Sold to the devil

Chapter 2 

Ivy’s POV

“She’s shifting…!”

“No….stop her!”

I barely got the chance to react. A sharp sting pierced my neck. I gasped.

They’d injected me.

I staggered, my knees buckling, my vision blurring.

What…what did they do to me?

My legs gave way and I crumpled to the floor, helpless. My limbs felt like stone. My veins burned with something foreign. Something wrong. I couldn't move. I couldn’t fight.

Inside me, Vivian, my wolf, growled in agony.

“They’ve weakened us,” she rasped. Her voice…usually strong, untamed, fierce, was faint, trembling.

“What did they inject?” I asked her silently.

She whimpered. “Silverroot. Suppressing our strength… our bond. I can’t shift... Ivy, I can’t fight…”

My chest tightened. No. No, not you too. Vivian had always been the fire in me, the part that made me feel strong, unstoppable…even when everything else crumbled. And now… they’d even taken her.

“Fake! Fake!”

The words came like knives, flung at me by people I once called family. Their eyes held nothing but disgust. Accusation.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to roar and prove them wrong…but I couldn’t. My mouth opened, but no sound came.

I stood there, trembling, a statue carved from shame and confusion.

How could one moment, just one, ruin my whole life?

And then I saw them.

My parents. Stumbling into the hall like broken shadows. Heads bowed, shoulders hunched, their pain heavy enough to bend steel.

“She’s the real one… please…” my father choked out. His voice was barely a whisper, but I heard it. His words pierced me.

My mother clung to him, eyes glazed, trembling like a leaf caught in a storm.

Then… they knelt.

No.

No, please no.

They were proud warriors. They had always stood tall. I’d never seen them bow to anyone.

“Stand up!” I screamed, shoving past the guards. “Mom! Dad! Please, get up! Don’t do this!”

My mother’s eyes met mine. “No,” she said, and her voice cracked like shattered glass. “We have to protect you.”

“No! Don’t protect me….just stand! Please!”

My father tried to speak again, but before he could finish, Derek’s voice thundered through the hall.

“So you're admitting it?” he barked. “You tried to kill this woman at birth just to crown your child the saviour?”

“No!” my father shouted, but Derek was already spinning his lie, feeding the fire.

“Bring him in.”

A man entered. Hooded. Silent. And when he pulled his hood back….

Gasps rippled through the hall.

I knew that face. Scarred. Familiar.

A friend once. A neighbor. I knew him when I was little. He was the man that has always kept watch over my parents. I ahd always been noticing him. But I didn't say anything.

So is all this really true, did my parents really do this?

There's no way they did that. I'm sure.

“I saw it all,” he said. “They tried to smother the real child. Left her for dead.”

The room erupted again this time, on heading the man's words.

“Kill them!”

“They lied!”

“They deceived us!”

The noise burrowed into my skull, like claws tearing through my mind. I clutched my head. Make it stop. Please, make it stop.

Vivian growled weakly. “Ivy… they’re turning on us. They want blood.”

“I know,” I whispered to her. “But I can't save them. I can't even stand.”

“Silence!” Derek roared. Everything froze.

And then he passed the sentence.

“50 lashes. Then execution. Their heads will be displayed at the gates.”

My heart stopped.

“No!” I screamed, lunging, only to be seized again. The guards grabbed me like I was nothing. A rag doll.

“PLEASE!” I begged. “They’re my parents! They didn’t mean to…please, Derek, don’t do this!”

Derek didn’t even blink. His eyes passed over me like I didn’t exist.

“For her,” he said coldly, “lock her in the dungeon. Her punishment will be decided later.”

“No! NO!”

I fought. Bit. Kicked. But I was weak. Vivian’s strength, our strength, was gone.

They threw me into the darkness.

The dungeon swallowed me whole. Cold. Wet. Quiet.

Then…

Screams.

Whips.

My mother’s voice, breaking. My father’s roar of pain.

And then—

Silence.

I collapsed against the wall. My body shook. I wasn't even crying, I couldn’t. The grief was too big for tears.

Vivian? I whispered.

But she didn’t answer.

She was silent, too. Silent like the grave.

