ARIA'S POV The chains were too tight. They always were. The handlers liked to make the humans wince, liked to hear the scrape of iron digging into bone, as though pain made us look more valuable. I kept my head bowed, eyes fixed on the filthy floorboards of the auction pens. That was the first lesson drilled into every slave girl: don't look, don't hope, don't think. But that night, the air felt different. The room hummed with something sharp, alive, like blood just before it spilled. One by one, the other girls were dragged out. I heard the jeers of wolves beyond the curtains, the bark of bids shouted over one another, the whipcrack of the auctioneer's voice. Laughter, too. Always laughter. Wolves laughed at us the way men laughed at livestock. "Next," the guard snarled, yanking my chain. I stumbled, knees scraping the wood. My dress, thin gray linen, torn at the hem, clung to my knees with sweat. The curtain parted, and light blinded me. The stage was a pit of eyes. Dozen
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