The Wolf King

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!"