The night my father sold me, he didn't even look at my face.
He was too busy counting the money.
One bundle. Two. Three.
His fingers trembled as he stacked the crisp banknotes on our dining table, his eyes shining with a greed I had never seen directed at anything concerning me.
Not even when I was born.
"Is that all of it?" my mother asked.
"The first half." My father wet his thumb and separated another bundle. "The rest will be transferred once the marriage is completed."
Marriage.
The word lodged itself in my throat.
I was sixteen years old, and until that night, I had believed there were some things even my parents wouldn't do to me.
I was wrong.
But perhaps I should start at the beginning.
Before the money. Before the bargain. Before I learned that monsters didn't always have claws.
Sometimes, they wore expensive suits and called themselves fathers.
---
My name is Rose, and I have spent sixteen years learning how to be invisible.
In our house, invisibility is a survival skill.
I know which floorboards creak beneath my father's shoes. I know the exact moment my mother's mood turns sour, usually by the way she sets down her handbag. I know how to hold my breath when Jacinta is angry and how to disappear before she decides to make me the target of her boredom.
Most importantly, I know never to ask for anything.
Not food.
Not clothes.
Not love.
Love is an expensive thing in my family, and I was born too poor to afford it.
My parents wanted a son. They had decorated a nursery in blue, chosen a name for a boy, and announced to the entire family that their first child would carry on my father's name.
Then I arrived.
A girl.
My father didn't hold me until I was three days old. My mother refused to look at me for an entire week.
By the time my younger sister, Jacinta, was born, I had already learned that a child's worth could be determined before she ever opened her mouth.
Jacinta was everything I wasn't.
Beautiful. Cherished. Educated.
She attended an expensive school, wore dresses that smelled of perfume, and had a bedroom filled with things she barely used. Every birthday came with a cake, every achievement with a celebration, and every tear with someone rushing to wipe it away.
I had never celebrated a birthday.
I wasn't even certain my parents remembered the date.
My room was a narrow storage space behind the kitchen, barely large enough for a mattress and a wooden stool. When it rained, water crept beneath the door. When the weather grew cold, I wrapped myself in an old blanket and pretended the shivering was normal.
I ate alone in the backyard, using chipped plates and a plastic cup with a crack down its side.
I had never attended school.
I had never gone to church.
I had never been introduced to a family friend as their daughter.
To the outside world, I simply didn't exist.
Sometimes, when visitors came, my mother would lock the door to the backyard.
"Stay there," she would warn me. "And don't make a sound."
I always obeyed.
Because the few times I hadn't, I learned that silence was less painful than punishment.
Still, there was one thing I had never managed to kill inside myself.
Hope.
It was a foolish little thing, really. A stubborn spark that survived even when I tried to smother it.
Sometimes I imagined someone would discover me.
A distant relative, perhaps. A kind stranger. Someone who would look at me and wonder why a girl like me had been hidden away for so long.
Someone who would ask my name and actually want to hear the answer.
But fairy tales were for girls like Jacinta.
And I was no princess.
I was the girl who cleaned up after one.
---
The trouble began on a Tuesday.
I remember because it was the day Jacinta's favorite white dress was ruined.
She had been wearing it when she collapsed.
One moment, she was standing in the sitting room, complaining about a headache. The next, her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor with a terrible gasp.
My mother screamed.
My father shouted for the driver.
And for the first time in my life, everyone in the house moved as though something mattered more than their own comfort.
They rushed Jacinta to the hospital.
I stayed behind.
Nobody thought to tell me what had happened.
I found out three days later, when my mother returned home with swollen eyes and trembling hands.
Jacinta's heart was failing.
The doctors had explained everything in words I struggled to understand. Her condition was serious. Medication could only do so much. She needed a heart transplant, and the costs of the operation, treatment, and aftercare were far beyond what my parents could afford.
My father sold his car.
My mother emptied her savings.
They called relatives who suddenly seemed to have forgotten our family existed.
Nothing was enough.
For the first time, the golden child of our family was in danger, and money couldn't buy her a way out.
I should have felt nothing.
After all, Jacinta had spent years reminding me that I was unwanted. She had laughed when I wore torn clothes, called me ugly, and once locked me outside overnight because she said my presence ruined her mood.
But when I heard she might die, my stomach twisted.
I didn't want her to die.
I hated that I didn't want her to die.
Perhaps that was the cruelest thing about being unloved. Even when people hurt you, some foolish part of you still wants to be loved by them.
For several nights, I lay awake listening to my parents argue behind their bedroom door.
"We've tried everything," my mother whispered.
"Then we'll find something else."
"With what money, Daniel? Tell me where we're supposed to find that kind of money!"
Silence followed.
Then my father spoke again.
"There's always a way."
I didn't know what he meant.
Not then.
---
The advertisement appeared on a Thursday evening.
My father was watching the news in the sitting room. My mother sat beside him, staring blankly at her phone. I had been sent to bring them water, and I was just turning to leave when the television screen changed.
A photograph of a mansion appeared.
It stood behind towering iron gates, surrounded by dark trees and an enormous stretch of land. The building was beautiful in a way that made me uneasy, all black stone, sharp rooftops, and tall windows that reflected no light.
Then the photograph changed.
A man appeared on the screen.
He was dressed in black, his face partially obscured by the shadow of a hood. Even through the television, there was something unsettling about him. He stood perfectly still beside a massive black wolf.
The animal was enormous.
Its fur looked darker than the night surrounding it, and its yellow eyes seemed to stare directly through the camera.
I took an involuntary step backward.
The news anchor cleared her throat.
