The Auction Block

The sedative wore off slowly, like waking up from a nightmare I couldn't escape.

My head throbbed with each heartbeat. When I tried to move my hands, metal bit into my wrists so hard I gasped. My eyes wouldn't focus—everything was blurred red and shadow.

Then the blur sharpened, and I wished it hadn't.

I was kneeling on a platform. The stone beneath my knees was so cold it burned through the thin fabric of my dress. Not my usual jeans and paint-stained sweater, but some kind of white ceremonial gown that clung to my skin like a burial shroud.

Chains. Heavy iron cuffs locked around my wrists, connected to a bolt in the floor. I pulled. The metal didn't budge. I pulled harder. My skin tore, hot blood trickling down my palms.

"She's waking up," someone whispered from the darkness beyond the platform.

My breath came in short, shallow bursts. I couldn't get enough air. The dress was too tight. The room was too big. My vision started to tunnel.

*No. No, don't pass out. Stay awake. Figure out where you are.*

I forced myself to look up.

The room was massive—Gothic arches disappearing into shadows, blood-red stained glass casting everything in crimson light. And in the seats before me sat dozens of the most beautiful, terrifying people I'd ever seen.

Too still. Too perfect. Eyes that caught the candlelight and threw it back like mirrors.

My throat closed up completely.

*Vampires.*

"Oh god," I whispered. My voice cracked on the words. "This is real."

A man in a silver-gray suit stepped onto the platform. He smiled down at me—the kind of smile that never reached the eyes. Cold. Transactional.

"Ladies and gentlemen of Crimson Hollow Academy," he announced, his voice booming through the chamber. "We now present Lot Number Seven. Seraphina Ashford, age nineteen. Delivered to settle the Ashford blood debt, as stipulated in the contract of 1723."

The words hit me like a fist to the stomach.

"Wait—" I tried to stand. The chains yanked me back down so hard my knees slammed into stone. Pain exploded through my legs. "There's been a mistake. I don't—my mom never said—"

*Mom. Mom, what did you do?*

My eyes burned. I blinked hard, refusing to cry in front of these monsters.

The auctioneer didn't even glance at me. "Bidding starts at fifty thousand."

Fifty thousand. They were selling me.

A woman in the front row raised one elegant hand. Ice-blonde hair, emerald dress that probably cost more than my life. "Fifty thousand," she said, examining her nails like she was buying furniture.

My hands curled into fists. The chains rattled. "I'm not—you can't just—"

"Sixty thousand." A man with dark red hair leaned forward in his seat, eyes locked on me like I was prey.

I yanked at the chains again. Blood smeared across my wrists. The pain felt distant, like it was happening to someone else.

"Seventy-five thousand."

"One hundred thousand." The blonde woman—Lady Vane, he'd called her—sounded annoyed now.

This couldn't be happening. Yesterday I was studying for finals. Yesterday my biggest worry was a B in Figure Drawing. Yesterday I was *human*, with a normal life, with—

My breath hitched. I bit down hard on my lip, tasting copper.

*Don't break. Don't let them see you break.*

"One hundred and fifty thousand."

The new voice cut through the room like a blade through silk. Deep. Controlled. Final.

Every vampire in the chamber went silent. Even Lady Vane straightened in her seat, her face going carefully blank.

I lifted my head, searching through blurred vision for whoever had spoken.

He sat in the back row, half-swallowed by shadow. Black suit. Silver pin on his lapel. Hair so dark it seemed to drink the light.

And his eyes—god, his eyes—were gold. Molten gold, glowing faint in the darkness like an animal's.

He didn't look eager like the others. He looked like a man signing a death warrant he didn't want to sign.

"Prince Noctis bids one hundred and fifty thousand," the auctioneer said, and his voice actually shook. "Does anyone wish to counter?"

My stomach dropped. *Prince?*

Lady Vane's jaw went tight. Her fingers gripped the armrest of her chair so hard I heard wood creak. But she sat back, chin lifted. "No. Let him have her."

The way she said *have her* made my skin crawl.

"Any other bids?" The auctioneer's eyes swept the crowd. "Going once..."

I found my voice. It came out small and broken and I hated it. "Please. I don't understand what's happening. My family—we don't have any debt. This is a mistake."

The prince stood. He moved like water, inevitable and smooth. The other vampires shifted away as he walked down the aisle. Not fear—something else. Respect. Wariness.

"Sold," the auctioneer declared, "to Prince Caspian Noctis for one hundred and fifty thousand. The Ashford debt is now transferred to House Noctis."

*Caspian.*

My chest felt too tight. I couldn't breathe right.

He climbed the platform steps, and I got my first real look at him. Tall—well over six feet. Aristocratic features that belonged in paintings, not real life. But it was his eyes that pinned me in place. Those impossible gold eyes that seemed to see through skin and bone to whatever was underneath.

"Remove the chains," he said quietly to the auctioneer.

"Of course, Your Highness." The older man practically groveled as he unlocked my cuffs.

The moment the chains fell away, I scrambled backward. My legs barely worked—pins and needles shooting through them. I nearly fell off the platform.

Caspian caught my arm. His fingers were cool. Gentle. Unbreakable.

"Don't touch me," I snapped, jerking away. Or trying to. He didn't let go.

"You're bleeding," he said, turning my wrist over to examine the cuts. His voice was soft. Almost kind.

Which somehow made it worse.

"Yeah, well." My voice shook. I clenched my jaw to stop it. "That happens when you chain people up like animals."

"I know you're frightened," Caspian said, still in that careful, gentle tone. "But I need you to—"

"Frightened?" I laughed. It came out sharp and jagged. My hands were shaking. I pressed them against my thighs to hide it. "I'm way past frightened."

I stopped. Because there was something above his head—a faint gray shadow, hovering in the air like smoke. I blinked hard. When I looked again, it was still there.

*What the hell is that?*

"You need to come with me," Caspian was saying. "The ceremony is complete, and—"

"I'm not going anywhere with you." I finally ripped my arm free, stumbling back a step. My throat felt raw. "I don't care how much you paid. I'm not property. I'm a person, and you can't just—"

"Seraphina." The way he said my name stopped me cold. There was something in his expression—something that looked almost like regret. Like pain he was trying to bury. "I understand this is overwhelming. But you don't have a choice. None of us do."

"There's always a choice," I said. But my voice wavered on the last word.

His jaw tightened. For just a second, something flickered behind those gold eyes—something broken. Then it vanished, replaced by cold stone.

"No," he said quietly. "There isn't."

He turned to leave, clearly expecting me to follow. When I didn't move, he glanced back over his shoulder.

"You can walk," he said, "or I can have guards carry you. Either way, you're coming to Crimson Hollow Academy. Your family's debt is three hundred years old, and it's finally time to pay."

Three hundred years. The words echoed in my skull. My mother's face flashed through my mind—her tears as they dragged me away, her whispered *I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.*

She knew. She'd always known.

My knees wanted to buckle. I locked them, forced myself to stay standing.

I looked around at the room full of vampires watching me like a show. At the Gothic nightmare I'd woken up in. At the prince with golden eyes who'd just bought my life.

And that gray shadow above his head—darker now, pulsing like a heartbeat.

I didn't know what it meant. But something deep in my gut whispered that it mattered.

Whispered that it was a warning.

The prince who'd just claimed me might not live long enough to see what I'd become.