SOLD TO THE ALPHA

LYDIA POV

The poison kept me weak.

I woke to rough hands dragging me across the ground, then lifting me into a cart. My side burned where the arrow had struck. Black lines of poison still crawled under my skin. Every breath felt shallow and wet. I tried to fight, but my body would not obey. The guards only laughed.

“She’s still breathing. That’s enough.”

They took me to my parents’ mansion.

I was half-carried through a side entrance and left on the cold floor of a small room. My mother stood over me with a face like stone. My father spoke to someone at the door about moving the transfer forward because “the goods” had been damaged. They cleaned me with rough cloths, forced a plain dress over my bruises, and left my roughly cut hair uncovered. The poison still made the edges of the world blur.

“You will not shame us further,” my mother said as she pinned a thin veil in place. “Minister Varkas is attending the wedding banquet tonight. You will be presented, and you will keep your mouth shut.”

Night came too quickly.

The main hall of the mansion had been opened for a high-ranking wedding banquet. Music and laughter floated through the corridors. I was led in through a side door and made to stand near the edge of the gathering like an object waiting to be claimed. My legs trembled. I kept my eyes down.

Minister Varkas was already there — older, thick around the middle, with cold eyes that moved over me the way a man inspects livestock. He spoke quietly with my father. I caught pieces of the conversation: still usable… poison will wear off… expect a reduction for the damage.

I wanted the floor to open and swallow me.

Then the air in the hall changed.

It was not loud. It was not announced. It was simply a shift — the way the temperature drops before a storm. Conversations faltered. Several ranked wolves near the entrance stepped aside without knowing why. A man walked in alone.

He was tall, dressed in black without any visible crest or pack colors. His face was calm, almost expressionless, but the weight of his presence pressed against the room. No one seemed to recognize him. No one spoke his name. Yet people moved out of his path.

His eyes scanned the hall once and stopped on me.

I felt the moment he understood what he was seeing — the poison, the weakness, the way I was being displayed. Something cold and sharp settled behind his gaze. He walked straight toward my father and the minister without hurry.

“I will take her,” he said. His voice was quiet, but it carried through the sudden silence. “Name your price.”

Minister Varkas turned, frowning. “She is already promised to me. Who are you to interfere?”

The stranger did not answer the question. He only looked at the minister the way a man looks at something small.

“Name. Your. Price.”

That was all it took.

Other voices rose. An Alpha from the northern border called out a number. Another followed. Within moments the banquet had turned into an open auction. Men began pricing me out loud while I stood there shaking, forced to listen.

When the attention turned toward Patrick, the hall leaned in.

He stepped forward just enough to be heard. His voice was calm, almost bored.

“I don’t need to buy her. She was already my mate before I rejected her. Return her to me. She can serve as my breeder. That is all she is useful for now.”

The words hit harder than the poison. A few people laughed under their breath. My face burned with a humiliation so deep I felt sick.

The stranger in black did not look at Patrick for long.

He simply raised the bid.

Every time another voice called a new number, he added ten thousand without hesitation. His tone never changed. He never argued. He never threatened. He only topped every price that was spoken, as if the money meant nothing and the outcome had already been decided in his mind.

“Twenty thousand.”

“Thirty-five.”

“Fifty.”

“Sixty-five.”

One by one the other bidders fell silent. Minister Varkas looked furious but did not speak again. Patrick’s jaw was tight, yet he offered no further claim beyond what he had already said.

The final number the stranger gave was high enough that no one followed it.

Silence settled over the hall.

Only then did the man turn slightly so his voice reached everyone.

“She will not be a companion for an old minister,” he said. “She will not be a breeder. She will leave with me tonight as a Healer.” He paused, letting the words stand, before he finally gave them the truth they had been missing. “My name is Adrian. Alpha of Stormfang. And Stormfang protects what it claims.”

The effect was immediate.

Several high-ranking wolves visibly stiffened. Even my father’s face changed. Stormfang was not a minor pack. Their military strength and independence were well known. An Alpha who had just openly outbid everyone in the room now carried the full weight of that power behind his words.

No one challenged him.

The deal was sealed with cold formalities. Money would change hands. Papers would be signed. I was being sold again — only this time the man who bought me had just revealed enough power that no one dared protest.

I was still standing only because a staff member held my elbow. The poison made the room tilt.

Adrian turned to me at last. He did not smile. He did not soften. He simply studied me with the same steady, unreadable expression.

“Can you walk?” he asked, voice low enough that only I could hear.

I managed a single nod.

As he took my arm and guided me toward the exit, I felt the weight of every eye in the hall. Some held shock. Some held calculation. None held kindness.

Patrick watched us leave. Something dark and frustrated lived in his face now — the expression of a man who had thrown something away and only realized its value when another Alpha claimed it in front of everyone.

The doors closed behind us.

Night air touched my face. I was still weak, still poisoned, still the girl whose family had sold her twice. But the man walking beside me had just bent an entire room of powerful wolves without raising his voice — and he had called me Healer while he did it.

I clung to that single word as he led me into the dark.