Master

Chapter One

"Fifteen minutes!" someone called out. My anxiety only grew. Fifteen minutes, and I would belong to someone else.

In our society, if someone had a debt to pay and didn't pay it within a year, one of their children would be sold in one of the monthly auctions. My parents were one of those people who couldn't pay, and with me being the eldest daughter, I would be sold.

The worst part about the whole thing was the buyers. People were sold as blood slaves to vampires. If a girl was lucky, her master would only use her as a house maid. In more than a few cases, girls were bought for the sole purpose of giving their master a child, and although that was a very taboo subject amongst the public, every girl at the auction house knew that it happened more than anyone was willing to admit.

I knew it was wrong, but deep down I hated my parents. I tried telling myself that it wasn't their fault, but then another part of me would say that if they wouldn't have gotten into debt in the first place, I wouldn't be here.

"Ten minutes!" the person called out again. A woman came around a straightened out my black dress, an outfit mandatory for everyone being sold to wear at the auction. It came down to my mid-thigh and had long lace sleeves. The sleeves would usually be used to cover up any scars a girl had from a previous master, but since this was my first time being sold, I didn't have any.

The woman ran her fingers through my curly chestnut brown hair, a color that complemented my hazel eyes and olive skin.

"Your hair is a wreck," the woman commented.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," I replied.

She sighed as she got their clipboard. "You're Inell, right?" I nodded. She put a sticker at the bottom of my dress.

"Number eleven," she said, which meant that I was eleventh in line for the auction. She guided me to a group of chairs that had been set out in three rows of five. Ten girls were already sitting down and I was the eleventh. Soon enough, the other four girls were also sitting in their places, and the auction began.

The first girl was taken and sold fairly quickly. As my turn approached, I started nervously biting my nails. I wasn't ready for this.

"I just hope I don't get a master that can read minds," the blond girl beside me commented, and I agreed with her.

Some vampires had the special abilities of either telekinesis or mind reading. While both were known for making a master more cruel, mind readers were the worst of the worst. They could use your every thought against you as an excuse for punishment, and they knew your greatest fear.

"Eleven!"

I sheepishly stood up and walked over to the person. They led me onto the stage and left me there, hundreds of vampires staring me down.

"Up next, we have Inell," the emcee announced. "Her blood type is B negative. She's seventeen years old, a virgin, and she's never had a master. Let's start the bidding at twenty thousand." Someone placed a bid.

"Twenty-five thousand!"

"Thirty-five thousand!"

"Forty thousand!"

"Fifty thousand!"

"Fifty thousand going once...going twice... Sold! To Sir Baekhyun!" the emcee announced. I was then escorted off stage to where everyone waits for the auction to be over and for their new masters to pick them up.

"Who did you get sold to?" the blond girl from before asked.

"Someone named Baekhyun," I answered.

She looked at me with pity in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she told me.

I was confused by this statement. There were certain masters that no one wanted to end up with, sure. Those masters included Suho, who would drink blood from his slaves until they couldn't walk, or Chen, who didn't punish his slaves often, but when he did, it was horrific. But I had never heard of Baekhyun. If he was really that bad, word would have spread about him.

"What do you mean?" I asked her. "I've never heard anything bad about him."

"That's the thing," she clarified. "No one has ever survived him."

I stared at her in disbelief. Had I just ended up with the cruelest master there was? I told myself that there was no way he could be worse than some of those masters I'd heard stories about. Surely it was just speculation on the slaves' part, right?

Eventually, the auction ended. Girls were being picked up by their masters. I saw that one girl had ended up with Chen, and I felt sorry for her.

A man with black hair wearing a leather jacket approached me.

"Inell?" he asked. I nodded my head. "I'm Sir Baekhyun, your master."