The Lycan King, Issac Hazelgrey

Silence swallowed the auction hall.

The auctioneer squinted toward the him, certain he'd misheard. "I — I'm sorry sir, did you say —"

"Are you deaf?" The voice was quiet, but the absolute dominance from it was clear. "I said ten billion."

"Oh — oh, yes, of course!" The auctioneer's gavel trembled in his hand. "Ten billion, going once — going twice — sold! Sold to the gentleman at the back!"

A ripple of stunned murmuring broke across the room. But the sum alone was enough to make the auction manager scramble down from his podium, bowing so deeply his forehead nearly grazed his own knees.

"Sir, you understand, of course, that this is simply a — a worthless slave," he stammered, forcing an oily smile. "Once purchased, there are no returns, no refunds, no—"

He didn't finish the sentence.

Something in the air had shifted, a pressure settling over the room. The manager's own wolf recoiled inside him, some primal instinct screaming at him to stop talking, to back away, to survive. He felt it before he understood it — murderous intent, vast and cold, radiating off the stranger like heat off a blade.

"O-okay, sir," the manager whispered, sweat beading along his hairline. "Let me just finish the paperwork. Please, sit, we'll bring tea, as a token of our esteem—"

"No need." The man's voice didn't rise. "My servant will handle the documents. And from this point forward, I want every record of her existence dissolved. Every ledger. Every name. If so much as a rumor about her is ever spoken again—" he exhaled, slow and even, "—I will burn this auction house to the ground."

The manager's legs gave out beneath him, and he sat hard on the floor, unable to speak.

The man in the black cloak walked past him without sparing another glance and crossed the chamber until he reached the stone platform where Elena remained shackled, her wrists still trapped inside heavy iron cuffs. She never reacted to his approach. There was no fear, no struggle, not even the instinct to pull away. She simply stayed where she was, her head bowed, her breathing so shallow it was almost imperceptible.

He crouched before her and slipped one arm beneath her knees while the other supported her back. The moment he lifted her, his expression hardened. She offered no resistance because she had none left to give. Her body yielded completely to his hold, limp and frighteningly light.

There was almost no weight to her, as though days of starvation, endless torture, and relentless humiliation had stripped away every ounce of strength she had once possessed. She rested against his chest with unsettling ease, her arms hanging lifelessly at her sides while her head rolled weakly onto his shoulder. She should have carried the healthy weight of a grown woman, yet in his embrace she felt heartbreakingly fragile, delicate enough that tightening his grip too much might break her.

His jaw clenched.

No being should ever have been reduced to this.

Her cracked lips trembled, moving in faint, broken whispers that barely escaped her throat. The words were too weak to form, dissolving into soft breaths before anyone could understand them. Her eyelids fluttered without ever fully opening, revealing only fleeting glimpses of dull blue eyes that struggled to remain conscious. Even that small effort seemed beyond her. Her fingers twitched once against his cloak before falling still again, every trace of strength abandoning.

"Coat," he said, and a servant appeared instantly, draping heavy fabric over her ruined shoulders.

"Markle. Do what is necessary," he said, and walked out without waiting for a reply, carrying her toward the line of black cars waiting several yards down the road.

A guard opened the door for him. The driver glanced back. "Are we still attending the party tonight, my lord?"

The man was silent for a long moment, looking down at the woman in his arms.

"No," he said finally. "Back to Lyall City."

His name was Issac Hazelgrey. The Lycan King — ruler over every pack and every Lycan bloodline across the continent, feared and respected in equal measure, mateless for longer time. He was on his way to a banquet in Salt City that night, hosted by the Wolf King himself, half-expecting to spend the evening being paraded past eligible daughters he had no interest in meeting.

Then, on the road, he had felt it. An ache low in his chest, like something inside him recognizing a piece of itself he hadn't known was missing. He'd heard other Lycans describe it — the mate-bond pull, but nothing had prepared him for how completely it seized him, redirecting his entire fleet toward a squat, unremarkable building he'd never have looked at twice otherwise.

Then he'd seen her, chained and placed like an item, men biding on her. The moment their eyes met, something powerful surged through him — a need to tear the building apart with his bare hands, to make every person inside pay in blood. He had forced it down. Get her out first, everything else could wait.

Now, in the back seat, holding what should have been his triumph, his mate, finally, after decades, all he felt was fury and grief tangled into something unbearable. This was not how a living being was meant to be treated. Lycan, wolf or not.

The rage broke before he could stop it.

It ripped out of him without warning.

A savage roar exploded from his chest, carrying enough force to send a violent shockwave through the car. Every window burst outward in a shower of shattered glass. The steel frame groaned, the doors buckling beneath the pressure as cracks raced across the windshield. The air itself seemed to tremble beneath the sheer weight of his fury.

Elena flinched awake. The sound reached her before her mind did. Her eyes flew open, wide with blind terror, and instinct took over. She tore herself from his arms with desperate, clumsy movements, stumbling out of the ruined vehicle before collapsing onto the ground.

She dragged herself across the dirt, her elbows scraping against stones as her trembling limbs refused to obey her. Every frantic movement carried her farther away until she reached the base of a tree. Curling into herself, she threw both arms over her head, making herself as small as she possibly could.

"Please..." she sobbed, her voice cracking into broken pieces. "I'm trash... I'm trash... Please don't hit me... I know I'm trash... Please..."

Each word came automatically, stripped of thought, stripped of dignity. She wasn't pleading for mercy anymore. She was reciting the only answer that had ever stopped the pain.

The convoy screeched to a halt behind them.

Doors flew open one after another as the escorts rushed forward, weapons already drawn, only to stop dead the instant they heard her. Battle-hardened soldiers who had walked through blood-soaked battlefields stood rooted to the ground, their expressions slowly crumbling as Elena continued to beg for forgiveness for crimes she had never committed. Her voice shook violently, every sentence punctuated by terrified gasps as she hid her face beneath her arms, waiting for blows that never came.

"I'm trash..." she whispered again, rocking back and forth. "Please... I'll be good... I won't answer back... Please don't whip me... Please..."

A suffocating silence settled over the clearing. Isaac drew a slow, unsteady breath before stepping toward her. He kept his hands open at his sides, making certain she could see they held nothing. He stopped several feet away, unwilling to frighten her further.

"Elena..." His voice was gentle enough to break. "No one is going to hurt you."

She recoiled violently anyway, pressing herself harder against the tree until there was nowhere left to go. Her entire body shook uncontrollably as tears streamed down her dirt-streaked face.

"Please!" she cried, squeezing her eyes shut. "Please don't hit me! I'm trash! I'm trash! I'll do whatever you want! Please..."