Ownership

The hall went quiet before he even entered.

Odessa led them in under the glow of the braziers, two more female Betas flanking the line, leather armor creaking with every step. The women had been scrubbed raw and dressed in plain wool the color of ash. Their wet hair gleamed in the firelight, and their eyes stayed fixed on the floor. All but one.

Scarlett’s silver hair had been combed clean and braided loosely down her back, and it caught the light like a blade. Her honey-brown eyes moved over the vast hall, across the towering pillars and the shadows between them, and she did not lower her gaze once. The simple gray dress hung plainly on her. It did nothing to hide who she was.

Then the doors opened and Alpha Lycan Winter Drayonne walked in with his midnight cloak trailing behind him like a shadow he’d brought with him, armor glinting cold under the fire. August Saffron stayed at his heel, amber eyes sweeping the room with easy, practiced watchfulness. But no one was looking at August.

A scar cut a pale line through Winter’s left eye, from brow to cheek. It should have been a flaw. Instead it sharpened everything about his face, the storm-gray eyes, the stillness, the way a room seemed to bend around him.

“That’s him. The voice from the inn. One thousand gold.” Her stomach clenched.

He moved along the line slowly, studying each woman the way a hunter studies a herd. One by one they shrank from his gaze. One girl actually whimpered. He stopped in front of Scarlett and she lifted her chin.

The silence stretched. The braziers hissed. For one long heartbeat the hall seemed to narrow until it held only the two of them, his gray eyes locked on hers, calculating, patient, heavy as frost settling across a window. She did not flinch.

August stepped up behind him and murmured at his ear. “That’s the one from the inn, my lord. The silver-haired purchase.”

Purchase.

Winter’s face did not change, but he nodded slightly. “I know. I remember.”

Something snapped inside Scarlett. “I am not a slave!”

The words rang off the pillars and the other Omegas gasped. Someone stifled a cry. A whip cracked and pain lashed across the back of Scarlett’s calf, white-hot, and a small, sharp scream ripped out of her before she could stop it. Her knee buckled, but she did not fall.

Odessa had already raised the whip again when Winter lifted one hand, barely, and the Beta froze. She lowered her arm and bowed. Winter’s gaze returned to Scarlett. The scar through his eye lent a savage edge to the calm of his expression, and when he spoke, each word landed like a hammer on stone.

“Yet you were bought.” He tilted his head slightly. “Were you not?”

Scarlett’s lips parted, yet nothing came out. Because the memory hit her all at once: her father’s blood going cold against her knees, Leander’s smirk across the table, Skye’s voice saying “Take her”. The word traitor in Ramona’s mouth. Every defense she had ever believed in. All of it, gone. She was standing in a stranger’s hall, and a stranger had paid for her like a horse.

He stepped closer. His cloak whispered across the floor. She felt herself pull back before she could stop it.

“Five thousand gold coins,” he said quietly. The words cut deeper for being so calm. “That makes you the most expensive slave I own.”

He turned to Odessa without waiting for a response. “See that this one is handled with care.” His eyes slid back to Scarlett for a single beat. “For now.”

For now.

Her hands shook at her sides. The fire inside her was still there, but it had gone small and tight, pressed down under the weight of his ownership. He looked at her a moment longer, and the silence pulled taut as a bowstring. Then he turned away.

“Assign their roles,” he ordered, his voice rolling off the stone like distant thunder. “Make sure they serve without fault. The Luna requires unwavering care.”

Odessa bowed her head. Winter gave August a curt nod, and the two of them strode from the hall, their footsteps fading into the corridor, leaving the room cold and charged and strangely empty. Scarlett realized she had been holding her breath.

Odessa wasted no time. “You four,” she said, pointing, “silver-hair included, to the Luna’s service. Anticipate her needs. Her time draws near. The rest, with me.”

Scarlett and three wide-eyed women were handed off to Jada, another female Beta, slim and quiet, who walked with the unhurried authority of someone who had never had to raise her voice. She led them through a maze of corridors, up stairs, past rooms Scarlett couldn’t name, and into a hidden wing draped in silk, where the air smelled faintly of lavender and secrets.

The harem. The sleeping quarters were humble. Narrow bunks stacked against cold stone. Wool mattresses thin as promises.

“Don’t look so grim,” Jada said, watching Scarlett’s face. “Ranks aren’t carved in stone here. I came in chains too. An Omega, just like you. Broken, just like you.” Her eyes drifted to Scarlett’s silver braid. “Alpha Winter is as cold as they say. But he rewards honest work. In this pack, you rise by what you do, not by what you were.”

Scarlett’s eyes narrowed. She did not believe in kindness anymore.

“Rest while you can,” Jada added. “I’ll be back at dawn to drill you in your duties and present you to the Luna.” She slipped back into the shadows.

The other women whispered in the dark, trading fears in low voices. Scarlett climbed into her narrow bunk and lay staring at the stone above her, the blanket scratching her skin.

Most expensive slave.

She turned the words over in her mind, and instead of shame, what rose in her was something harder. Something that had been burning ever since the moment Skye’s hand had pointed at her.

He thought he had bought a servant. Let him think so. For now.