BloodBound Crown
The careful control he'd maintained for years—the discipline that made him the perfect soldier, the ideal heir—cracked like river ice in spring.
A door opened on the far side of the chamber, and two men dragged out a struggling boy. Couldn't be more than sixteen, thin and terrified, with the pointed ears and silver eyes of fae blood. Half-fae, probably, born to a human mother and worth less than nothing in both worlds.
"Fresh from the border territories," Grayson announced. "Untrained but docile. Good for household labor or... other uses. Shall we start the bidding at twenty gold?"
The buyers began calling out numbers. The boy was sold within minutes for thirty-five gold to a merchant in pur