Later, I heard cheers above. People celebrating.

“The traitors are dead!”

“Justice!”

My fists pounded the stone floor. I wanted to break it open. Crawl inside and disappear.

Gone. They're gone. And I couldn't do anything.

The door creaked.

Derek.

He stood there, arms folded, smiling like this was all a joke to him.

“Now,” he said. “Your punishment.”

I looked up at him with hollow eyes. “Derek,” I croaked. “You knew them. You knew me. You know I’m not a liar. You know I’m the real saviour.”

He didn’t flinch.

I was dragged outside. The world felt colder than before. Crueler.

And then, I saw them.

Their heads. High above the crowd.

My knees buckled. My scream tore through the sky.

Vivian sobbed inside me.

“They were good,” she whimpered. “They didn’t deserve this…”

Memories hit me like arrows. My father’s stories. My mother’s smile. Their warmth. Their strength. All of it… gone.

I moved without thinking. A guard stepped close, his dagger gleamed.

I lunged.

Steel in my hand.

I charged at Derek.

But I was tackled to the ground, pinned like an animal.

“LET ME GO!”

Derek crouched beside me, whispered in my ear, “This is your legacy.”

Then louder, for all to hear:

“Ivy of the False Bloodline, banished. To the cursed forest. Let the traitor die alone.”

“No,” I gasped. “You can’t…”

But I was already being dragged again. Bound. Blindfolded.

The forest swallowed me. Wind howled. Rain slapped my skin. Thunder screamed.

“Say your last prayer,” one of the guards said.

Then it came.

Pain.

A blade, silver, plunged into my side.

Vivian shrieked.

I crumpled.

Blood. Darkness. Cold.

As I lay dying, one thing stood out.

A scar. On the guard’s lip.

Then, nothing.

Just one whisper, from the last pieces of me.

Moon Goddess… please. Save me. Save us both. And help me make them pay.

And then everything went black.

A sharp crack, a blinding flash,.then… silence.

When I opened my eyes again, the world was different.

Cold metal pressed against my skin. My wrists ached. Chains clinked when I moved. My breath hitched as I slowly pushed myself upright.

I was in a cage.

An actual cage.

The space around me was dimly lit, shadowy. But I could see them, people, rows of them. Dressed in fine silk, masks hiding their identities. Their eyes, though, exposed everything.

Greed.

Lust.

Fascination.

Pity.

Hunger.

Like I was… a prize. A thing.

My stomach twisted.

“What the hell?” I whispered, my voice hoarse and dry.

“She’s awake,” someone muttered.

A man stepped forward, tall, arrogant, with a twisted smile. “We’re starting the bidding,” he announced, his voice echoing off the marble walls. “As you can see… she’s raw. Untouched. Very rare. Blue eyes, blue hair, truly a gift from the gods.”

No. No, this had to be a nightmare.

I stumbled to my feet. My body trembled, but I was alive. I was breathing.

The Moon Goddess… she saved me. I prayed… and she answered.

But why here? Why this?

A woman in the front row raised her paddle. “Ten thousand.”

“Fifty.”

“One hundred thousand!”

The numbers flew like arrows. My heart beat louder than the auctioneer’s voice.

I’m not a thing. I’m not merchandise…

Then, everything stopped.

A new voice. Deep. Cold. Final.

“One billion.”

Gasps rippled through the room.

Heads turned toward the back. I did too.

He stood slowly, as if time bent for him.

Black cloak. Face half-shrouded. Only his eyes were visible, silver, lifeless, dangerous.

The entire hall fell still. The air, heavy. Even the shadows seemed to crawl away from him.

And I knew.

No.

No, no, no.

That was him.

The cursed Lycan.

The man whispered about in fear. The monster of nightmares. The Alpha no one dared to name aloud.

And he was staring at me.

Claiming me.

The guards opened the cage.

“Come closer,” the announcer said. “You’ve been sold to him.”

I stood there, frozen, my voice caught in my throat.

Was I saved… just to be sold to the devil himself?

My rebirth wasn’t freedom.

It was the beginning of another kind of prison.

And this time… the chains were made of fate.