YOU WERE MINE FIRST

Sold For Gold

CHAPTER 2: Sold For Gold

They thought the Beast King would take me in a car.

He put me on a nightmare.

Rain hammered the lot into mud and drowned two hundred wolves whispering in the doorway, watching me be collected like a debt.

His guards had mounts waiting. Not horses. Twice the size of war horses. Black coats that swallowed light. Manes braided with small bones. Eyes like coals.

Rhazien walked past them like they were tame. Rain hit him and turned to steam. His black shirt stuck to his back. Every scar showed.

He whistled. Two sharp notes that didn't sound human.

Something answered from the tree line where mothers tell pups they will be eaten past the third oak. The darkness moved and walked forward.

Ten feet tall even hunched. Black fur matted with rain. Shoulders wider than a doorway. Arms ending in claws that could split stone. Old battle scars on his chest. Eyes of molten gold. Just like his master.

It stopped and bowed its head to the mud.

"Vark," Rhazien said. "Home."

Then he jumped.

With me still in his arms, in my torn wet dress, he jumped twenty feet straight up onto that beast like gravity was a suggestion.

I screamed and buried my face in his chest, nails digging in. His chest shook. He was laughing without sound.

"Scared little debt," he murmured against my wet hair, his hand spreading over my waist, locking me flush to him. No space left. Possessive. Absolute. "Good. Hold tighter."

Vark ran.

Werewolves are fast. This was not fast. This was being fired from a cannon.

The world blurred. Trees became black streaks. Rain hit like needles so I had to hide my face in Rhazien's neck to breathe.

His hand branded me right through soaked lace. He burned like a furnace.

"Don't close your eyes," he growled in my ear, lips so close I jolted. "Look one last time, little debt."

A claw tipped my chin, gentle enough to be a lie, forcing me to look back.

We were at the ridge. Far below, pack house lights were small yellow squares. A dollhouse I was locked in for eighteen years.

Tiny figures still in the doorway. My mother? Jaxon? Tanya laughing?

Ten minutes to erase eighteen years.

A sob tore out of me. Wind ripped it away.

His arm tightened like steel. "Don't waste tears on them. You are mine now. They don't get to make you cry anymore."

Lycan Kings don't live in pack houses. They live in castles from scary stories.

Blackthorn.

When Vark slowed, rain stopped as if too scared to fall here. Clouds broke and there it was, lit by full moon.

Black stone so dark it looked blue. Towers that cut the sky. Walls built into the mountain. Iron gates twenty feet tall, carved with wolves, already open.

Dozens of Lycans in black armor lined the courtyard. When they saw him, they dropped to one knee as one body. Fists to chests. Like thunder.

None looked at me. Looking at what was in their King's arms would be a death sentence.

Rhazien slid off, still holding me. He didn't hand me to a servant. He carried me up stone steps, through doors that took four Lycans to pull open, into heat and gold.

Inside didn't look like a monster's den. Fireplaces big enough to stand in, all roaring. Black marble floors so polished I saw our reflection. White fur rugs. Portraits three stories high of dead kings, all with gold eyes.

Servants in black dresses stared, then curtsied so low knees hit floor, and scattered.

He didn't stop. I was in his arms. That was the only explanation this castle needed.

A grand staircase, hallway of guards who hit their chests harder when they saw me, then he kicked open double black doors at the end. Dust shook from walls.

His bedroom. No. His lair.

Three times the Blood Stone ballroom. Bed dead center like an altar, big enough for six people. Black silk sheets. Black furs. Fireplace roaring though it was summer. Weapons on walls, all nicked and stained. Windows on three sides showing nothing but storm and a thousand foot drop.

He set me down. My bare feet hit thick white rug. I had lost shoes in mud on the altar. Knees almost gave.

"You are wet," he said, flat. Like it was my fault I dripped on his rug.

"I- I didn't mean-"

He made a low sound and reached for me.

I flinched. Arms up to cover my face.

His hand froze inches from my cheek. Gold eye narrowed. Cataloging that flinch.

"You think I claimed you to hurt you?" His voice was quiet. Dangerous. Jaw clenched. "I claimed you so no other male would ever have the right to hurt you again. If anyone touches you, I will tear them apart and hang them from my gates. Clear?"

He said it like other men write love poems.

"Why? I'm nobody. I'm wolfless-"

"I knew your scent three weeks ago," he cut me off. "When your Alpha begged for more time. Tradition, he included scent samples from every unmated female as collateral. Nineteen samples. Nineteen smelled like nothing. I threw them in fire. One smelled like winter after first snow and white moonflowers that only bloom on graves and sleeping power that made my teeth ache."

