Chapter 1: The Day I Was Sold (Part 1)

They didn’t use my name when they put the collar on.

“Iron for the trouble ones,” the handler muttered, bored, as if he were choosing a leash for a dog. His fingers dug into my jaw, forcing my head up. The ring of metal was cold for a heartbeat.

Then he snapped it shut, and it bit.

Iron bit my throat the way their lies always had.

My breath caught. The edges of the collar scraped raw skin that was already scarred from cheaper metal. I didn’t flinch. Omegas who flinched got spiked collars, shock collars, muzzles. I’d learned that lesson the first month in the servants’ wing.

“Lot Twenty-Seven,” the handler called over his shoulder. “Ready.”

Lot Twenty-Seven. Not Aria. Not “girl.” Just a number in someone else’s ledger.

The holding pen stank of old fear and older blood. Sweat and cheap perfume tried to cover it, but nothing could really hide the sour reek of terror. Around me, other girls knelt in a cramped line, collars clinking when someone’s shoulder brushed another’s.

One girl whispered a half-remembered prayer to the Moon Goddess, words tripping over her tongue. Another rocked silently, gaze unfocused, already somewhere else. Maybe that was smarter. Maybe I was the foolish one for still being here in my own skin.

I swallowed. The collar ground against my throat.

I used to have a name.

The thought flicked through me like a stone skipping across black water and was gone. Names didn’t matter here. All that mattered were numbers on paddles, numbers in columns, and numbers that would finally silence the Debt Office’s letters.

“On your feet,” the handler snapped.

The chain attached to the ring at my collar jerked. My knees scraped concrete as I was yanked upright. My bare soles stuck slightly to the floor—dried something, probably spilled wine or blood, made the surface tacky.

“Chin up,” he hissed, breath hot and stale against my ear. “They pay more when you look pretty.”

Pretty.

If I hadn’t run out of laughter years ago, I might have given him some. My last look in the servants’ cracked mirror—hollow eyes, sharp cheekbones, bruises yellowing at the edges—hadn’t been pretty. It had been a ghost waiting for her body to catch up.

As he dragged me along the narrow corridor toward the curtain, another voice rose up, sharp as a knife, making the first cut.

“I, Damon Blackthorn, reject you, Aria. You’re not worthy to be my Luna.”

The memory slammed into me so hard my breath stuttered.

The training yard, damp earth under my knees. Dozens of eyes on us. The future Alpha standing over me, jaw hard, shoulders squared, golden and sure. I’d felt the mate-bond tugging weakly between us, a fraying thread I’d begged the Moon Goddess to mend.

He’d severed it instead.

“I reject you,” Damon had said, and the pack had laughed. The sound had rolled over me, thick and suffocating.

Now, as we neared the stage, the murmur of the auction crowd swelled through the curtain. It blended with the echo of that laughter until I couldn’t tell which belonged to which life.

I clenched my jaw. It didn’t matter. Whether they were Bloodthorn wolves or strangers with full purses, people loved a good show.

“Showtime,” the handler said.

He shoved me through the gap in the curtain.

Light exploded over my vision, too bright after the dim holding area. For a second, I saw only white spots.

Sound came next. Not words at first, just a low roar: clinking glasses, rough laughter, and the scrape of chairs. The air smelled of roasted meat, spilled wine, musk, perfume—richness soured by the metallic tang of fear.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the auctioneer boomed from his polished stand. “Our next lot. Lot Twenty-Seven.”

The chain jerked. I stumbled forward until I stood dead center on the circular stage. A hundred—or a thousand—eyes crawled over me.

The hall was a sunken arena, tables arranged in tiers below golden chandeliers. Men and women lounged in luxury, rings glinting as they lifted drinks, paddles resting easily in well-fed hands.

“Omega,” the auctioneer announced, voice clipped and professional. “Untouched. Compliant. Excellent breeding stock. Perfect for one-night contracts, surrogacy, and long-term arrangements.”

