13

Sorvane did not talk unless he was hungry. “I could eat her whole. Just let me in, Ravok.” And I would give in, because if I did not, the hunger would tear me apart from the inside.

I had to buy slaves (women who would end up in my bed and die) just so Sorvane could devour the energy he craved. 

Romeo had once told me, “If you find a woman whose energy matches Sorvane’s, she might survive you.” I wanted to believe him. Maybe that was why I was here tonight, hoping to find a woman with a pulse strong enough to keep me from killing her.

Becoming a sex beast was the price I had paid for setting a demon free, and there was no turning back.

“The auction shall now begin!” the announcer’s voice boomed across the room, and suddenly the lights went out and conversations died.

I leaned toward the wolfish woman sitting next to me, catching the scent of her perfume, too sweet. “We’ll talk after the auction,” I said quietly, my gaze still on the stage.

Even as I said it, I knew. One look at her thin neck, the delicate pulse beating beneath her skin, told me she wouldn’t survive me. She would die with her last broken orgasm, and Sorvane wouldn’t even be satisfied.

A single spotlight snapped on, flooding the stage with white light.

Five human girls were shoved forward. They were all naked, but none of them shied away. Some even walked with a strange grace, their bodies on display: large breasts and wide hips.

I leaned back in my chair, scanning their faces, their movements, the subtle flickers of energy in the air, but none of them drew me in. 

“Pathetic,” the demon hissed in the back of my mind.

My jaw tightened as I forced myself to breathe evenly, but I could feel him stirring. 

“That’ll satisfy you in bed and, most importantly, they are excellent play toys!” the sturdy man announced.

The crowd of men erupted in murmurs. I could smell their lust in the air, cause most of them were already turned on by the display of naked flesh.

“Let the bidding begin!” he shouted, pointing to the first girl. A blonde. 

She was the most endowed of the five, full breasts that seemed to beg for attention, her skin glowing under the harsh light. When she turned, showing off her perfectly rounded ass, the room roared with approval.

“You can see how lovely she looks,” the auctioneer continued with a grin. “This is Seraphina, one of the finest sex toys you’ll find. She’ll serve you well and give you the best pleasure you’ve ever had!”

Oh, she caught my attention.

My body reacted before I could stop it, a twitch deep in my trousers, heat coiling low in my stomach. She was perfect bait, so would be my next scapegoat.

“We will start the bidding at fifty thousand!” the man shouted.

“Hundred thousand!” someone barked from the left.

“One-fifty!”

The room became a frenzy of voices, numbers being thrown, each man desperate to own her for a night, a week, or until she broke.

I was no better than any of them.

“Two-fifty!” someone yelled, and the entire room went silent. No one else dared to bid. 

But I couldn’t afford to lose this opportunity. “Five hundred thousand!” I shouted.

A collective gasp rose from the crowd. Heads turned. A bright spotlight swung in my direction, and every pair of eyes zeroed in on me.

Fuck, I hated this kind of attention. Atheon needed the most focused king it could have, but I was nothing more than the puppet of a beast.

“Wow!” the auctioneer boomed, grinning wide. “Five hundred thousand! Going once… going twice… and sold to the man in the black mask!”

The spotlight flicked off me, plunging me back into the shadows, and the murmurs of disbelief rippled across the room.

The bidding continued with the remaining girls, each one sold off to other hungry, slavering bidders, but I barely paid attention.

When the last girl was dragged off the stage and the hammer fell for the final time, the auctioneer raised his voice. “Gentlemen, our winners may claim their prizes. Tonight will be unforgettable.”

I rose to leave, forcing my body upright while the hunger lay briefly caged beneath my skin. Then the scent reached me.

Sweet... not cloying, not innocent. Warm, layered, alive. It slipped into the room like a slow breath, sinking deep into my lungs before I could stop it. Every other smell collapsed under its weight: sweat, smoke, metal, wine. Gone.

My chest tightened.

I turned before the decision ever formed, my body reacting faster than thought, pulled back toward the stage as if something inside me had recognized its name being spoken. My steps retraced themselves without permission, drawn by that sweetness that promised nothing and demanded everything.

The lights shifted.

Nora stepped onto the stage, heels sharp against the wood, the microphone already in her hand. The feedback hissed briefly before she adjusted it, her expression calm, practiced.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “These are our newest goods.” The word landed wrong. “Adult women,” she continued, as if reading from a list. “Never touched. Never claimed. Clean.”

A murmur moved through the room.

“They can warm your bed,” Nora went on, unfazed. “Wash your dishes. Keep quiet. They were raised obedient. Silence comes naturally to them.”

The curtain behind her was drawn aside, and four women stepped onto the stage.

They were dressed in nothing but thin undergarments. Their skin looked pale under the harsh light, stripped of shadow, stripped of privacy. They stood in a line, shoulders stiff, eyes fixed ahead or lowered to the floor.

The room breathed in as one.

I did not.

Something in me tightened. Not curiosity. Not choice. Pressure — deep and visceral — coiled in my spine and pulled, forcing my gaze sideways despite every effort to resist. My jaw clenched, muscles locking as if my body had been claimed by an order I hadn’t given.

My eyes found her.

She stood near the end of the line, too small for the space she was forced to occupy.

Her hair was red, dark, muted, falling long and heavy over her shoulders, spilling forward to hide most of her chest like an instinctive shield she wasn’t even aware she was raising. Strands clung to her skin, catching the light as she shifted her weight almost imperceptibly.

Her skin was painfully white under the lamps. 

And then I knew: the scent, that sweetness that had drowned the room, came from her.

It wrapped around my senses, warm and alive, sinking into my lungs with every breath I tried not to take. My chest tightened, hunger surging hard and fast now, no longer patient, no longer contained.

I hadn’t stepped closer, not at first. The room moved before I did. Chairs scraped against the floor as men rose almost in unison, the sound sharp and sudden, like a single organism waking. 

The air shifted with them, thickening, pressing in. 

My body followed. I stood without thinking, pulled upright by the same force that drove the others forward. The distance between us and the stage began to shrink, step by step, until I found myself moving with the crowd, drawn closer despite the knot tightening in my chest. 

I did not stop walking until I was near the edge of the light.

The world narrowed until there was only the stage, the light, and the small red-haired girl standing far too still... the source of the sweetness that had dragged me back like a fucking leash.

I hated that I couldn’t look away!

Rough hands pushed her down; her knees hit the boards and something inside me flashed white. For an instant the room reddened around the edges.

I heard a voice in my head. It was deep and hoarse. I knew it wasn't my Wolf's voice, since we had not had any communication for years. If it wasn't my wolf... 

“I recognize her.” A low reverberation inside my skull. “She is mine.” The possessiveness in it wasn’t suggestion. Sorvane had showered his true self.