Sold to the Alpha King: His Son's Forbidden Mate

Sera "Going once, going twice….." The auctioneer's gavel hovers in the air above me like an executioner's axe, and I stand on this platform in silver chains, my wedding dress still stained with my own blood. Three hours ago, I was marrying the Alpha heir. Now my own mate is selling me to pay his gambling debts. The irony would be funny if I wasn't currently living it. My wrists burn where the silver touches the skin, but the physical pain is nothing compared to the gaping wound in my chest where Kyle's rejection tore through our mate's bond. I can still hear his words echoing in my head: "I, Kyle Blackwood, reject you, Sera Winters, as my mate." He said it in front of everyone. Three hundred witnesses at our wedding reception watched him destroy me, then order his Beta to chain me up like property. Like cattle to be sold. The surrounding crowd now is different, rougher, crueler. These aren't wedding guests. These are the kind of wolves who attend debt auctions, looking for bargains on desperate people. I can smell their interest, feel their eyes crawling over me like insects. Some look at me with pity. Most look at me with lust. I'm worth money to them. That's all I am now. "The opening bid is one hundred thousand," the auctioneer announces, his voice bored. He's done this before, probably dozens of times. Another desperate wolf being sold, another day at the office. "Do I hear one hundred thousand?" A grizzled Alpha in the front row raises his hand. I recognize him, Alpha Morrison from the Western Territories. He's notorious for collecting young wolves as "servants." The way he looks at me makes my skin crawl. "One hundred thousand to Alpha Morrison," the auctioneer says. "Do I hear one fifty?" Another hand goes up. Then another. The bids climb quickly; two hundred thousand, two fifty, three hundred. I'm expensive, apparently. Kyle's debts must be massive if he needs this much to settle them. I scan the crowd, looking for him. There….in the back, standing with his creditors. His face is carefully blank, but I can see the tension in his shoulders. Good. I hope this kills him. I hope guilt eats him alive. But I know it won't. Kyle doesn't have the capacity for that kind of remorse. The bidding reaches four hundred thousand and slows. Alpha Morrison is still in the running, his beady eyes fixed on me with predatory intent. I force myself not to look away, not to show fear. I won't give these bastards the satisfaction. Then the doors at the back of the auction hall slam open. Everyone turns. The temperature in the room seems to drop ten degrees as a man enters, and I don't need to see his face to know who he is. The power radiating from him is unmistakable, ancient and absolute. Dante Blackwood. The Alpha King of the Northern Territories. Kyle's father. He strides through the crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea, wolves scrambling to get out of his way. He's massive, at least six and a half feet tall, broad-shouldered, moving with a predator's grace. Salt-and-pepper hair, sharp features that might be handsome if they weren't set in such harsh lines. His eyes are the color of winter storms, and they're fixed directly on me. Our gazes lock, and something impossible happens. The mate bond slams into place between us like a lightning strike. I actually stagger from the force of it, my chains rattling. It's not possible, I just lost my mate's bond with Kyle. You can't form a new one this quickly. It takes time, sometimes years. But the bond is there, undeniable and overwhelming, stretching between me and the man who is my ex-mate's father. From the look on Dante's face, shock followed quickly by something darker, more complicated that he feels too. This is wrong. This is so deeply, fundamentally wrong that I want to laugh hysterically. The Moon Goddess must have a twisted sense of humor. Of all the wolves in all the territories, she bonds me to Kyle's father? The man who banished his own son five years ago? The ruthless Alpha King who's feared by every pack? "Five million," Dante says, his voice cutting through the stunned silence. It's deep, commanding, the kind of voice that doesn't need to be raised to be heard. "And this auction is over." The auctioneer's mouth falls open. "Sir, the current bid is only four hundred…" "I said five million." Dante's eyes flashed gold, his wolf surfacing. "Does anyone want to challenge that bid?" Silence. Even Alpha Morrison shrinks back in his seat. No one challenges the Alpha King. No one is that stupid. "Sold," the auctioneer squeaks, banging his gavel so hard it cracks. "Sold to Alpha Dante Blackwood for five million." Dante moves toward the platform, and I track his every step. He's scarred, I can see them now, claw marks across his neck disappearing under his collar, a thin line across his jaw. His face is hard, unforgiving, the face of a man who's seen and done terrible things. He stops in front of me, and this close, the mate bond is even stronger. It's pulling at me, trying to draw me toward him. My wolf, who's been silent since Kyle's rejection, now stirs for the first time in hours, whining softly. Mate, she whispers. Our mate. No, I tell her firmly. This isn't right. He's Kyle's father. This is wrong. But the bond doesn't care about right or wrong. It just is. Dante reaches up and unlocks his chains with a key he somehow acquired from the auctioneer. The silver cuffs fall away, and I rub my burned wrists, never breaking eye contact with him. "Can you walk?" he asks quietly. Up close, his voice has a rough quality, like gravel. I nod, not trusting my voice. "Then come with me." He turns and starts walking toward the exit. I hesitated for just a moment, glancing back at Kyle. He's staring at us, his face white with shock or rage or both. Our eyes meet, and I see the moment he understands what's happening. He feels the bond too, or rather, he feels the absence of our old bond and the presence of something new, something that should be impossible. His father just bought me. His father is my new mate. The poetic justice of it almost makes me smile. I follow Dante Blackwood out of the auction hall, leaving my old life in chains behind me. I'm still wearing my blood-stained wedding dress, still barefoot, still reeling from everything that's happened in the last three hours. But I'm not property anymore. I belong to the Alpha King now. And from the way he's gripping the door frame as we leave, his knuckles white with tension, that's going to be complicated for both of us. He holds the door open for me, and as I pass through, he leans in close enough that only I Can.n hear him whisper: "You belong to me now, little pup. And I always keep what's mine."