Heat crawled up my neck. No shame. I’d burned that out of myself a long time ago. Something colder. Sharper.

Laughter rolled through the room.

“Untouched? Bet not for long.”

“Look at those hips. She’ll be good.”

“Cheap little omega, I’ll take two.”

I fixed my gaze on a point just above their heads, a patch of dark wood paneling at the far wall. If I didn’t meet their eyes, they blurred into shadows. Not people. Just noise.

Then, a familiar scent knifed through the stew of smells, cutting straight to the back of my throat.

Smoke and pine resin, overlaid with pack musk and the faintest trace of jasmine.

My eyes flicked, unwilling, up to the right-hand balcony.

There he was.

Damon Blackthorn lounged in a cushioned chair like this was a play put on for his amusement. Shoulders broader than in my memory, dark hair tamed back, the Blackthorn crest gleaming against his throat. The mark where his father’s Alpha power had settled burned faintly at the edge of his collar, more brand than blessing.

Next to him, Lila leaned forward on the rail, glossy hair spilling over expensive fabric. She whispered something in his ear, lips almost touching his skin.

He didn’t flinch.

His eyes, those familiar dark gold, swept lazily over the stage, taking me in the way a man might look at a horse at market. Evaluating. Detached. Mildly interested. I'm not shocked. Not horrified.

You did this to me, I thought, but the words had no teeth. They landed dull and flat inside my skull.

“…pack-bred, fertile line,” the auctioneer was saying. “Excellent health, sound temperament. Perfect for contracts, breeding programs, or private use.”

Contracts.

Ink. Papers. Signatures.

A different room slammed into focus in my mind—Alpha’s dining hall by day, repurposed as a small battlefield by night. My adoptive parents sat stiffly at one end of the table and faces pale but eyes greedy.

Across from them, a man from the Debt Office had laid out forms beneath the chandelier’s cold light.

“We have debts,” my adoptive mother had said, not meeting my gaze. “You should be grateful an Alpha wants you, girl.”

On the parchment, my body had been reduced to lines and clauses: “Womb: viable. Minimum one offspring.” “No maternal rights.” “Payment to be made directly to guardians.”

My father had signed without reading past the first line. His hand had shaken. Excitement, not regret.

“You’ll finally pay us back,” Mother had whispered. “You’ll be worth what we spent on you.”

Back in the balcony, Lila’s mouth curled as she watched me now. I couldn’t hear her, but I could read her lips.

“She’s bad luck,” she murmured to Damon. “Too weak to shift. Let them take her. It’ll clear the debt and get her out of your way.”

His jaw twitched once. Then he looked back toward the stage, eyes empty of anything like protest.

On the floor, the auctioneer lifted his hand.

“Shall we start at ten thousand?”

A paddle went up. A man with sausage fingers and a fur-lined collar sat forward, eyes gleaming.

“Ten,” the auctioneer confirmed. “Do I hear fifteen?”

“Fifteen.”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty-five.”

The numbers climbed. The voices blurred into a dull chant. My pulse thudded lazily in my ears, like it had decided there was no point scrambling toward a future already decided.

Thirty.

Thirty-five.

Forty.

My legs felt far away, more idea than flesh. The chain at my throat weighed more with every bid.

“Fifty thousand.”

The voice cut through the haze like a blade of winter air.

The hall fell silent. Even the clink of glass stilled.

My head lifted without my permission, my body turning toward the sound. The chain between my collar and the handler’s hand grew taut as I shifted.

The voice had come from the balcony opposite Damon’s.

Four men stood there, not slouching like bored nobles but standing as if every inch of that space belonged to them.

The one at the front was tall, shoulders wrapped in dark fabric that wasn’t quite armor, and wasn’t quite court wear. His hair was dark, his face carved in sharp lines, his stillness the kind that made other people look like they were fidgeting by comparison. Power rolled off him in cold waves, Alpha power, but cleaner than Damon’s—like a mountain lake compared to a stagnant pond.

