A Virgin For Sale

~Sable

“Sable! You get your scrawny ass back here, you little fucking shit! What the fuck are you up to now!”

The scream rang far behind me into the night as I ran.

The night was harshly cold with the cold air filling my lungs at every gasp but it was nothing compared to the sound of Corvin’s voice shredding the night behind me. His words, slurred with rage and whatever liquor he’d been guzzling, echoed into the night but I didn’t look back.

I ran on with my feet pounding the hard-packed earth of Blackpine Reach and hardly seeing what was ahead of me because of the darkness. Out here, the werewolves liked their nights dark and deep.. probably made it easier to do their shady business.

Well, fuck the werewolves.. and fuck Corvin.. especially fuck Corvin, my stepdad.. the man who was supposed to look out for me after mom died. Instead, he’d just found a price tag to stick on me.

I ran like my life depended on it. Because, technically, it did. The life I knew, anyway. He’d decided to trade me off like a fucking bargaining chip. The Alpha of the Blackpine Pack needed a virgin bride and good old Corvin had one just lying around the house, collecting dust. Me..!

I wasn’t gonna be anyone’s property.. not Corvin’s and definitely not some Alpha’s fuck toy. I didn’t even know the guy and for all I knew, he was a five-hundred-year-old wolf with rotten teeth and a bad breath. No, thank you!

My dress, some flimsy thing Corvin had bought to “make me look presentable,” snagged on a thorny thicket and ripped with a sound like a scream but I barely noticed. I burst out of the tree line and onto a road with my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. Headlights blinded me momentarily and a horn blared long and furious as a truck swerved around me.

“Watch where you’re going, you idiot!” a voice yelled from the cab.

“Sorry!” I shouted back, not sorry at all and kept running. I was in the city now with proper streets and proper lights but I knew they’d come after me.. Corvin’s friends and the Alpha’s men.. they wouldn’t stop. I needed to disappear and the best place to hide is usually right in the middle of everything.

I saw a flickering neon sign down a side alley with a crooked guitar amd the words ‘The Howling Note’ underneath. A blues club.. perfect. Who would look for a runaway werewolf-bride in a blues club?

I pushed the door open and was immediately hit by a wall of warm smoky air and the sound of a harmonica. The place was half-full with shadows clinging to the corners. I probably looked like a mess... hair wild, dress torn and eyes wide with pure panic.

I beelined for the bar and slid onto a stool with my legs shaking. The bartender was a grizzly of a man with a beard that looked like it could house a family of small birds and arms covered with tattoos. He looked like he could break me in half but at least his eyes were kind.

“Rough night, kiddo?” he asked in a deep rumble.

“You could say that,” I managed with my breath still coming in short puffs. “Whiskey. The cheap stuff, please. Just… a lot of it.”

He raised a bushy eyebrow but poured a generous measure into a glass.

“That’ll calm the nerves. Name’s Gus. You need to talk, I’m a good listener.”

“I’m good. Really. Just need to… think.” I threw the whiskey down and it burned all the way down.. but it was a good burn and it felt like fucking rebellion!

I ordered another and as I sipped it, my thoughts finally started to slow down enough to think clearly. A year ago.. it had only been a year since Mom got sick. One minute she was there and the next… gone and I was stuck with Corvin.

I never even knew my real dad. Mom said he was a charmer who blew into town with the autumn wind and left just as fast and now Corvin was trying to sell me off like I was a piece of furniture he didn’t want anymore.

I tuned into the conversation from a booth behind me where a couple of guys, definitely human, were complaining loudly.

“...swear, the arrogance of them,” one was saying. “Think they’re better than us ‘cause they can grow fur on a full moon.”

“It’s that whole Blackpine Reach pack,” the other agreed. “They keep to themselves and act all proud and mysterious like they’re too good for the city. Bunch of animals, if you ask me.”

I silently raised my glass to them. Tell me about it. I was their latest mystery. The prize to be won. The virgin sacrifice. I downed the second drink and signaled Gus for a third. This one came in a bottle.. less work for him.

The more I drank, the less the world seemed to spin. The music melted into the background and my fear began to blur as well. I was safe here.. at least for now.

It was only when a heavy drowsiness started to pull at me that I noticed him.

Across the room, sitting alone in a booth so deep in the shadows I’d missed him before, was a man and he was watching me. Not in a creepy Corvin-kind of way and not in a hungry, werewolf-Alpha way.. just… watching intently and quietly.

He was big, that was the first thing. He had broad shoulders that seemed to fill the space around him and he had dark hair and a stillness about him that felt unnerving in the noisy club. How long had he been sitting there?

I felt a spark of irritation.. or maybe it was the whiskey. I’d had enough of men making decisions about me tonight.

I caught Gus’s eye as he walked by.

“Hey. Who’s the strong silent type over there?”

Gus glanced over and then back at me with a small smile.

“Oh, him? Let’s just say he’s the best you’ll find around here.”

I scoffed.

“The best at what? Staring contests?”

“Hockey,” Gus said simply, wiping down the bar. “Great hockey player. One of the best to ever do it!”

A hockey player? In this dive? I picked up my bottle immediately. Liquid courage was better than no courage at all.

“Well, let’s see,” I muttered to myself.

I slid off the stool and the floor felt weirdly soft as I weaved my way through the tables, doing my best not to stagger and came to a stop in front of his booth. I planted my bottle on the table with a definitive thunk.

He didn’t even flinch. He just kept those quiet intense eyes on me.

“So,” I said with my words slightly slurry. “You planning on using any of those words? Or are you just gonna eye-fuck me from across the room all night?”