Rescued by the Blackridge Alpha

Chapter 13

Morning arrived far too quickly. I woke to movement, voices and someone opening the doors at the far end of the building.

For one beautiful second, I forgot where I was.

Then I saw 317 around my wrist.

Right. The market.

We were given water to wash with and breakfast that made Cook's worst porridge seem luxurious. My backpack contained clothes Aunt Helena had packed, including a plain grey dress I hadn't worn in years.

I chose trousers instead. If someone intended to buy me, they could at least be disappointed by my presentation.

Tessa approved. “They'll hate you.”

“Good.”

We were taken outside shortly after sunrise. Ravenwood looked different in daylight.

Worse, somehow.

Without darkness hiding the edges, I could see how enormous the grounds were. Rows of stalls stretched across the clearing. Temporary pens had been built beside several buildings. Pack banners hung everywhere. And buyers were already waiting.

The auction wouldn't begin for another hour.

Apparently that didn't mean the shopping hadn't.

“Viewing,” Tessa muttered beside me.

I looked at her. “Viewing?”

She nodded toward the approaching wolves.

“Oh, absolutely not.”

“Apparently absolutely yes.”

They moved among us openly. Some only looked. Others asked questions.

A woman wearing the markings of Red Creek stopped in front of me and glanced at my number.

“Three-seventeen?”

I resisted the urge to look behind me.

“Yes. Silvercrest.”

The woman glanced down at the paper in her hand before looking me over. There was nothing lecherous in it. If anything, the inspection felt worse for how clinical it was, as though she were checking whether the information matched the product.

“What did you do there?”

“I worked in the packhouse kitchens for the highest ranks.”

That seemed to interest her more than my rank had. “Cooking?”

“Among other things. We fed thirty on a quiet day. Two hundred if Alpha Garrick decided everyone needed to celebrate something.”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “So you managed food service as well?”

I thought of the registrar reducing years of Cook’s kitchen to household management. “Apparently that’s what Ravenwood calls it.”

The woman almost smiled as she made a note on her sheet. Then her gaze returned to me. “Any children?”

“No.”

“Good.”

I frowned. “Why is that good?”

She had already started walking away. “Fewer complications.”

I watched her move toward the next woman.

A man replaced her less than a minute later. He looked at the information sheet in his hand before looking at me.

“Rejected?”

I hated that word more every time someone else said it. “Yes.”

“Why?”

I stared at him.

He seemed genuinely to expect an answer.

“Apparently I wasn't Luna material.”

His eyebrows rose. Then he looked at the paper again. “Your mate was ranked?”

Before I could answer, a disturbance moved through the crowd. Conversations didn't stop completely, but they changed. Heads turned toward the main entrance. Two men standing in the path stepped aside without being asked.

The buyer in front of me muttered something under his breath.

I followed his gaze.

A group of men had entered the grounds. There were perhaps eight of them.

None wore ceremonial clothes. Instead they had dark shirts, heavy boots. Jackets that looked built for cold weather rather than council meetings. Several carried weapons openly, not because they seemed interested in threatening anyone, but because apparently nobody here was going to ask them to remove them.

They were big.

Not Caden-big.

Not training-yard-big.

The kind of big that came from living somewhere physical strength wasn't cultivated for appearances.

And they moved together, almost synchronized.

They did not speak. Did not look around Ravenwood with the curiosity of visitors. The crowd simply opened ahead of them, and they walked through the space it provided.

Something made that I couldn't look away. Maybe it was the complete absence of effort. They weren't trying to intimidate anyone. They didn't need to.

Tessa appeared beside me.

“Blackridge.”

Of course.

I watched them approach. The man in front was the largest. Dark hair. Broad shoulders. A scar disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. He walked with his hands loose at his sides while another man spoke quietly beside him.

Something about him bothered me.

I narrowed my eyes.

Had I seen him before?

For half a second, I searched my memory. Silvercrest? Impossible. I would have remembered someone who looked like he could pick Garrick up and put him somewhere inconvenient.

Ravenwood last night, perhaps.

That had to be it.

Hundreds of wolves had been here when we arrived. I'd been exhausted, overwhelmed and more interested in discovering that Silvercrest had delivered me to a market than memorizing faces.

The feeling passed.

I looked away.

Tessa didn't. “I suddenly understand the rumours.”

I glanced at the Blackridge men again. “Because they're tall?”

“Because everyone else just moved.”

She had a point. The group passed within twenty feet of us.

One of the men looked toward the transfers. His gaze moved across the rows without much interest.

Then the dark-haired man at the front turned his head. For one brief moment, his eyes met mine.

Something inside me tightened.

A strange flicker of recognition I couldn't place.

Then someone beside him said something. He looked away and continued walking.

I watched his back disappear into the crowd.

No.

I'd never seen him before, of that I was sure.

I would have remembered.

“Blackridge is buying today?” someone behind us asked.

“Looks like it.” Tessa's expression had lost its humor.

I looked down at the number around my wrist. Then back toward the group disappearing between the rows of transfers.

Rhea's words from last night returned to me.

Blackridge bought women.

Apparently today, they had come shopping.