The Captive

Edrian's POV

I woke with a jolt, with burning lungs and a convulsively shivering body as if I had been dragged from the bottom of a river. I sucked my breath in as I gasped, little draughts of cold air, my chest heaved, I thought I was drowning away in the bottom of the sea. Then I realized it wasn’t water. It was a bucket of icy liquid dumped over my head.

I fluttered my eyelids, and my sight was dazzled by the dull torchlight. I was no longer in the chamber of the master.  I was on the ground, surrounded by the broken shapes of other men. Bruised, shackled, defeated.

“Our master is dead.”

The voice was excited, and I looked around to see Kellen crouching beside me with a pale and blood-streaked face. His words trembled in his lips, his eyes were wide, full of terror.

"We’re being taken by the DarkMoon Crest,” he said, spitting the name out like a curse. “The deadliest clan in all the kingdoms.”

I sat up, my wrists aching under the iron cuffs, my stomach twisting.

“What… what do they want with us?”

"Since our kingdom has fallen, we are just war spoils." Kellen swallowed hard. “They don’t buy slaves for work, Eddie. They buy slaves for pleasure and entertainment.”

The word hit like a blade in my gut. 

Pleasure. 

I knew what that meant. My life had already been a series of beds I never chose, some soft with silk sheets, some hard as stone, but all of them were cages because I didn't choose to be in those beds.

I had been in bed with Women with painted lips, and men with greedy hands. The same story, over and over. And now? Another kingdom, another master.

I pressed my lips together and didn’t answer him because if I did, I’d have to admit the truth, and that is the last thing I want to do right now. I didn’t want to believe this was my fate, even though it had always been like this.

The clang of steel cut through my thoughts. Guards stalked down the line of chained slaves.

One of the guards halted in front of a boy barely older than sixteen; the boy's leg was twisted at an odd angle. The guard’s lip curled.

“Dead weight,” he spat, and before anyone could even blink and gasp, his blade arced down.

The boy’s body slumped to the dirt.

Kellen flinched beside me while I forced myself not to move. My jaw locked tight until it hurt, because I knew better. Any sound, any step out of line, and it would be my body slumping next.

“Up!” another guard barked. The chains yanked, and like cattle, we staggered to our feet.

We marched.

The journey blurred into dust, sweat, and silence.

There was a crack of the whip anytime someone stumbled, but none of us could say anything. 

By the time the lofty gates of DarkMoon Crest came in sight, my feet were sore, and my throat parched with thirst. The kingdom towered up before us like a nightmare of stone and black walls, tall towers, banners of silver and blood-red snapping in the wind.

The air inside was thick with the stench of iron and sweat. We were pushed into a square, and there waited on a stage. 

That was when I realized, with dread, it was an auction.

Chains clinked as each of us was forced to line up, naked under the eyes of strangers. Nobles in fine robes whispered behind their jeweled masks. Some licked their lips at the sight of displayed cocks and breasts. Others laughed softly, like they were choosing horses.

I smouldered with humiliation. My hands trembled, no, not out of cold, but out of the burden of all those eyes creeping over my flesh. I wished I could melt away, melt into the stone under my feet. 

However, I was just standing there naked like I was a piece of meat to be purchased.

"Lot twenty-one."

I was pushed by the handler. I fell on my knees and straightened up again.

I lifted my head even though I would have preferred to curl down on the earth. 

I looked involuntarily away at the people. That is, until I started smelling something delicious, my body started to react from within. It felt like fire spreading through my veins. My wolf that has been buried within me a long time ago instantly woke. 

Mate.

My mate is here? I thought to myself as I started to look among the crowd to find the woman, but my eyes landed on a very attractive man with broad shoulders, steel sharp eyes, and shiny hair.

Our eyes met, and Berry, my wolf, howled in recognition.

"Mate," I hear his wolf calling to mine, and then it hit me. My mate is a man.

No. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I stared at him. My mate was supposed to be a woman. That’s what I’d been told all my life. A woman to bear pups, a woman to stand at my side. Not… not him. Not a man.

Not that I care about pups or ever wanting to meet my mate in the first place, because this is slavery, and all I could think of was surviving first.

I had never heard of this before. Never seen it. And yet, my wolf cried out, desperate and wild, clawing at my chest to reach him.

His eyes flicked to mine. I saw the flicker, shock, and recognition. He felt it too. I knew he did, but instead of moving toward me, instead of claiming me, his jaw tightened. His face became a mask of cold steel and then… he turned away.

My heart wrenched. The bond that had just ignited between us burned hotter with rejection.

“He ignored us,” Berry, my wolf, whispered hoarsely within me. “Did you see? He felt it, and he ignored us.”

I couldn’t answer. I wasn't disappointed, actually, because I wasn't expecting him to claim me anyway, but Berry wasn't having it.

The crowd murmured, restless and then—

I saw him. A shadow in the corner of my vision. A man slipping from the crowd, hand steady with a crossbow raised. The tip of the arrow gleamed with something dark, something deadly.

It was aimed directly at my mate.

My blood ran cold.

No, I whispered, and suddenly, before I knew what I was doing, Berry took over my body, my bones cracked, and fur ripped through my skin. 

I transformed into my wolf form, and the chains broke.

“Edrian!” Kellen echoed beside me.

I jumped between my mate and the arrow as it went an all right shot.

The stinging thrust towered over me in the chest, a blaze of white-hot pain shooting through my body. My feet went out, the world swung sickeningly. I glanced at my mate one last time as he stared in disbelief with his mouth gaping open in shock, and then the ground met me.

And then everything went dark.