Auctioned To Five Beasts

Lyria

Cold metal bit into my hip before I even remembered that I had a body.

Light came next. White, harsh, and fucking bright, pressing against my eyelids until they watered. I dragged one arm over my face, only to realize I was naked. Completely fucking naked. There was no sheet or gown. Nothing between my skin and the metal grate digging into my ribs.

I jerked upright and cracked my skull against iron bars.

A fucking cage. What the fuck?

The sound that tore out of me was somewhere between a gasp and a scream. My knees snapped against my chest as panic took over. One hand flew over my breasts while the other shoved between my thighs, but neither was big enough to cover me properly. The metal grate left a square pattern across my shin. Somewhere beyond the blinding lights, a man laughed. Low and amused, like he had paid for the fucking view and intended to enjoy every second of it.

“Hey.” My voice came out rough and dry. “Hey! Where am I?”

No one answered me.

I blinked hard until the room stopped swimming, and when my vision finally cleared, I realized I was surrounded by money. Chandeliers hung in long rows above me, their crystals throwing sharp pieces of light across black suits and polished shoes. Round tables filled the enormous room. Crystal glasses, gold rims, and men.

Every person I saw was a man, and every one of them was turned toward me the way people turn toward a stage when the show is about to begin. I searched desperately for a woman. A server. A guard. Anyone with a softer face. There was no one. Just expensive collars, perfect cuffs, watches that probably cost more than my father’s house, and mouths leaning close to other mouths as they whispered about me.

“Only one?” someone said, not bothering to lower his voice.

“They said there would be a full lot.”

“Look at her.”

I looked at them, and I wished I had not.

A man at the nearest table had his jacket open and his trousers undone. He was not hiding what he was doing. His hand moved over himself in plain sight while he stared at my breasts. The man beside him had his trousers open too, one hand resting between his thighs like he had forgotten there was a room around him. No shame. No attempt to turn away. They looked at me the way starving men look at a plate, and none of them seemed to have seen a woman in their lives.

My stomach rolled. I dragged my eyes away and found another. Then another. Hands under tables. Trousers open over expensive cloth. One beast with a gold ring on his finger moved his hand faster, breath hitching, and his eyes never left the gap between my knees.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “Fuck, look at her.”

Heat crawled up my throat and spread across my face. I curled tighter, trying to make myself smaller, but the cage was too cramped even for that. My shoulder hit iron. My heel struck another bar. The air smelled of expensive cologne, cold metal, and the sharp, sweet chemical scent of whatever they had used to clean this fucking cage before putting me inside it.

A choked sound cut through the whispers. The man with the gold ring bowed over his hand. His body jerked, and a moment later, he reached for a napkin without taking his eyes off me. He had not even bothered to look away. The sight of me naked had been enough.

I gagged. Bile burned the back of my tongue. I had never seen a man behave like this, not openly, not because I had the bad luck to wake up without clothes. I pressed my face to my knee and still heard him panting.

“Ten million for the door,” he said, wrecked and pleased, wiping his hand on a napkin like it was nothing. “Not a waste. I got to finish looking at a real woman.”

The words landed worse than the sight.

Ten million. Just to walk in. Just to look at me and finish. If a seat at this auction cost that much, what were they about to pay for the rest of me? My skin went cold under the lights. I was not a guest in this room. I was the reason they had bought a ticket.

Fragments slammed into my head, arriving too quickly for me to hold onto any of them.

My father’s kitchen. A letter with a red stamp across the front. His hands shaking around a glass he should not have been holding. Debt, he said. Not the bank. Worse than the bank. Then there was a clinic that did not look like any clinic I had ever seen. White tiles. A man in pale medical scrubs who refused to look me in the eyes. A needle. The sting in the crook of my arm. Someone saying compatible while I struggled to sit up.

Then nothing.

Then this.

“What the hell did you do to me?” I slammed my palm against the bars. The metallic clang cut through the room and seemed to reach every chandelier above me. “Answer me! What did you put in me? Where is my father?”

A few heads turned toward me. Most of the men did not even react. One lifted his glass and took a slow drink while openly staring at the curve of my waist, his other hand still moving beneath the rim of the table. Another leaned sideways in his chair, trying to see past my raised knee, trousers open, no effort made to cover himself. I yanked my legs even tighter against myself and hated every bastard in the room for making me feel as though covering my body was somehow part of their entertainment.

A door opened at the side of the room.

The man who entered walked as though the entire floor had been built specifically for his shoes. His silver hair was swept neatly back, and his black suit did not have a single wrinkle. His smile looked practiced, like he had worn it in rooms far worse than this one. He stopped at the edge of the light and rested one hand on a slim stand while keeping the other casually tucked into his pocket. Then he looked at me the way a man might look at an expensive watch he already owns.

“Gentlemen.” His voice filled the hall without effort. “Welcome back. For those of you who have waited your five years with something resembling patience, I am Lucius Mercer. The house is open.”

Five years?

The words caught somewhere inside my head. I did not understand what they meant, but I understood his smile.