The Second Bond

Selah's POV

I died three days ago. I knew I should be rotting in a grave somewhere in the eastern woods. But instead, I woke up in a cage.

The metal bars pressed against my back, and my mind was full of the memory of Ashen's final words: You need to die. I'm sorry.

Remembering those words made me scramble backward, and my hands hit a small shard of broken glass on the floor of the cage. I picked it up, my fingers trembling, and caught my own eyes in the dim light. The face staring back at me wasn't mine.

I gasped... or at least, I tried to. But nothing came out of my mouth either. I gripped my throat, my fingers digging into my skin. I tried to scream, cry, or make any sound at all, but my vocal cords felt shredded. Strands of long, silver-white hair fell over my shoulders. Piercing pale grey eyes looked back at me from a stranger's face.

That wasn't my hair.... those weren't my eyes. What had happened to me?

Before I could even begin to process the horror of my new body and my gone voice, the cage door was thrown open with a deafening screech.

"Get up, you vermin!" A guard barked, reaching in and yanking me out by my hair.

I stumbled over my own feet, hitting the hard ground. Another guard grabbed my arm and dragged me roughly through a dark-looking corridor. I couldn't ask where they were taking me, I couldn't even beg them to stop. My silence only seemed to make them more aggressive. They shoved me through a set of wooden doors, and the roar of a massive crowd filled my ears.

We were standing at the edge of what I recognized to be the Blood Moon Market.

Even as an orphan at the bottom of the wolf pack hierarchy, I had heard the terrifying whispers about this place. It was the one spot in the known world where the five factions set their bloody wars aside to trade in horrors. I looked around, feeling panic as I tried to take it all in.

Werewolves from the Luphiran Court were standing shoulder to shoulder in the massive, torch-lit cavern, their golden eyes flashing in the dark. Beside them were Shadowwalkers from the Umbra Pact, their bodies shifting like smoke, and the terrifying Memory Eaters from the Hollow Court—their eyes always felt like it could strip your mind bare.

There were even human soldiers of the Ardent Flame in armor, alongside creatures I had no names for, all of them hunting for things that could not be found anywhere else.

And right now, they were all looking at me.

The guards grabbed me again and dragged me up the wooden steps of an auction platform, forcing me to stand at the center, where a warden was waiting. Immediately, I was taken there, the crowd pressed against the stage. They licked their lips, their eyes raking over my tattered clothing and bare skin as if I was a piece of meat on display.

"Hear ye! Look upon the prize of the night!" the warden bellowed. He was a thick, greasy man who smelled of sweat. He grabbed my chin, forcing my head up for the crowd to see. "A verified Oracle! Look at the silver hair and the grey eyes. A rare bloodline, untouched and raw!"

An Oracle? I didn't even know what that meant. I was shaking so violently that my legs felt like they might give out, but I knew I couldn't just stand here and wait for one of these monsters to buy me.

I looked down at my wrists, which was still tied together with a thick rope, but as I twisted my hands, I realized the hemp was old and frayed. I began to work it loose, rubbing the fibers against each other while the warden kept shouting over the roaring crowd.

"Two thousand gold coins!" a wealthy human soldier near the front shouted, waving his gloved hand.

"Three thousand!" a voice bellowed from the left.

"Four thousand gold for the Oracle!" a Shadowwalker hissed.

The warden threw his head back and laughed. "Two, three, four thousand? For a pure bloodline like this one? Don't insult me, gentlemen. Do I hear five thousand?"

"Five thousand!" a werewolf near the center growled, pushing another bidder out of the way. "She belongs in the north!"

"I have eight thousand!" another werewolf called out.

"I have ten thousand!"

"I have twelve..."

The numbers kept climbing higher and higher. The crowd was shouting over one another as the bidding escalated. None of them was looking at me, all of them had eyes only for the warden as they tried to outbid each other. They didn't even realise when the ropes around my wrist snapped.

I had no plan after this, and I had no idea where I was going, but the urge to survive took over. I leaped off the platform, crashing through the front row of the crowd. Men shouted and cursed as I hit the dirt and scrambled to my feet.

Then I began running blindly toward the dark edge of the market.

"She's running! Get her!" the warden roared.

I didn't make it more than ten yards. Two guards intercepted me, tackling me straight to the ground. The impact knocked the wind right out of me.

No! I tried to scream. No, please! Let me go.

They dragged me back up the steps, throwing me onto my knees at the center of the stage. Blood filled my mouth from where my lip had cut against the wood.

The warden walked over to me, his face red with fury. "You stupid, ungrateful bitch," he hissed, raising his thick leather whip high in the air to punish me in front of everyone.

I closed my eyes and braced myself for the pain, but it never came. Instead, a confident voice from the middle of the market

"I'll take her."

The voice was so full of authority that made the room fall into a sudden hush. The warden's hand froze in mid-air, and I opened my eyes slowly.

The crowd parted slowly as a man walked forward toward the platform. He was tall, with broad shoulders and jet-black hair that fell slightly into his eyes. He wore dark leather, and every single step he took exuded power.

When he reached the base of the platform, he lifted his head, and his silver-grey eyes locked directly onto mine.

I opened my mouth in a silent gasp. He looked exactly like Ashen!

For a terrifying second, I thought my killer had found me. I wanted to scream and scramble away, hide from the man who had broken my heart and ended my life just three days ago.

But as I stared at him in terror, I noticed the difference. Ashen had always worn a warm, deceitful look that had once made me believe I was safe with him.

This man's face was nothing like that. His expression was cold and deadly, his silver-grey eyes hard enough to make me instinctively take a step back. There was something dangerous in the way he looked at me that made my instincts scream to be careful.

Somehow, this man felt nothing like him, especially since he didn't have a scar across his left cheek as Ashen does. 

"Lord Garrick!" The warden hurried forward and bowed reverently. "Welcome, welcome. If you must have the girl, she costs forty thousand gold coins."

"Forty thousand?!" Many of the other patrons exclaimed in anger. Some of them started to mutter mutinously and approach the podium, but the warden had eyes only for Lord Garrick.

Lord Garrick nodded at his offer, then glanced at me for the second time. The moment our eyes met, a very violent spark erupted in the air between us. Another matebond snapped into place, anchoring itself deep inside my core. It was vastly more powerful than the bond I had shared with Ashen.

For one strange, breathless second, I forgot where I was. His gaze held mine with an intensity that made something deep inside me tighten. It wasn't entirely fear. There was something else there, something my body seemed to recognize before I could understand it. 

Heat rushed through me so suddenly that I nearly dropped to my knees. My skin prickled beneath my tattered dress, and for one terrifying moment, every instinct in me screamed to move closer to him even as my mind begged me to run.

It shouldn't even be possible to experience matebond twice in one lifetime.

Whoever this man who looked like my killer was, he didn't recognize me behind this strange new face. He just knew what the magic was telling him. He knew that I was his.