Chapter three

They locked me in my room, and I spent the night on the floor, arms wrapped around the empty place in my chest where the bond had been.

By afternoon they came for me again.

I knelt on the cold stone of Dayn's office, my eyes swollen almost shut from crying. His scent reached me faint and wrong now, unravelled by the broken bond, and it turned my empty stomach.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" He didn't look at me. He poured whiskey and drank it in one swallow. "The Alpha's fated mate is meant to be a blessing to the whole pack. And the Goddess hands me a murderer."

"Ken killed them, not me," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. "Someone framed me."

"And yet you have no proof." He set the glass down. "No alibi. No witness. Only your word, and your word is worth nothing now."

"Ken ran from the scene. I heard him on the phone—"

"Ken gave a statement." Dayn's eyes were flat and cold. "He says you fought with your sister and stormed off. He says you'd been reading about vervain. The same poison that was in the gas line." He let that hang. "You see the problem."

I did. It was airtight. Someone had built it that way.

"Why did you even come to the ceremony?" he asked, quieter now, which was somehow worse. "Did you think being my mate would save you?"

I shook my head. I hadn't thought at all. I'd just been so tired of being no one.

He watched me for a long moment. Then he reached into a drawer and pulled out a folder.

"You've made me a problem," he said. "The whole pack saw the Goddess bind us. They know an Omega accused of murder is my fated mate. It makes me look weak. And I do not tolerate looking weak."

"Then what are you going to do with me?"

He opened the folder and slid it across the desk.

"This morning I received offers. Several of them. Important men who were at the ceremony last night. When my mother tore that dress off you, they saw something they wanted to buy."

Ice flooded my veins. "You can't sell a pack member. That's against the law."

"I can't sell a pack member," he agreed. "But you were never really one of us, were you? You're an Omega. And after last night, I could exile you for trespassing at the ceremony instead. So." He spread his hands. "Sold, or exiled. Those are your choices."

"Exiled I'd be a lone wolf. I'd be dead in a week."

"Which is why this is a mercy." His smile was cruel. "Sold, at least you'll be fed. Sheltered. Used, yes. But alive."

"You mean raped." The disgust in my voice was the only weapon I had left.

"Whatever your buyer wants." He stood. "You don't get to choose that part. You only get to choose whether you live."

I stared at the man the Goddess had called my other half, and I understood there was nothing left in him for me. Nothing but a transaction.

"Who," I said. "Who's buying me?"

"The highest bidder. The auction is tomorrow." He crossed to the door and opened it, nodding to the guard outside. "Take her back. Watch her and make sure she doesn't do anything stupid."

The guard seized my arm.

As I was dragged out, I looked back once. Dayn stood framed in the lamplight, watching me go without a flicker of anything on his face.

Then he turned away and shut the door.

They threw me into my room and locked it. I slid down the wall.

Tomorrow I would be sold like livestock to a man I'd never met. The thought should have broken me. Instead, somewhere underneath the pain, that stubborn ember flared back to life.

I pressed my hand flat over the hollow in my chest.

I had lost my family. My name, my mate. My freedom was next.