Chapter Five

Ronan's POV

The last maid had tried to put hemlock in my tea.

 One of my guards had caught her before I drank it and she had not even tried to run.

 Just stood there in the kitchen and looked at him.

 My beta had wanted to make an example of her and I had let him because I was tired and because the attempt itself had bored me more than it had frightened me.

 People had been trying to kill me since I was fourteen. The creativity had long since stopped impressing me.

 But I still needed a maid.

 Boris had suggested the borderlands auction.

 He said there was a fresh batch from the chiefdoms, humans mostly, healthy enough.

 I had not particularly wanted to go myself but I trusted the judgment of exactly three people in my court and I was not sending any of them to pick a maid.

 I pulled my hood up before we reached the square. The borderlands market was loud and poorly organized, the way it always was.

 Merchants, servants and hunters moving between stalls, the noise of bidding carrying across the whole site.

 I had been to the square twice before on other business and both times I had walked through it quickly and left.

 There was nothing here that required my attention for longer than necessary. We had barely crossed into the square when it hit me.

Pine and earth, cutting straight through the smell of the crowd and the smoke from the fire pits.

 My wolf came awake so suddenly that I stopped walking and stood still in the middle of the square.

 Boris noticed immediately.

 "My king?" I didn't answer him. I was already scanning the square, moving my eyes from face to face, stall to stall, trying to locate the source.

 Then I saw her. She was at one of the pillars near the centre of the square, wrists bound above her head, and she was sneering at the crowd in front of her.

 Her eyes moving from face to face with a contempt she wasn't bothering to hide.

 Her face was still carrying the remains of old bruising along her jaw.

 Someone had hit her recently, and hard, and she was standing at an auction pillar with her chin up anyway.

 My wolf said one word. Mate. I stood there for a moment and let that settle.

 The bidding was already underway. A merchant I recognized, Belafair, one of the richest werewolf merchants from the Thorneclaw pack, had thrown out the whopping sum of five hundred coins on the human girl.

 My wolf growled. He dared to lay claim on our mate.

 I moved through the crowd toward the back and waited, careful not to draw too many eyes.

 The auctioneer opened his mouth. "Five thousand coins." I said, The square erupted in whispers.

 "Five thousand coins for a maid? A human at that."

 "He must be high off his knockers."

 "I bet he doesn't even have the money." The whispers came from all directions.

 Belafair pushed through the crowd toward me and grabbed my collar roughly.

 I looked down at his hand and felt nothing but disgust. He dared to touch his king.

 "The auction square is no place for jokes." He spat in my face.

I took his wrist and squeezed until I felt the bones there protest against each other and he started to writhe in pain.

 His free hand caught my hood in his struggle and pulled it off. The entire square went quiet.

 Belafair's face drained of colour. His entire body began to tremble.

 "King Ronan." He sputtered.

 I let his wrist go and he stepped back immediately, cradling his hand against his chest.

 I didn't watch him leave.

 My eyes had already gone back to the pillar. Boris appeared at my side.

 "There's a merchant, Cassian, third row. He's been watching since you spoke. He has the coin to make a counter offer and he's the type that would do it just to prove a point." 

I turned and looked at Cassian.

 He had the royal crest of Ebonbridge on his collar. An alpha had sent him.

 I held his gaze and said nothing. He looked away first, suddenly very interested in the stall beside him.I went to collect her.

 One of Eric's guards had already unbound her wrists from the pillar and had her by the arm, moving her toward the line of carriages at the edge of the square.

 She was not going quietly.

 She was pulling against his grip and saying something to him in a low voice that I could not hear from where I stood.

 He shoved her forward hard to move her along and she stumbled and caught herself on the side of the carriage.

 I reached him before he knew what was happening. I took his hand, the one that had shoved her, and I broke it.

 He roared in pain as he went down. The guards around him froze.

 The woman turned and looked at me. Up close the bruising on her jaw was worse than it had appeared from a distance.

 I looked at it and felt something move through my chest that I did not have a clean word for.

 My fists clenched at my sides. I looked at Boris.

 "Burn it." I said. He looked at me. "Burn it all to the ground." I said again.

 He nodded once and moved off to relay the order. I opened the carriage door and waited.

 She looked at the open door, then at me, then at the guard still folded over his broken hand on the ground.

 Something moved across her face that she didn't let turn into a full expression. She got into the carriage.

 I got in after her and the carriage pulled away.

 Behind us the first flames caught the edge of the auction tent and the square erupted into chaos that was no longer my concern.

 I reached over and touched her cheek gently.

 She flinched back hard, pressing herself against the carriage door, her eyes sharp and guarded and watching me the way someone watches a thing they have not yet decided is safe.

 My chest felt like something was wringing it out slowly.

 "You're safe." I said. "Mate.”