The Price Of Blood
“One hundred and one thousand credits!” my father, Arthur, shouted, his voice warped by alcohol. “She’s pure. Untouched. Just look at that face!”
Cruel laughter rippled through the crowd.
I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the familiar faces staring at me now as if I were nothing more than a spoiled piece of meat.
There, in the front row, stood Marcus—the man who had once sworn he loved me. The man who, only an hour ago, had broken off our engagement because he refused to “dirty” himself with the pack’s shame.
He laughed the loudest, pointing at my torn skirt.
Humiliation tightened around my throat until I could barely breathe.
I had been raised to be the Alpha’s daughter. But when my eighteenth birthday came, my wolf never awakened. No shift. No strength. No place among them.
And now I was tied to a wooden platform, displayed before everyone like livestock.
Marcus, my former fiancé, spat on the ground, his eyes gleaming with a hatred so sharp it made me wish I could disappear.
“She isn’t even worth the food she eats, Arthur,” he said. “She’s a useless human in a pack of wolves.”
My father wiped the sweat from his forehead, his frantic gaze searching the crowd for a buyer.
I wished the earth would split open and swallow me whole.
I was nothing.
A defect.
A disgrace.
Then, without warning, the laughter was drowned out by the deep, metallic roar of an engine.
A black SUV with tinted windows and heavy armor appeared on the dirt road, forcing the crowd to part as it rolled into the square. The silence that followed was instant.
No one in our small pack owned a car like that.
No one here carried that kind of power.
The doors opened at the same time.
The air seemed to vanish from the square.
Four men stepped out.
They weren’t just Alphas.
They were titans.
Dressed in custom black suits that could barely contain the brutal muscle of their bodies, they carried a scent unlike any wolf I had ever known.
The Alphas of the Black Blood Pack.
The wolves who ruled the underworld of our entire state.
My weak wolf senses flared to life.
There was something different about them. Something I had never felt before.
They didn’t look at anyone else.
Four pairs of eyes—some gray as a storm, others amber like fire—locked on me.
The pressure of their aura was so powerful my knees nearly gave out.
One of the Alphas stepped forward.
He looked like the leader.
A thin scar cut through one of his brows, and his eyes held the terrible intensity of a man who could read every secret buried inside my soul.
He walked slowly toward the platform.
No one dared stop him.
No one even dared speak.
He stopped in front of me.
His strange scent invaded my senses: sandalwood, rain, and a raw animal magnetism that made my blood heat in a way I had never felt before.
He did not look at me with disgust.
Instead, he tilted his head, his amber eyes darkening until they were almost black.
Then he leaned closer, his face only inches from my neck.
He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring.
A low, possessive growl vibrated in his chest, the sound so primal that every wolf in the square instinctively stepped back.
“One hundred million.”
His voice was a deep, dark rumble that seemed to sink into my bones.
My father choked.
“O-One hundred million?”
“For her,” the man replied.
Then he touched my chin with one gloved hand, surprisingly gentle.
My father, who had been begging for scraps only moments ago, got so pale he almost turned gray. He took a step back, nearly stumbling off the platform.
“S-Silas?” he stammered. “The Grand Alpha of the South? No… I… I can’t. Take anything else. If I give her to you, she’ll never come back. They say your pack… they say you tear women apart.”
Marcus stepped forward, trying to summon a courage he clearly did not have, even as his legs trembled beneath him.
“You can’t take her!” he snapped. “She belongs to our pack. Taking a human to the Black Blood Fortress is a death sentence. They’re butchers!”
Silas did not even growl.
He simply looked at him.
And that was enough.
Marcus dropped to his knees as if an invisible force had crushed him into the ground.
“I did not make an offer,” Silas said, his voice low and lethal. “I made a claim. The debt contract has been signed. She is mine.”
Then his gaze swept over the crowd, passing over every face there, including my father’s and Marcus’s.
The contempt in his eyes was cold enough to silence them all.
“If any of you ever look at her again, touch her again, or even speak her name,” he said, “I will burn this pack to ashes.”
The silence grew heavier.
“She no longer belongs to you.”
He pulled out a small silver knife and cut through the rope binding my wrists with one swift motion.
The moment I was free, I tried to step back.
But Silas caught my arm with a grip that said, Don’t even think about running.
I had no choice.
He pulled me closer, his hand sliding to my waist and locking me against him in front of everyone.
“Come,” he whispered. “Your new owners are waiting.”
As he dragged me toward the SUV, my eyes swept over the crowd.
Then my heart stopped.
“Elara!”
The cry came from a small, desperate voice.
Lily.
My little sister was trying to push through the crowd, her face soaked with tears. She was the only person in that hell who had ever loved me.
“Please!” she sobbed. “Don’t take her! She’s all I have!”
I tried to stop.
I tried to scream her name.
But Silas’s hand around my waist was like an iron shackle.
“Lily! Stay back!” I cried, my voice breaking as he pulled me into the dark vehicle. “I promise I’ll come back for you!”
The last thing I saw before the door slammed shut was my sister’s small face as the crowd held her back.
Silas leaned toward me, his mouth close to my ear, and his warm breath sent a shiver racing down my spine.
“Do not be afraid, little wolf,” he murmured, his tone low and controlled. “The world will never hurt you again.”
He paused for a moment.
Then he added.
“But in return, you will have to find out whether you can survive the four of us.”
My eyes widened.
I had been torn away from a life of humiliation.
But something told me my suffering had only just begun.
