CHAPTER 2: SOLD

KATHLEEN

Beta Fin crouched down to my level, gripping my jaw and tilting it up as he leaned in and sniffed at my scent.

"Weak. Powerless." His voice was flat, almost bored. "Exactly what that Mad King wants." He shoved my jaw aside, rough and dismissive.

I burst into tears as the full weight of what I'd walked into finally landed.

Beta Fin rose to his feet, eyes sweeping the hall.

"Seize every unmated wolf. And every omega in this pack." His voice thundered through the silence.

I turned toward Troy and tried to push myself up.

The warrior behind me kicked me hard across the back of the knee, and I dropped again, a cry tearing out of me before I could stop it.

I lifted my gaze to him, eyes burning, blurred with tears and fury. "What did I ever do to deserve this, Troy?"

He smirked, cold and unbothered, looking at me like a piece of trash. "Your only mistake was loving me."

"Over my dead body will I let that mad king touch me." I spat the words at him. "I'd rather die."

He laughed, loud and genuine, like I'd told a joke. "Still playing the saint, are we?" He shook his head slowly.

"Your death would be such a waste, though." He leaned down close to my face. "How about I kill Sam instead?"

Something in me snapped upright, fighting against the hands holding me down. "You heartless bastard. Touch my sister and I will kill you myself."

Everything in me had gone incandescent, my breath coming in ragged, furious pulls.

"She has an omega sister?" Beta Fin's attention swung sharply back toward us.

My breath caught in my throat, fear curling cold through my chest.

Troy glanced between me and Beta Fin, entirely at ease. "Don't waste your interest, Beta. The little one's practically a corpse already. Wouldn't survive the trip, let alone be of any use to you."

His eyes found mine again, and his smirk stretched wider. "But she'll be very useful — if her sister decides not to cooperate."

He's using Sam. He was holding my dying sister over my head like a leash, ready to yank it the second I stepped out of line.

Troy wasn't just cruel. He was something else entirely — something that didn't have a name I was willing to give him yet.

"And here I thought I'd never get to take that little red cherry between your legs myself," Troy went on, voice dripping with mock disappointment.

"Lucky for me, some brutal, half-mad king gets to take it instead. No remorse. No gentleness. Everything you spent years protecting, gone in the most brutal way ever. And it won't even be me who ruins it."

"You'll regret this," I hissed. "Karma will find you. Tenfold."

"Take the captives. We're leaving," Beta Fin barked.

The guards hauled me up, and this time I didn't fight back — not one inch. One wrong move from me, and Sam would pay a price I could never undo.

No. I couldn't let my sister bleed for my mistakes, for how easily I'd let myself be fooled.

I forced my body still, let them drag me forward, and gave Troy one last look before I started the slow, deliberate work of cutting him out of me completely — starting right there, on the floor of that hall.

They herded us into a large van and pulled out onto the road.

Sam and my aunt would be sick with worry the second midnight passed without me coming home.

*****

The van finally stopped outside a massive building, so grand it made even Troy's uncle's mansion look modest by comparison.

It looked less like a home and more like something out of a story — a palace built was magnificent.

"Everyone, get down," Beta Fin barked again.

There were roughly fifteen omegas gathered from Crimson Pack alone, all of us herded out at once.

Another man emerged from the main building and stood waiting near the entrance.

He was built like Beta Fin — broad, imposing, though something in his face made him marginally less terrifying to look at.

“And report, Lord Tarry?” Beta fin asked.

"The King hasn't eaten in two days," he reported, voice low and clipped. "He's grown more violent by the hour. I can't get close to him anymore. Only you can."

He didn't carry himself like a servant. Whatever his rank was, it sat close to Beta Fin's own.

Beta Fin nodded once and strode off immediately, vanishing into the building within seconds.

The other man followed right behind him, leaving the rest of us standing there in the cold with a handful of warriors.

One of them shoved us into a separate room and locked the door behind us.

I looked around — the room was spotless, no trace of dirt, no smell of neglect, nothing that matched the desperation clearly running through every girl inside it.

Several omegas had already sunk to the floor. A few had broken down into sobs.

"Did you hear what he said?" one of the girls cried out. "That king's gone violent. He will kill us.."

"I just want to die," another moaned, curling in on herself, rocking against the floor.

I watched them fall apart around me, unable to summon whatever it was they were feeling. My mind wasn't here at all. It was back home, wrapped entirely around Sam.

Is she crying right now, wondering where I am?

She always did that — needed me close, needed to know I was there even on nights I wasn't.

She was my best friend before she was anything else, even sick as she was, even confined to that couch.

I told her everything, every small, meaningless thing that happened in my day, because it was the only way I knew to keep her tethered to a life that kept trying to slip out from under her.

And now I wouldn’t be there to lie to her about why I was late.

Guilt twisted through me, sharp enough to cut past even the fear.

Whatever happened to me here, I couldn't let it be the reason Sam gave up. I had to get back to her. I had to try.

I pushed myself up and crept toward the door, testing the handle more out of habit than hope.

It gave.

‘Wait.’ My whole body went still. ‘This was locked. I watched them lock it.’

‘Is this some kind of trap?’

I hesitated only a second before pushing the fear down and forcing myself through the door anyway, slipping out without drawing a single glance from the others still lost in their own grief.

I crept down a narrow staircase, scanning every direction for any sign of an exit.

Finally, at the far end of the hall, I spotted it — a door.

‘Please. Please let this work.’ I repeated it silently, over and over, like a prayer aimed at a goddess who hadn't done much for me lately.

If I'm caught, there's no coming back from this.

I quickened my pace, nearly running the last stretch, and grabbed the handle the second I reached it, yanking hard.

Locked.

"Looking for this?"

I froze mid-motion. A jolt went through me immediately…making me almost stumble at the voice behind me.

“Where the fuck do you think you are going…?