Chapter 1: The Lot
Lina’s POV
She didn’t know how long she’d been in the cage.
She’d stopped counting days after the fifth. Or the sixth. Her stomach had learned to stop growling. Her mouth had learned the taste of silence. Her body had forgotten what it meant to feel warm.
The air smelled like iron. Like fear. Like girls who used to scream and no longer bothered.
They called this place “The Vault.”
It was where unclaimed females were stored — wolves who were too poor to be mated off properly, or too small to be of use to their packs. Lina had always known she would end up here.
She just didn’t think it would be so soon.
She was eighteen. Her first heat was already late, and the other girls had noticed. That’s when things got worse. First the teasing. Then the glares. Then the beatings. No one liked a she-wolf who couldn’t shift.
And in Black Hollow, if you couldn’t shift… you were nothing.
So when her father dragged her by the arm and left her at the Vault gates, he didn’t even look back.
Just signed the scroll and took his coin.
She hadn’t seen him since.
They washed her that morning.
That was the first sign.
The handlers dragged her out before the others had stirred. They stripped her in the hallway — not that there was much to strip — and dunked her in a stone tub. The water was cold. The soap stung. But she didn’t make a sound. Not when they pulled her hair. Not when they scraped her skin raw. Not even when they made her stand still while they oiled her limbs, their fingers rough and careless.
“You’ll go on stage after Lot Six,” one of them said. “Try not to cry. Makes the rich ones nervous.”
She didn’t answer.
She hadn’t spoken in days.
They painted her lips. Brushed out her curls. Sprinkled powder on the places where bruises had started to fade.
Then they chained her ankles together, bound her wrists behind her back, and looped a thin silver chain around her throat.
“Try to look sweet,” another handler smirked. “The mean ones pay more for sweet.”
Now she was here. Behind the velvet curtain. Kneeling on a square of cold marble, waiting for the music to change.
Lot Seven.
She was Lot Seven.
The curtain in front of her trembled slightly as the air stirred. The room beyond was loud — laughter, glass, low male voices — but she couldn’t see anything. Just the faint silhouettes of men beyond the red fabric. Tall shapes. Leaning forward. Waiting.
Her wrists ached. Her knees were numb. Her chest felt too tight to breathe.
She wasn’t ready.
She never would be.
A soft bell rang.
The curtain lifted.
And the world went silent.
