Dionne
I couldn't see who'd spoken, the lights completely obscured the rear section, but something about that voice made my wolf stir despite the collar's suppression.
The man with the cruel lips paused, his smile faltering for just a moment before returning with a harder edge. But he lowered himself back to his seat and didn't counter the bid
No one did.
"One million going once." The announcer's voice had taken on a slightly nervous quality. "Going twice." A pause that felt like an eternity. "Sold! For one million dollars to the gentleman in the back."
The crowd erupted in a mix of applause and disappointed groans. I stood frozen, my mind struggling to process what had just happened. Someone had just spent a million dollars to buy me and my daughter.
A million dollars?
What could they possibly want from us that was worth that much money?
The short man appeared at the edge of the stage, practically vibrating with excitement. His face was flushed, his eyes gleaming with greed as he climbed up to retrieve us.
"I knew it!" He grabbed my arm, pulling me off the stage with Nora clutched in his other hand. "I knew you'd fetch a ridiculous sum! The patrons love a good omen, and a rogue omega? That's practically a legend walking! Your new owner must be a believer of the old ways to spend as much. He probably thinks you're about to make him a billionaire. Those idiots." He cackled.
He dragged us through a side door, into a smaller room that appeared to be some kind of preparation area. The walls were bare concrete, and there was a single metal table with paperwork scattered across it.
"Sit down and don't move," he commanded, shoving us toward a corner. "Your buyer will come to collect you shortly. I need to finalize the paperwork."
He moved to the table, his fingers trembling slightly as he sorted through the documents. I could see the sweat on his brow, the way his hands shook with barely contained excitement. A million dollars. That was probably more than he'd made in the last year combined.
I immediately pulled Nora into my arms, holding her as tightly as I dared.
"It's going to be okay," I whispered, even though we both knew it was a lie. "Mama's here. I won't let anything happen to you."
"I want to go home," she sobbed into my shoulder. "I want Callum."
"I know, baby. I know." I rocked her gently, my own tears falling into her hair. Home. It had barely been that, but it had been ours.
I didn't even know if Callum was still alive. Had they executed him? Thrown him in a cell? Or had he managed to talk his way out of it like he'd promised?
The man was still rifling through papers when the first explosion happened.
The entire building shook. Dust rained down from the ceiling. The lights flickered once, twice, then went out completely, plunging us into darkness before emergency lighting kicked in, bathing everything in an eerie red glow.
"What the hell?" The short man's voice cracked with fear as he stumbled away from the table.
Screams erupted from somewhere in the facility. Not the screams of the captive women, these were different. These were the screams of men.
Another explosion, closer this time. The door to our room rattled in its frame.
"We're under attack!" someone shouted in the hallway. "Get to the exits! Get out!"
The short man's face went pale. He looked at us, then at the door, clearly torn between protecting his investment and saving his own skin. Greed won out. He moved toward us, his expression hardening.
"You're worth a million dollars," he said, his voice shaking. "I'm not losing that. You're staying right here until your buyer comes, or until I can get you somewhere safe."
He positioned himself between us and the door, as if his soft, round body could somehow shield us from whatever chaos was happening outside.
The sounds grew louder. Gunfire now, sharp cracks that echoed through the concrete walls. More screams.
The door suddenly burst open with such force that it flew off its hinges entirely, slamming into the opposite wall with a deafening crash.
The short man barely had time to turn before the figure was on him.
I saw it happen as if in slow motion. The creature that came through that door moved with inhuman speed, covering the distance between the entrance and the short man in less than a heartbeat. It was caught between forms, neither fully human nor fully wolf. The shape was wrong, too tall, too broad, with limbs that bent at angles that shouldn't be possible.
Its eyes glowed pure gold, cutting through the red emergency lighting like twin suns.
The short man opened his mouth to scream. He never got the chance.
The creature's clawed hand shot forward, catching him by the throat. There was a wet, tearing sound, and suddenly the man who'd looked so proud just minutes ago was squished. Blood sprayed across the concrete in an arc, splashing against the walls, the table, everything.
I screamed. The sound tore from my throat involuntarily, raw and primal. I twisted, putting myself between Nora and the creature, trying to shield her with my body.
"Don't look, baby. Don't look." I pressed her face against my chest, covering her eyes with my hand. She was shaking so hard I could feel it in my bones. Or maybe that was me shaking. I couldn't tell anymore.
The creature turned toward us.
In the red emergency lighting, covered in blood that looked black instead of red, it looked like something out of a nightmare. The body was human-shaped, but everything else was wrong. The face was elongated, caught between human and wolf. The mouth full of fangs that were too long, too sharp. The hands tipped with claws that gleamed wet and dark.
This was it. This was how we died. Not sold to some cruel master, but torn apart by whatever this monster was.
The creature took a step toward us, and I pressed myself harder against the wall, trying to make myself smaller, trying to disappear. There was nowhere to run.
"Please," I heard myself whisper, though I knew it was useless. Monsters didn't understand mercy. "Please, not her. She's just a baby. Please."
The creature stopped.
For a moment, we stared at each other across a room painted in blood and lit by emergency lights. Those gold eyes fixed on me, and I couldn't look away. Couldn't move. Couldn't even breathe.
Then something shifted. The glow in those eyes flickered, like a candle flame guttering in the wind. The creature's body convulsed, muscles rippling beneath skin that looked too tight. Bones cracked audibly as they shifted, rearranged, became more human-shaped.
Within seconds, the monster was gone.
In its place stood a man.
The man from the hallway. The one I'd collided with earlier, whose touch had burned through the thin fabric of my costume like fire.
But he looked different now. There was blood running down from a cut on his forehead, staining the side of his face. His expensive suit was torn and spattered with more blood. And his eyes, those eyes that had been gray before, still glowed with that impossible gold, though the light was fading as I watched.
He swayed slightly, like he was struggling to maintain his balance. His hand came up to his face, and I saw it was trembling. When he spoke, his voice was rough, strained, like it hurt to form words.
He took a step back, putting more distance between us. "Are you hurt?" He asked, his voice was hoarse.
I couldn't respond. My throat had closed up completely, and my wolf was doing something strange. Instead of cowering in terror, she was pushing forward against the collar's suppression, whimpering in a way I'd never heard before. It wasn't fear. It was something else. Something that made no sense.
Recognition.
But that was impossible. I'd never seen this man before in my life. And he'd just killed someone right in front of me. I should be terrified. I was terrified.
So why did part of me want to move toward him instead of away?
The man's eyes, still holding that faint golden glow, swept over me, taking in the revealing costume, the bruises, the collar around my neck. Something dark and violent flickered across his face before he controlled it.
"Can you walk?" he asked again, his voice still rough but more controlled now.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
"Good." He moved to the side, clearing a path to the door. "We need to get you out of here. Both of you. This place is coming down."