Beside him, slightly behind, another man leaned against the rail, posture relaxed, eyes taking in everything. Observant. Calculating. His fingers tapped once against the wood, measuring.

A third could barely hold still at all, muscle coiled under his clothes, one hand gripped on the balcony as if he was ready to vault it at any second. His gaze snapped between me and the auctioneer like he was deciding who to hit first.

The fourth lingered half in shadow, one hip braced against the stone, wearing danger like a second skin. His smile, faint and sharp, didn’t reach his eyes.

Four men. Four centers of gravity. Every wolf in the room seemed to lean toward them without knowing why.

My usually faint, strangled wolf jerked inside my chest so hard it hurt.

Home. Ours.

The word wasn’t mine. It rose from someplace deep and buried, a hoarse, disbelieving cry.

The tall man’s gaze locked onto mine.

For one heartbeat, the hall, the light, the chain—everything else dissolved. There was only that stare, dark, and cutting, like being pinned to the world for the first time in years.

His lips parted. His voice, when it came, didn’t need to be loud.

“Lyris Aria Mooncrest,” he breathed.

Lyris.

The name hit me like another dart. Not Aria. Not “girl.” A name I’d never heard and somehow knew belonged to me.

His throat worked.

“Our sister.”

The word struck harder than any blow I’d taken.

Sister.

Mooncrest.

The handler jerked the chain, dragging me a step forward. My knees nearly buckled. A murmur ran through the crowd.

“Mooncrest?”

“Royal blood?”

“Hybrid trash. I knew it.”

On the opposite balcony, the coiled-spring brother swung one leg over the railing. In a blur of motion that seemed impossible from that height, he dropped.

He landed in a controlled crouch on the edge of the stage, boards shuddering under his weight. For a hot second, everyone just stared.

“Hey!” The handler barked, yanking on my collar. “You can’t—”

The newcomer’s hand flashed. Metal shrieked. The iron ring around my throat snapped open, the lock sheared as if it were tin and not forged steel.

The second the collar clanged against the floor, the world changed.

Something inside me that had always been muffled, smothered, wrapped in invisible chains—broke.

Silver-blue light tore across my skin, racing along my veins, pooling at my fingertips. My lungs dragged in air that tasted sharper, cleaner. Scents exploded into focus:

The sour sweat of fear from the handler behind me.

The cloying rose perfume from a woman in the second row.

The ozone tang of someone’s latent magic crackling nervously.

The distinct heartbeats of everyone in the room, each drumming a different rhythm.

Strength flooded my limbs, wild and hot. My spine straightened of its own accord. For the first time in my life, the world didn’t feel too heavy. It felt like I could pick up the stage and throw it.

For one shattered breath, I wasn’t an omega at the bottom of the pack hierarchy. I wasn’t Lot Twenty-Seven, or a womb on a page, or the girl a future Alpha had rejected in front of everyone.

For a single, brilliant heartbeat, I felt like an alpha. Like something more than Alpha—something other.

The curse that had sat on my soul like a slab of ice my entire life cracked, just enough to let a sliver of who I really was blaze through.

Gasps shredded the hall’s stunned silence.

“Her eyes—”

“Magic—”

“Witch!”

“Cursed hybrid! Get her off the stage!”

Above, the three remaining men surged forward to the balcony rail.

“Lyris!” Alden, Theron, and Rowan roared my name, their voices different yet braided into one desperate note. A prayer spoken in three tongues.

My name.

Not Aria.

Lyris.

My wolf lunged upward, slamming against whatever invisible iron had held her down for years. For the first time, she didn’t whimper.

Then, a line of silver cut the air.

I didn’t see who fired it. One second, the wild brother at my side was turning toward me, hand reaching for my arm, heat searing through the sleeve of my thin dress. The next, a narrow dart of gleaming metal, threaded with sickly black veins, streaked in from the shadows beneath the balcony.

“Lyris—” he snarled, twisting, trying to shield me.

Too late.

The dart slammed into my chest, just above my heart.