Chapter 1 Sold

Lyrianna's POV

Let me...me go!" I screamed once more.

The rope around my wrists burned as they dragged me across the uneven stone floor. My knees scraped against it, leaving little smears of blood that no one cared about. I had been screaming at first, until my throat grew raw and dry. Now my voice was little more than a hoarse rasp, swallowed by the din of the marketplace that pulsed beyond the door.

"Keep her quiet," one of the men snapped. His name was Garrick, I remembered because he'd been the first to clamp a sack over my head the night I was taken. He was thick-necked, his breath always smelling of garlic and ale. He tugged hard on the rope until I stumbled, slamming into his companion's back.

He yanked the rope hard enough to jolt me forward. I slammed into the wiry man ahead of us, Fen, whose eyes were like needles, pricking wherever they landed. Always watching. Always calculating.

"Don't damage her," Fen muttered, his voice cold and clinical. "Her face is what sells."

Her face. Not me. Not Lyrianna Starweaver, daughter of Alpha Stellan of the Moonwhisper Pack. Just a face. Just flesh. Just an omega who had no wolf to guard her.

I wanted to spit at them. To curse. To shout that my father would send an army to tear them limb from limb. But the words curdled on my tongue. Because in the back of my mind, curling tighter with every step, was a whisper that tasted of dread.

What if they weren't coming?

The men shoved me through a curtain into a wash of blinding light. Heat hit me next, thick and suffocating, mixed with the stench of sweat, blood, and burned fur. The noise rolled over me like a crashing tide, jeers, laughter, bargaining.

"There she is!" someone shouted.

"Too skinny."

"Her breasts are firm. Beautiful face, but wolfless."

"Wolfless, though. Useless for anything but breeding."

The crowd's laughter was sharp as knives.

I blinked hard until my vision cleared and then bile rose in my throat. The hall was lined with cages. Not with bodies. With...light and other younger girls around my age, some have bloody shirts and scars with a face of lost hope.

Orbs of color, blue, gold, crimson swirling, pulsing as if alive. Wolf essences. Torn from their hosts, stripped and sold like bottled fire.

I staggered, stomach twisting. Children's tales had spoken of this, whispered in warning around firepits. But seeing it here, seeing proof of wolves ripped from souls made my insides heave.

A shove between my shoulders sent me stumbling onto a raised platform. Garrick snapped iron cuffs around my wrists, chaining me to a post at its center. My heart slammed against my ribs, frantic, like a bird in a snare.

A man in shiny red robes raised his arms. "Lot twenty-three! A virgin Omega, wolfless, yet bred of noble blood. Unmated purity!"

The crowd roared, hungry.

Heat crawled up my neck as eyes raked me from head to toe. Their gazes were hands, greedy, lingering. My skin prickled with shame I could not scrub away.

"They'll come for me," I whispered to myself, lips cracked and bleeding as the words scraped out.

"Father will come. My brothers-"

All of a sudden, I saw him.

My eldest brother, Keir Starweaver.

He stood at the edge of the crowd, tall, red hair bound tightly. His stance was rigid, arms folded across his chest. When his gaze met mine, I searched desperately for fury, for shock, for any sign he'd come charging to drag me home.

But there was nothing.

Only stone. Cold command.

The blade slid in quietly, twisting without mercy.

It was him. His order. His choice. Keir, who had never liked me but still has protected me once. Keir, who now stood silent as I was paraded like cattle. He sold me? What about Asher...Sage...my father?

Moon goddess... Why had they forsaken me?

"No." The word broke from me, fragile and small. My knees trembled. "No, please-"

"Start the bidding!"

The air fractured.

"Two hundred!"

"Three!"

"Five!"

Numbers flew, shouted over one another. I tried to keep up, but they blurred into a sickening rhythm. My ears rang, drowning beneath the weight of voices.

"She's wolfless!" a man barked.

"Breed her, see if she is strong!" another jeered.

Hot shame bled down my spine. My nails dug crescent moons into my palms. I wanted to scream that I wasn't broken, that I was more than an empty womb. But even if I had shouted, not a soul here would have listened.

And then silence fell.

A voice cut through the noise. Calm. Low yet Dangerous.

"One thousand."

The crowd hissed. Heads snapped to find the source.

Seated apart from the others, cloaked in shadow, was a man in a dark mask. He didn't move. He didn't shout. He simply existed, and the room bent around him.

"Fifteen hundred!" another bidder snapped.

"Two thousand," the masked man countered, effortless.

The auction house erupted again, numbers climbing, fury swelling but each time, he matched and raised, unflinching.

Until no one dared to fight him further.

"Sold!" The gavel cracked like thunder. "Sold to the masked bidder for three thousand!"

Chains rattled as Garrick released me, shoving me toward the edge of the stage. My knees buckled, but I forced them straight. If I was dragged like an animal, I would at least lift my chin.

Inside, though, I was crumbling.

They led me into a smaller chamber, the noise of the market muffled behind stone. Cold air bit at my skin. My pulse pounded as the masked man stepped forward. He was taller than I'd realized, his shoulders broad, his presence filling the space.

I bit the inside of my cheek, forcing words through the crack in my throat. "Do you...do you know what they've done? I was taken against my will. My family will-"

"Your family sold you."

The words hit harder than Garrick's rope, harder than the iron shackles. They shattered the last fragile piece of hope I had clung to.

My chest hollowed. The air felt thin.

"I'll escape," I whispered, clinging to the only weapon left to me. "Even if it kills me."

His head tilted, as if considering whether to laugh.

With deliberate calm, he lifted his mask.

My breath caught.

He was devastating. Dark hair framed a face too perfect to be real, the kind that made weak hearts worship and strong ones falter. His cheekbones were sharp, his mouth sculpted with quiet cruelty, his eyes forged from ruthlessness. Looking at him felt like drowning and burning at once.

Then it hit me like lightning tearing through bone and marrow. My blood ignited, my lungs forgot how to breathe. The bond snapped into place, undeniable and cruel.

"Mate," I whispered, the word escaping before I could stop it.

For the barest heartbeat, his eyes widened, something flickered across his face, recognition, shock, the same pull that gripped me. But then it was gone, replaced with cold disgust.

I wanted to recoil, to demand why the Moon Goddess would chain me to him. But before I could, his voice slithered where no voice should ever go.

Inside my mind.

"You think of escape."

I stiffened, my breath faltering. My thoughts weren't spoken. They were mine. Yet he heard them. How...How? Not even the Goddess was meant to hear my thoughts. How could he?

His lips curved, not in kindness, but cruelty. "Your father doesn't even know it was me who bought you. He'll find out soon enough."

He leaned closer, as if savoring my horror.

"And when he does, there will be nothing he can do."