The Alpha's Regret: From Prisoner to Lycan Queen

Chapter 4: The Shadow Auction

Ariana's POV

The yard was quiet when I stepped in.

I slowed down without stopping, rolled my shoulders back and let my eyes do a full sweep of the yard, who was standing where, who wasn't where they usually were, which guards had found reasons to drift toward the east wall.

Riley fell into step beside me without being asked. She'd been doing that for four years.

"Contract came in last night," she said under her breath. "For you. Kevin's been sitting on it since dawn."

"How much?" My voice was ice-cold.

"I didn't catch the number." Her voice was low. "But it's high enough that two of his people turned it down."

I almost smiled. "Good to know I'm still worth something."

The yard shifted as we crossed it. A group near the east wall pulled back without making it obvious. Two women at turned at the water station turned slightly away. A newer inmate sitting on the ground pulled her legs in as I passed and kept her eyes down and said nothing.

Kevin was at the far wall. He pushed off it when he saw me coming and crossed his arms and looked down at me.

"Killer Luna," he said.

"Kevin." I stopped in front of him. "You going to tell me about the contract or should I keep hearing it from everyone else first?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The vibration moved through my chest immediately. Low and nauseous, that familiar pull that I'd spent months learning to trust and years learning to use. He was lying, looking me in the eyes and lying.

"Someone offered your crew money to touch me, and you took the meeting." I held his gaze. "So either you're still considering it, which I'd think carefully about, or you're about to tell me where the contract came from and we end this conversation."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Word came from outside," he said finally. "I don't know the channel personally."

"But you know the money?" I asked.

"I turned it down."

The vibration came again, fainter this time which meant it was half truth.

"You turned down the job, but you kept the information fee." I tilted my head. "That's fine. So what's the information?"

He went quiet for a moment. "Same channel tried two others before they came to me, both said no." His eyes met mine properly for the first time. "Whoever is running this is getting more desperate."

I looked at him, the vibration in my chest was still which meant he was telling the truth.

"Okay," I said.

He blinked. "Okay?"

"Thank you." I turned to go.

"That's it?" Riley said beside me, keeping her voice low as we walked. "He just told you someone's running a contract on your life and you said thank you?"

"What else would I say?" I asked.

"I don't know." Her voice raised slightly. "Maybe try to fight back or something."

"That doesn't help anything." I scanned the yard as we moved through it.

"How did you even know he was lying?" She asked. "About not knowing the channel?"

"I felt it." I glanced at her.

"You, what?" She asked, confused.

"People lie with their faces, they forget about everything else." I kept walking. "The way someone breathes changes when they're saying something they know isn't true. You pay attention long enough to stop needing the face at all."

"That's..." She paused. "When did you figure that out?"

"In solitary confinement. After the poisoning." I kept my eyes on the corridor ahead. "Thirty days in a cell with nothing but silence will make you start hearing things you couldn't hear before."

Riley stared at me. "You've been able to feel when people are lying this whole time?"

"I didn't say that." My voice was flat.

"That's literally what you just..."

"I said I pay attention," I said. "That's all."

She looked at me sideways with the expression she used when she knew I was closing a conversation.

We reached the corridor between the main block and the kitchen and she stopped walking and I stopped walking with her.

"The contract is running wide," she said. "The guards moving differently this morning, even the warden's office light is on since dawn." She looked at me. "Something is happening today, not just the contract."

"I know." I said simply.

"What do we do?" She asked.

"We wait." My voice was steady.

"Aria..."

The bell rang. Which was the wrong hour for it to, both of us knew it. The yard knew it, the whole shift in the air was instant, everyone stopped at once, heads turning toward the main hall.

"See I told you," I said. "We wait."

All three blocks gathered in one room.

The warden walked in and the noise dropped without him having to ask. He stood at the front with his clipboard and looked around the hall the way he always did.

"Two days from now, this facility will host a shadow auction under Lycan law authority. Inmates selected based on survival record and threat classification move to holding tonight." He looked at his clipboard. "Any disruption to facility order before then puts you on the list automatically."

He looked up and his eyes moved across the hall and landed on me and didn't move.

"Killer Luna." His voice was loud. "You're at the front of the holding line, tonight."

Nobody made a sound.

"Seven years," he said, still looking at me. "Survived every hit, every contract, every attempt this system threw at you." He tucked the clipboard under his arm. "Whoever buys you is paying for all of that."

He walked out.

The room stayed silent for three seconds, then Riley's hand found my arm and gripped it once. She didn't say anything neither did I.

There was nothing left to say.