Sold

They gave me until dawn.

Not because anyone cared whether I had time to say goodbye. Because Fenris Aurexian didn’t do anything in the dark that he could do properly in daylight, and because Alpha Hale needed the night to draw up papers saying the debt was paid.

I was a line item now. Paid in full.

Two sleek black SUVs left an hour after the ceremony, tail lights disappearing down the long gravel drive. Two of the brothers went with them.

One stayed.

“Dax will collect her in the morning,” Fenris had said to Alpha Hale, as if I wasn’t standing six feet away. “In case Nightreach has second thoughts about the arrangement.” He didn’t look at me when he said it. “Or she does.”

So that was clear. I wouldn’t be a guest or someone who could choose to come and go. I would be a prisoner.

Not that I had anywhere to go.

My bedroom was at the end of the upstairs hall, next to the linen closet. It had been a storage room before I was born. My mother called it cozy.

I packed in twenty minutes. That was how long it took to fit my whole life into one duffel bag. Jeans. Sweaters. The good boots. My phone charger. The photo of Orion and me at the lake when I was nine and he was eleven, both of us sunburned and grinning.

I left the blue dress on the floor.

There was a knock. My heart jumped, stupidly, because some part of me still thought it might be my mother coming to say she was sorry.

It was my mother.

She didn’t come in. She stood in the doorway in her robe, arms folded, and looked at the bag on my bed.

“Is that all you’re taking?”

“It’s all I have.”

She didn’t argue. She looked around the room like she was already measuring it for something else.

“The Aurexians are the most powerful pack in the region,” she said. “Do you understand what that means? You’ll be living in their house. Serving in it. If you’re smart, you’ll keep your head down and do exactly what you’re told.”

“Is that advice?”

“It’s a warning.” Her mouth tightened. “Whatever you do there reflects on us. Don’t embarrass this family again.”

Again.

As if tonight had been my fault. As if I’d asked Draven to kiss me on that dock. As if I’d asked to be born without a wolf.

“You sold me,” I said quietly.

“We settled a debt that would have ruined this pack.” She said it without a flicker. “For once in your life, Flora, you were worth something to us. Be grateful.”

Then she closed the door.

I stood there for a long time.

I didn’t cry. I’d thought I would. I’d expected to fall apart the second I was alone. But I just felt empty, like someone had scooped everything out and left the shape behind.

My phone buzzed on the bed.

Draven: Hey. No hard feelings about tonight, right?

I stared at it.

Another buzz.

Draven: Honestly this is probably the best thing that could happen to you. Maybe the Aurexians will find you a job in the kitchens lol

Then: Draven: Nyssa says good luck.

I turned the phone face down.

Then I picked it up again and blocked his number.

My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against my thighs until they stopped.

It was almost midnight when Orion came.

Not through the door. Through the window, like when we were kids and he’d sneak in after our parents went to sleep to bring me leftover cake from pack dinners I hadn’t been invited to.

He landed badly. He was moving slower than usual, favoring his left side.

“Orion.” I was across the room in a second. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Orion.”

He sat on the edge of my bed. Up close, I could see the bruise along his jaw, and the way he held his ribs.

“Hale wasn’t happy I fought the command,” he said. “Neither was Dad.”

I sank down beside him. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Somebody had to.” His voice cracked. “Flo, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I should have seen it coming. I should have—” He stopped. Pressed his hand to his face. “I’ll fix this. I swear to God, I’ll find a way to get you back.”

“You can’t.” I leaned against his shoulder. “It’s done. The papers are signed.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

Then he said something strange.

“Don’t believe everything you hear about them.”

I lifted my head. “The Aurexians?”

He hesitated, like he was weighing something. “There are things about that debt nobody tells the pack. About what really happened twenty years ago.” He shook his head. “I can’t. Not yet. Just… keep your eyes open. And don’t trust anything Nightreach tells you about them either.”

“Orion, what are you talking about?”

But he only pulled me into a hug, careful with his ribs, and held on too long. “Text me every day. Promise.”

“I promise.”

He climbed back out the window. I watched until his shadow disappeared into the trees.

Then I was alone again.

I couldn’t stay in that room. Not for one more hour.

I went out through the back door, barefoot, down the slope behind the house to the edge of the woods. The full moon hung huge and silver over the pines. Somewhere far off, wolves were running. Nightreach celebrating its new Luna.

I sat in the wet grass and looked up.

My whole life I’d prayed to the Moon Goddess. Every full moon, I’d asked for the same thing. Please. Give me my wolf. Let me be one of them.

She’d never answered.

So tonight, I didn’t ask for anything.

I picked up a sharp stone from the creek bed and drew it across my palm. It stung. Blood welled, dark in the moonlight.

I pressed my bleeding hand flat to the earth.

“I swear,” I whispered, “I will become someone they can’t ignore. Every person who laughed tonight. Every person who looked away. Every person who decided I was worth nothing.” My voice shook. I made it steady. “They will see me rise, and they will regret every second of it.”

The night went still.

Not quiet. Still. The wind stopped dead in the pines. The distant howling cut off. Even the creek seemed to hush.

The moon above me brightened, silver light pouring down until every blade of grass glittered with it.

And for one heartbeat, the world looked different. Sharper. Clearer. I could see every needle on every branch at the edge of the trees, every ripple in the creek, like someone had wiped the fog off my eyes.

Then it was gone.

The wind picked back up. Somewhere, a wolf howled again.

I stared at my hand. Just a cut. Just blood.

Nerves, I told myself. Exhaustion.

I didn’t sleep. At dawn I carried my bag down the gravel drive, and nobody came to the door to watch me go.

Except the one person who was already waiting.

A battered old pickup was parked at the end of the drive, faded red paint, one dented fender. It looked ridiculous next to the memory of those sleek black SUVs, like a stray dog that had wandered into a show.

Dax Aurexian leaned against the tailgate with his tattooed arms folded, looking at me like he’d been standing there all night.

In the gray morning light, he looked different than he had in the clearing. Less like a threat and more like a man. Tired, maybe. Stubble along his jaw. His dark hair messed up like he’d been running his hands through it. The scar through his eyebrow was thinner than I’d thought, pale and old.

His eyes dropped to the cut on my palm. Then back to my face.

“Long night?” he asked.

My stomach went cold. The woods. The creek. The moon.

“Yes, I couldn’t sleep.”

Dax pushed off the tailgate and walked toward me. He didn’t hurry. He reached for my duffel bag, and when I didn’t let go right away, he waited, his hand resting beside mine on the strap. Close enough that I could feel the warmth of him in the cold air.

He smelled like pine and woodsmoke. Like the trees I’d sat beside last night.

I looked up.

He was already looking down at me.

His eyes weren’t black, like I’d thought in the dark. They were a deep, dark green, flecked with gold near the center. And they held mine. Steady. Searching. Like he was trying to find the answer to a question he hadn’t asked out loud.

One second. Two.

Too long.

My heart did something it absolutely had no business doing for a man whose family had just bought me.

Something flickered across his face. His jaw tightened, and his nostrils flared once, slightly, like he’d caught a scent he didn’t understand.

Then he took the bag from my hand and turned away.

He tossed my duffel into the bed of the truck and opened the passenger door. The hinges screamed.

“Get in, Nightreach.”

I got in.

And I spent the first ten miles staring out the window, very carefully not thinking about the color of his eyes.