Chapter 1: The Auction of a Queen

The air in the Newtown manor was thick with the scent of expensive gin and my mother’s cold desperation. I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror, my hands trembling as I smoothed the silk of the dress Betty had forced me into. It was blood-red, dangerously tight, and felt less like a garment and more like a target.

​"Don’t just stand there like a statue, Leona," my mother, Betty, snapped from the doorway. She was nursing a glass of bourbon, her eyes scanning me with a calculated greed that made my stomach turn. "Dante is a powerful man with a very specific set of tastes. He’s paying enough to clear our debts and then some, so don't you dare give me that 'bitch ass' attitude tonight. You’re going to smile, you’re going to be charming, and you’re going to do exactly what he says."

​I felt a surge of pure, hot hatred for the woman who had raised me. She wasn't just my mother; she was a pawn of the High Council, and tonight, she was making me the ultimate sacrifice. "You’re selling your own daughter to a butcher," I whispered, my voice shaking with a mix of fear and fury. "Does your conscience even flicker, or did you sell that off years ago too?"

​Betty’s eyes narrowed into slits. "I’m securing our survival. In this world, Leona, you’re either the one holding the leash or the one wearing the collar. Tonight, you’re just making sure we stay in the game."

​I turned back to the mirror, blinking away tears. I was a Princess of the Newtown underworld, but I was about to be handed over to a beast. I could already imagine Dante’s hands on me—oily, cruel, and cold.

​Before Betty could deliver another one of her venomous lectures, the heavy oak doors of the drawing room slammed open with a force that rattled the crystal chandeliers overhead. The temperature in the room seemed to plummet, the air suddenly charged with a raw, predatory energy.

​A dark, towering figure stepped out of the shadows of the hallway and into the golden light of the drawing room.

​It was Malakai.

​My step-brother. The man whose name was whispered in the dark corners of every club in the city. He was "furious" in motion, his presence filling the massive room until it felt like a cage. He wasn't dressed for a party; he was dressed for a war. His black tactical shirt was stretched tight over his broad chest, and his sleeves were rolled up to reveal arms covered in the dark, intricate ink of tattoos that marked every life he had taken.

​"Dante isn't coming," Malakai said. His voice wasn't a shout; it was a deep, gravelly vibration that seemed to rumble in the very floorboards beneath my feet.

​Betty’s glass nearly slipped from her hand as she stepped forward, her face turning a sickly shade of pale. "What? Malakai, what are you doing here? Get out! The High Council sanctioned this deal. It's already done!"

​Malakai ignored her completely, treating her like a buzzing insect. His eyes—dark, bottomless, and filled with a "no joke" intensity—were locked onto mine. He walked straight toward me, his heavy boots clicking rhythmically on the marble floor. Every step he took felt like a hammer hitting a nail. He didn't stop until he was inches away, his heat radiating off him in waves that made my skin prickle with a forbidden, "sinful" spark.

​"Malakai..." I breathed his name, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

​He didn't speak at first. He reached out, his large, calloused hand cupping my jaw. His grip was firm, possessive, forcing me to look up into the storm of his gaze. He looked at me with a "sex freak" hunger that he had been suppressed for years, an obsession that was finally breaking its chains.

​"I told you once before, Leona," he growled, leaning down so his lips brushed against the sensitive skin of my ear. I could smell the scent of expensive tobacco and rain on him. "I’m the only one who marks you. I’m the only man who gets to decide your fate."

​"The Council..." I started, but he silenced me by pressing his thumb firmly against my bottom lip.

​"The Council is a joke," he whispered, his voice dangerously low. "And Dante is currently bleeding out in an alleyway three blocks from here. Nobody touches what belongs to me."

​He pulled a heavy black envelope from his jacket and tossed it at Betty’s feet without even glancing her way. "That’s more than Dante was offering. Tell the Council the deal is off. Tell them Leona is under my protection now. If any of them have a problem with it, they can come find me. I’ll be happy to show them what a 'bloodbath' really looks like."

​Betty looked at the envelope, then at Malakai’s lethal expression, and for once in her life, she stayed silent.

​Malakai turned his attention back to me, his hand sliding down from my jaw to my waist, pulling me firmly against the hard, unyielding line of his body. The contact was electric. I knew that being "his" meant a life of danger, of dark desires, and of a passion that would likely consume us both. He was a monster, but he was my monster.

​"Let’s go, Princess," he muttered, his grip tightening. "We have a lot of lost time to make up for."

​As he led me out of the manor and into the cold night air, I realized my life was about to become a beautiful, violent sin. And for the first time in nineteen years, I didn't want to be saved. I wanted to be his.