushed against the ties binding my wrists, a sharp, agonized cry ripped from his throat.
I twisted my head to look at him, and my blood turned to ice.
A blade, buried deep in his side, and behind him, the leader’s twisted grin as he yanked the weapon free.