"An unusual announcement from one of the country's wealthiest and most reclusive businessmen has attracted widespread attention. According to an official statement released earlier today, the unnamed billionaire is offering an extraordinary sum to the family of a young woman willing to become the bride of his wolf."
My mother slowly lowered her phone.
My father leaned forward.
I stared at the screen, waiting for the news anchor to laugh and admit it was some ridiculous joke.
She didn't.
"The terms of the arrangement remain unclear. Representatives have declined to comment on why the businessman intends to arrange a marriage involving the animal, although sources close to the family describe the offer as legally binding and financially substantial."
A figure appeared at the bottom of the screen.
The amount was so large that I had to read it twice.
Then a third time.
My father stood up.
"Did you see that?"
My mother was already reaching for her phone.
"That's enough money to save Jacinta."
I looked from her to my father.
Something cold began to spread through my chest.
They weren't laughing.
They weren't horrified.
They weren't even questioning whether the announcement was real.
They were calculating.
For the first time in sixteen years, my parents looked as though they had remembered they had another daughter.
And I suddenly wished they would forget me again.
---
That night, I couldn't sleep.
I kept thinking about the wolf's yellow eyes.
There had been something strange about them. Something almost human in the way they watched the camera, as though the animal knew exactly what was being said about it.
As though it understood every word.
I told myself it was impossible.
Wolves didn't marry people.
Billionaires didn't buy brides for animals.
And parents didn't sell their daughters to save the children they loved more.
But then I remembered my father counting the money on the television screen with his eyes.
I remembered my mother's sudden silence.
And I remembered the way they had looked at each other.
Not with horror.
With hope.
A soft knock sounded at my door.
I sat up.
Nobody knocked on my door.
Nobody came to see me unless they wanted something.
"Rose?" my mother called.
I climbed off my mattress and opened the door.
She stood in the hallway wearing her best silk nightdress. Her face had been carefully made up, and there was a strange brightness in her eyes.
For a moment, I wondered whether she had finally come to tell me I could attend school.
Perhaps she would say I could sit at the dining table from now on.
Perhaps she would apologize.
The thought was so ridiculous that I nearly laughed.
"We need to talk," she said.
I lowered my gaze.
"Yes, Mama."
She stepped into my room and glanced around as if seeing it for the first time.
Her eyes lingered on the damp patch spreading across the wall.
"You can't stay here forever, Rose."
My heart gave a small, foolish leap.
"Am I going somewhere?"
She smiled.
It was the first time I could remember seeing her smile at me.
"Yes, darling."
Darling.
The word felt foreign coming from her mouth.
"You're going to do something wonderful for this family."
I didn't understand.
She reached out and smoothed my tangled hair, and I stood perfectly still, afraid that if I moved, the moment would disappear.
Then she said the words that destroyed the last little piece of hope I had left.
"You're going to marry someone."
I stared at her.
"Who?"
Her smile faltered.
"The man on the television has made us an offer."
My mouth went dry.
"The man with the wolf?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she took my hands in hers.
"Jacinta is dying, Rose. You understand that, don't you?"
I nodded slowly.
"We've done everything we can for her. Your father and I have sacrificed so much."
I wanted to ask what they had sacrificed for me.
But I already knew the answer.
Nothing.
"That man can save your sister," she continued. "All he needs is a bride."
I pulled my hands away.
"But why me?"
For the first time, my mother looked genuinely annoyed.
"Because you have no responsibilities here. You don't go to school. You don't work. You have nothing to lose."
Nothing to lose.
I wondered if she could hear how cruel those words sounded.
"I'm sixteen," I whispered.
"And Jacinta is dying!"
Her voice cracked through the room.
I flinched.
My mother took a breath, straightened her nightdress, and looked at me with the cold practicality of someone discussing the sale of an old piece of furniture.
"The money will pay for the transplant. Your sister will live, and our family will never have to worry about money again."
"And what happens to me?"
She looked away.
Just for a second.
But that second told me everything.
"You'll be taken care of."
"By the man who wants me to marry his wolf?"
Her jaw tightened.
"Don't be difficult, Rose. This is an opportunity. Girls would kill for the kind of money he's offering."
"Then let one of them marry the wolf."
The slap came so quickly that I barely saw her hand move.
My cheek burned.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then my mother leaned closer.
"Your father has already agreed."
My stomach dropped.
"The papers will be signed tomorrow."
She turned toward the door.
I stared at her retreating back, unable to make my feet move.
"Mama?"
She stopped.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
"Does he know I'm sixteen?"
Her shoulders stiffened.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she looked back at me.
"He knows everything he needs to know."
And she left.
I stood alone in the doorway long after her footsteps disappeared.
Outside, the wind rattled the loose windowpane.
Somewhere in the distance, a dog began to howl.
I pressed my hand against my burning cheek and tried to understand how a person could be born into a family and still have nowhere to belong.
By morning, I would be a bride.
Not to a man.
Not even to a monster I could understand.
But to a wolf whose owner was rich enough to buy a human life and strange enough to want mine.
I should have been terrified of the animal.
I was.
But as I lay awake that night, one question frightened me more than anything else.
Why would a man who could have any woman in the world pay a fortune for a girl nobody wanted?
And why, when I closed my eyes, did I keep remembering the wolf's stare?
Those golden eyes.
That terrible stillness.
That impossible, unsettling feeling that the creature on the television hadn't been looking at the camera at all.
It had been looking for me.
And somewhere beyond the city, behind the iron gates of a mansion that appeared on no ordinary map, a wolf lifted his head.
His ears twitched.
His golden eyes opened.
"Rose," a man's voice whispered into the darkness.
The wolf bared his teeth.
Because the bride had finally been chosen.
And this time, the bargain would be paid in blood.