Luna of the North

26

Gabriela

The air is cold this early in the morning.

The sun hasn't risen yet, but with the way the sky is starting to lighten just over the tree line, it's bound to happen any minute now.

A shiver races up my spine, but not because of the cold or the fact that I've been dressed in a sheer material that is practically see-through—Alpha Storm's final act of humiliating me, no doubt—but because I know my new owner will be arriving soon.

My stomach twists at the thought of that—my new owner.

But that's what he'll be, right? I've been sold as his brood mare and nothing more. A glorified s*x pet, which hopefully won't mean I'm locked in a cage until I'm ready to be used. Although, it's not much different than how I've been kept the past few weeks, is it?

My cell had been my cage until Alpha Storm could secure this deal. I'm only surprised it took so long for him to find someone willing to buy me.

My wrists and ankles are bound in steel cuffs chained in the middle, so there will be no way I can shift and run off like my wolf is begging me to. She's been scratching and clawing inside of my mind since this morning, ready to mow down anyone who tries to get in the way of our freedom.

I haven't given in though, dully aware of what happened last time I tried to escape. Since coming back, I haven't seen Raya at all, and I can only hope that she's been sequestered back in her family's home until I'm finally gone.

She's a worthy female and I'm sure her parents are disappointed with her trying to help break me out. They most likely requested for Alpha Storm to keep me locked away until today, and he was probably very happy to oblige.

My ears pick up on the sounds of footsteps pounding against the ground in the distance, growing closer and closer as each passing second rolls by.

I hate that the smell of my fear is obvious, and even more so when Alpha Storm chuckles.

"Well, Gabriela. This has been a rather splendid outcome. I only wish that I'd gone through with it sooner instead of letting you make a mockery of this pack."

I stare on ahead, not giving him any kind of reaction outside of my heart involuntarily beating rapidly. He won't get anything out of me other than the stone-cold acceptance that I've been practicing since last night.

His last memory of me will never be of me weeping at his feet and begging for a second chance. I'm done doing that. I'm done giving him the satisfaction that he's won yet again.

Ahead of us, the brush moves and the scent of another pack—foreign—wafts over us. My entire body stiffens while my wolf grows silent, both of us waiting for what's to come.

Finally, they arrive.

Satisfaction fills me a little bit as Alpha Storm's enforcers stiffen uncomfortably. It isn't often that the Redwood pack runs into shifters that could easily beat them down if they wanted to. My pack has always been on the poorer side, but we make up for that in our scrappiness and how far we're willing to take a fight.

However, these shifters of the Soleus pack are on a completely different level.

The first three shifters who break through the tree line are huge, much larger than any of the enforcers in the Redwood pack. The one in the middle, a large black male shifter, lets out a gruff huff before approaching us, while the other two hang back.

Alpha Storm and I are standing a little bit back, with three enforcers on each side fanned out at an angle. The show is meant to look intimidating, but clearly that's not working at all with how amused the three Soleus shifters look as they bat their tails.

The male shifts, a tall and broad figure replacing his wolf.

He has dark hair that falls in long waves down to his shoulders, slightly tousled away from his face in a middle part. His black shirt is cut directly down the middle in a wide V, reaching just below his sternum and showing off the hard muscles under the thin fabric. His skin is a shade darker than mine, a nice even tan that compliments his darker features, like his lashes and brows.

The most striking thing about him is two piercings, twin black hoops that fit snugly over his full bottom lip.

The air that this male exudes is pure power—pure alpha.

My entire body shivers.

"Welcome, Your Grace." Alpha Storm bows to the alpha, his hand sliding into the back of my hair and clenching at the strands attached to the nape of my neck, pulling hard enough for my eyes to water.

He forces me down into a bow as well, deeper than his by a longshot.

"Thank you," the male, Aaron, says. His voice is deep, much deeper than Elijah's.

Alpha Storm straightens back up but keeps me bent over at the waist, continuing to bow to the Southern King. I don't fight him, figuring that if anything, maybe this alpha will take pity on me and make my suffering a little less in the coming days.

"I see you've brought me my breeder," Aaron speaks again.

"Yes." Alpha Storm's voice is eager, which is strange to hear coming from him. He's never been one to "lower" himself with pleasing other alphas, especially kings like Elijah.

So what did this king do to earn his respect? Is buying me worth that much to him? It must be.

Surprisingly, Aaron doesn't speak for a long moment, leading to a very uncomfortable and heavy silence. I can only tell that it's become uncomfortable by the way Alpha Storm's hand tightens in my hair, causing me to bite my lip in order to hold back a whimper.

No one else around us moves, not even our enforcers who, only moments before, were shifting on their feet uncomfortably.

When Aaron finally does speak, all he says is, "Hm."

Alpha Storm's scent changes then, fear finally breaking through his usual nauseating confidence. "Is there something wrong, Your Grace?"

If I wasn't trying to keep myself from crying out, I'd be grinning right about now. I've never heard Alpha Storm sound so worried before.

"I'm simply...surprised, is all." The cadence in the Alpha King's tone is...odd. He's speaking slowly, but not because he's testing the waters with my pack alpha. There seems to be something more there that I can't exactly put my finger on.

"Surprised?" Alpha Storm's tone pitches up uncomfortably high.

"I've been here all of five minutes and not one offer to have a cup of tea. I would've thought your pack to be far more hospitable than that. Clearly, I was mistaken."

Alpha Storm rushes to say, "We can get you tea. We can get you whatever you want. I wasn't aware you wanted to stay—"

"Ah." Aaron cuts him off with a simple sound, shutting up my pack alpha immediately.

Everything around us goes silent again.

It's incredible, the power this man holds. It speaks to all of the rumors surrounding him. All night I'd been trying to remember each and every one of them, each one more terrifying than the last.

Before I eventually gave in to my body's exhaustion, I remembered a specific rumor that had haunted me even as a young teenager.

It was the story of the Southern King's disapproval of one of the packs that he ruled over, and how the alpha of that pack had ultimately chosen to honor kill himself at his king's feet in order to plead for mercy for his pack.

The story didn't end happily, and from what I could remember of it, the Southern King had ended up slaughtering the pack anyway, despite their alpha's sacrifice.

Back then, the story had kept me up at night for weeks. And now here I am, in the presence of the same man. There's no question in my mind on whether or not those rumors are true. This suffocating tension is enough proof in and of itself.