He inhaled slow, eyes fluttering, body shuddering like in pain. "I have not slept since, Elara. My Lycan snarled one thing: Find her. Take her. She is ours."

"I came to collect what is mine by contract. I did not expect to find what is mine on the floor in a torn dress while a boy who smells like sour milk rejected her."

A claw came up. Slowly. Giving me time to say no. I didn't move. He tucked wet hair behind my ear.

"Want him gone? Say word, my cruel queen, and I bring his tongue before dawn."

Breath stopped. He offered murder like flowers.

"No," I whispered.

Eyebrows lifted. Surprise. No one says no to him.

"No?" He sounded almost turned on.

"I want him to live. Long enough to see what he threw away. To choke on it every time he hears my name."

Silence. Only fire and storm.

Then Rhazien smiled. Slow and sharp and feral and proud, showing hint of fang. Monstrously scarred face turned devastatingly handsome.

"There she is," he murmured, thumb stroking my pulse. "My cruel little queen. Vicious for such a little thing."

"My wolf," I blurted, hand to chest. "I felt her when you picked me up. I saw white."

"I know."

"You know?"

"You were never wolfless. You were caged. Someone caged her when you were a pup. Old magic. Very cruel."

Blood ran cold. "Who would do that to a pup?"

"Someone terrified of what you become. Your wolf is white, isn't she?"

How did he know?

"Because my Lycan saw her when I touched you. Your little white queen woke enough to look at him. And he, who never bowed to anyone in three hundred years, bowed to her."

Legs gave. I sat hard on edge of his huge bed. Furs impossibly soft.

"I'm scared," I whispered, tears spilling. "I don't know what I am."

He knelt.

Beast King, seven feet tall, worth more gold than entire council, knelt in front of me on bedroom floor.

He took my cold shaking hands in huge warm ones, careful not to scratch.

"You will sleep here. In my bed. I will not touch you unless you beg me to. But you will sleep in my bed because if you sleep elsewhere, I will go feral hearing every guard breathe near you."

"You will wear my clothes tonight because yours are ruined. Tomorrow seamstresses make dresses that don't itch. You are mine, Elara Finch. My debt. My obsession."

He stood so fast rug rippled, walked to fireplace, back, shoulders rigid, claws digging into palms till black blood.

"Your dress is soaked. You will get sick and I will have to burn this mountain to keep you warm. There is shirt on bed. My shirt. Put it on. I swear on mother's grave I will not look until you tell me."

He stared into fire, body trembling from effort of not turning.

I stared at his back ten seconds. Hands shook. Dress freezing, clinging.

Slowly I reached behind and fumbled zipper of lace dress my mother sewed for Tanya's wedding. It fell with wet plop.

Shivering in underwear, goosebumps everywhere, I grabbed it. Huge black soft cotton. Fell to knees like dress, sleeves covering hands, collar slipping off one shoulder.

"Done," I whispered.

He turned slowly.

Eyes swept down once fast from wet hair to bare legs and back up, body locked to stone. Nostrils flared. Claws extended with soft shink, fangs dropping with click. Low growl ripped from chest that made windows rattle.

"Come here," he said, voice barely human.

Feet moved anyway. One step. Two. Close enough to feel heat pouring off him, see gold flecks burning.

He reached out, not for waist, but for neck. Huge hand cupped side of it, palm hot, fingers almost wrapping all way around. Not squeezing. Holding. Thumb stroking hammering pulse.

"Mine," he growled, low and broken and reverent, forehead dropping till almost touched mine, breath hot on lips. "Say it. Say you are mine so my beast stops trying to claw out and mark you."

I looked up at scarred beautiful terrifying face. At male who claimed me not to save me, but to keep me.

For first time since Jaxon called me worthless, I felt warm. Wanted with ferocity that should terrify but made white thing inside stretch and purr.

"I am yours," I whispered. A vow.

Gold in his eyes exploded.

He pressed forehead hard to mine, breathing like he won war after losing three hundred years, hand still on neck like precious collar, other hand fisting back of shirt I wore, yanking me to tiptoes.

"Good girl," he whispered, lips brushing temple, cheek, corner of mouth, not quite kiss, torturing us both. "My good little debt. You have no idea what you just did."

Bed dipped as he pushed me back onto black silk, caging me with huge body.

"Now," his voice pure sin and possession, claw tracing collar slipping off shoulder. "Let's see if your little white wolf will come out and play for her King."

Behind my ribs, where I thought I was empty for eighteen years, something white and huge and ancient and female stretched after long sleep, opened eyes like twin moons, and roared back at him.

And for first time, I roared back with her.

_I hear you._