Page 4

Chills break out over my skin, and not just because I’m wearing practically nothing up here on this stage. Around me, torches and lamps flicker, casting the crowd in shadows and making them look even more sinister. Cool air breezes through, indicative of the harsh desert night.

And Dorian Fields is in the crowd, staring at me. He might be mostly hidden by the hood of that cloak, but I would recognize him anywhere. Those eyes, dark blue like nothing I’ve ever seen, the shading of stubble on his jaw, that particular movement in his face.

Everything about him is black and blue. The thick hair on his arms, the locks falling over his forehead. Even from here, I can see a snaking tattoo around his collar, peeking out above his shirt.

“Looks like she’ll make a good servant.”

The tone of his voice is too familiar—the way it trailed after me down the school hallways, taunting and jovial. My brother is joining in. The humiliation, how I’d walk as fast as I could to get away from them, but my legs were just so short. Not easy to get away.

I hate how seeing him makes me feel seventeen again. Even with all the work I’ve done, finding and building a life that makes me happy.

Or at least, that made me happy.

For the millionth time since opening the door to Jerrod’s crony, my mind runs through what happened to me. He, hauling me up to Jerrod’s ridiculous, pueblo-style mansion on the outskirts of Badlands. Through the window, I watched as the massive gates creaked open, letting us through.

Grabbed again, I was dragged into the main hall, where Jarred was pacing back and forth, practically foaming at the mouth. The moment we walked in, he walked over to me, snarled, and hit me so hard across the face I blacked out for a moment.

The others in the room—his friends, cronies, elders in the community—at least had the presence to look ashamed, uncomfortable. Back in my old pack, we’d heard stories of abusive alphas, men and women with power who just shouldn’t have had it. Those who would light up with the gleeful joy of hurting another.

Shocked, and holding my cheek, I looked up at him, hating the tears that sprang to my eyes.

“Where. Is. It?” he ground out, spit flying from his mouth, the fury so palpable I could choke on it. In the huge front hall, his voice echoed.

“What—” I didn’t even manage to get a word out before he was grabbing me by the shoulders, shaking me hard. Demanding to know what happened to the pack’s supply of precious stones, gems.

As a non-shifter, I’m aware of the stones. I know that they’re important to the shifters, but the specifics are hazy. I took history, science, but never the shifter-specific courses, designed to show them how to use their abilities. Teaching them about the process.

I’d see them sometimes, heading out to the scrubby trees behind the school, knowing they were going out there to shift. To learn about hunting in those forms. Only once did I catch a glimpse of a student in his wolf form.

Dorian, a flash of onyx past the window, his blue, blue eyes meeting mine through the window, before turning away, his body disappearing into the brush.

It was just another way I was left out at school. An anomaly. Except because I claimed my gift, spoke of it, the other non-shifters wanted nothing to do with me, either.

But Jarred didn’t care that I’d have no use for them as a non-shifter. He grilled me, asking who I sold them to, how I got someone inside his house. In doing so, he revealed that his basement was the holding spot for the stones, and I almost pointed out that it could be his fault, loose-lipped even now.

I didn’t say anything, and had no idea what happened to them, of course. But what I’d told him the night before, my premonition, hearing it’s gone, it’s all gone , convinced him that I was messing with him, that I knew something about the theft that was going to occur.

For him, and everyone else, it would make much more sense for me to organize a theft against my pack and alpha than to genuinely have a gift.

When I couldn't provide them with any information—because I had none to give—Jarred turned on his heel, brought his mouth close to my ear, and spat, “Well, if you aren’t going to tell us where to find the stones, I guess you’re just going to have to pay for them yourself, Kira .”

Now, the auctioneer booms, “We’ve got fifty-one! Any other bids?”

Someone across the crowd calls out. The bids are mixed with jeering, scathing comments about my body. Of course I was hauled off in this nightgown, not allowed to change into something different. When I sewed it, adding the cheeky little slit, I’d admired it in the mirror, thinking nobody else would ever see it. If I were the only one, it would be a treat for myself. To feel good, powerful, sexy.

But now, standing in it, my body on display, I just feel exposed. Dirty. If my hands weren’t cuffed in front of me, I’d tug on the hem, cover my thighs.

I remember sitting in front of the sewing machine, lovingly making it. The excitement of wearing it for the first time. My mind conjures the image of my little sewing nook in my house, all the fabric I thrifted and hunted for. By now, Jarred has probably let anyone in the pack pick through it, or auctioned that off, too.

Grief calls in my throat for my little house. The homemade syrups in the fridge, the herbs on the windowsill. All the curtains I sewed, the work I did to build a place for myself and make it home.

“Fifty-two!” the auctioneer points across the crowd to someone else holding up their hand. “Going at fifty-two.”

To my shock, Dorian holds his hand up lazily, like he can’t be bothered, and says, “Fine. Guess I’ll do fifty-three.”

My heart beats so hard in my chest, I wonder if they can see it, all the people staring up at me, the way it’s shaking my entire body, like it’s trying to reach right through my rib cage. What’s worse—being sold to some random in this crowd, or going with Dorian?

Gaze traveling over the crowd, I take in the different species, the shifting eyes, the blatant hunger in some of the stares. These are the very same men who would spit at me, call me disgusting, all while thinly veiling their lust for my body.

“Other bids?” the auctioneer looks giddily around, almost like he’s disappointed that there won’t be more fighting. “Going, going—”

I suck in a breath, eyes finally landing on Dorian again. He’s staring up at me, face passive, slack. It doesn’t make any sense—why buy me when I was once a part of his pack, and cast out? Why bring me back when it was obvious nobody wanted me there?

My mind turns over his comment about having a servant. Dorian was a bully in high school—cruel, sometimes viciously so. But he never touched me. I was very aware of the fact that our skin never came in contact, that no matter how mean he was, it was always verbal.

So what would he do with me now? Surely he wouldn’t actually take me in as a servant. And, given my low standing as an omega—completely unwanted, thanks to the incident—why would he want to be seen with me?

It’s possible that Dorian could be even worse than I remember. My cheek stings with the memory of Jerrod’s hand across my face, and I feel a flash of dread through my body.

Leaving the pack doesn’t mean I know nothing of what’s happening over there. News travels, which means I know that Dorian fulfilled his grandfather’s wish and took over as the alpha leader of the pack. I know that Emin is on the council with him.

But what I don’t know is what the hell Dorian wants with me. What he’s doing at this market, in Grayhide territory. If Jarred found out—if any of the shifters from the Grayhide pack found out—Dorian would be ripped to shreds. Even the most powerful shifter couldn’t take on dozens of other shifters at once, and I’ve seen how Jarred and his men treat trespassers.

With the bad blood between the packs, and the chaos it would cause if Jarred killed their alpha, Dorian being here is a huge risk. And yet, here he is.

The auctioneer’s loud voice next to my ear cuts me off, and he runs a finger down the side of my arm, eliciting yet another shift as he calls out, “—gone! Sold to this gentleman in the hood. Fifty-three thousand. Please bring your payment forward.”

I watch Dorian push through the crowd, blood turning to ice in my veins.

Whether I want to or not, I’m going home.