Luna to be Auctioned

The pen sat on top of the papers like a blade waiting to fall.

 

Elena hadn't touched it. She had been sitting at the edge of the stripped bed for what felt like hours when Damian finally walked in, still dressed for the celebration downstairs, still smelling faintly of Vivian's perfume.

 

" Have you signed," he said.

 

He remained standing instead of taking the chair across from her, his arms folded firmly over his chest as though creating an unbreakable wall between them. The warmth that had once existed in his eyes had disappeared completely. The instant their gazes met, Elena saw nothing but cold disdain staring back at her, the kind that made it painfully clear he no longer saw her as his wife, only as a burden he wanted removed from his life.

 

"Did you ever love me?" she mustered the courage to ask, maybe some silver hope. “Tell me straight Damian, why choose me? Why tell me am your mate and that you would only choose me? Was that all a lie?”

 

He looked away first, then sighed.

 

“Love you? Seriously Elena, I only choose your pretty face but I guess that was just you had,” he exhaled, “Just sign the papers, now that you have no soul mark you are nothing to me?”

 

She chuckled coldly, true, after being disowned, even her connection to her wolf nature was diminishing.

 

She signed, she thought that would be the end of it. A quiet, private humiliation, contained to one room how wrong she was. Instead of dissolving the marriage quietly, Damian threw a banquet. The great hall, still warm from last night's gathering, was lit again a live band playing something bright and celebratory. Hundreds of pack members filled the floor, raising glasses to Vivian, who stood at the front in a gown the color of fresh blood.

 

Elena was made to stand at the edge of it all. A quiet order from Damian's mother, delivered with a smile: "You'll stand there, dear, so everyone can see the divorce is final. It wouldn't do to have rumours."

 

So she stood, and watched strangers who had once curtsied to her raise their glasses to the woman who replaced her.

 

"Congratulations, Luna Vivian."

 

"May you give the Alpha many strong pups."

 

Each toast landed like a small, precise wound.

 

It was near midnight when the visitors arrived — three Alphas from neighbouring territories, wealthy, powerful, the kind of men whose approval Damian had spent years courting. They swept in with their entourages, already half-drunk on wine and their own importance.

 

One of them, a broad-shouldered Alpha named Reyes, spotted Elena standing alone near the wall and laughed.

 

"So this is her? The famous barren Luna?" He turned to Damian, grinning. "What will you do with your useless ex-wife now, old friend?"

 

Laughter rippled through the nearby crowd. Elena's face burned, but she didn't move, didn't speak. She had learned, over five years, that giving them a reaction only fed them.

 

"Sell her," someone called out from the group, half-joking.

 

"She's beautiful enough," another added, raising his glass toward her like she was a piece of art on display. "Even if she can't breed."

 

More laughter, Damian's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile and wasn't quite denial.

 

"I suppose," he said slowly, savouring it, "she's still worth something."

 

Elena felt the floor tilt beneath her. She waited for him to laugh, to wave it off, to say of course not, she's still pack. He didn't. She didn't remember the wine tasting strange. She only remembered Marla pressing a glass into her hand, insisting she drink to "close this chapter properly," and then the room going soft and distant smearing into long gold streaks before everything went black. When she woke, the first thing she felt was the cold.

 

She struggled up and then felt something around her neck, instinctively she felt something flat and metallic, then a thin inscription, which she could feel it as the number: 07.

 

"Ah, she's awake." The voice came from the doorway, syrupy and pleased. A woman filled the frame — enormous, draped in gold silk that strained at every seam, rings crowded onto fingers like fat little jewels. Beside her stood a man just as large, sweating despite the chill of the room, a cigar unlit between his teeth.

 

Elena had heard the names before. Mr. and Mrs. Baltimore. Owners of the Baltimore Auction House in Jin City —their speciality was slave trading.

 

"No," Elena said, her voice cracking. "No, this isn't real. This is a mistake. I am the Luna of—"

 

"Were," Mrs. Baltimore corrected sweetly, waddling closer, rings glinting. "Were the Luna, sweetheart. Your husband's signature is on the transfer papers. Twenty million, and he didn't even blink."

 

"You're lying." Elena's voice rose, panic cracking through the numbness. She lunged forward against the chain at her ankle, fury and disbelief tangled together into something wild. "I don't belong to anyone! I am not property, I am not some — some thing you can sell, do you understand who I—"

 

The slap came so fast she didn't see it coming.

 

Mrs. Baltimore's ringed hand cracked across her face with a force that didn't match her sweet voice at all, sending Elena sprawling sideways onto the cold stone floor. Pain bloomed white-hot across her cheek, her ears ringing, the taste of blood filling her mouth where her teeth had caught the inside of her lip.

 

For a moment, Elena simply lay there, too stunned to move, staring up at the woman looming over her.

 

Then Mrs. Baltimore leaned down, slowly, and spat.

 

The saliva landed on Elena's cheek, and something inside her — some last thread still holding her together — finally snapped in half.

 

"You think you're still the high and mighty queen?" Mrs. Baltimore hissed, straightening up, smoothing her golden silk like Elena's blood hadn't just touched her hand. "You are nothing but an item to be auctioned. Act like one — or we will teach you how to act like one!"