Chapter 2: The Watching
625 Words
Lina’s POV
She could feel the room before she saw it.
The air had changed the moment the curtain rose. Warmth pressed against her bare skin from all directions — not from the lights, but from the attention. A heat that had nothing to do with fire and everything to do with the eyes watching her.
She didn’t look up.
She didn’t have to.
They were staring.
The way men stared when they thought they had the right to. The way her father used to look at new livestock at market — calculating, disinterested, entitled. Except now it wasn’t a sheep or a barrel of grain on display. It was her.
Her knees rested on cold marble. Her spine remained upright only because the chain between her shoulder blades kept it pulled that way. Her wrists were bound behind her back, her legs spread slightly apart by the silver bar fixed to her ankles.
She had never been more exposed.
And she had never heard such quiet hunger.
“No collar?” a voice asked. Young. Curious.
“Means she hasn’t been claimed,” someone else answered. “Unmarked. Fresh.”
A rough laugh, low and deliberate. “She looks soft. Fragile. I’d rip her in half.”
There was more laughter after that, sharper this time. Not cruel exactly, but amused. Interested. Men who knew exactly what they were buying, and how they would use it.
She kept her eyes down, though every inch of her body screamed to fold in on itself, to hide. But she couldn’t move. The restraints were part of the display.
Her n*****s were hard from the cold, barely concealed by the thin veil they’d draped around her chest — a piece of gauze so sheer it served only to tease. Her inner thighs were slick with oil, glistening under the lights. She could feel it trickle down with every shallow breath she took.
Her breath caught when the auctioneer’s cane tapped the floor beside her.
“Lot Seven,” he announced. “Eighteen years. Untouched. Completely untrained. Hasn’t even been kissed.”
Another voice whistled low.
“I’ll give eight hundred just to have her look at me.”
“She doesn’t look at anyone,” someone replied. “Too scared. That’s the charm.”
“She’s trembling.”
“She’s begging.”
Lina bit down hard, trying to keep her jaw from shaking. Her thighs ached. Her back burned. But she didn’t make a sound. She couldn’t. Her silence was the last thing she owned.
Another step. Another circle. The auctioneer let the chain at her throat lift slightly, tilting her chin up just enough that the light caught her face.
The room exhaled like a beast.
“She’s beautiful.”
“Ten thousand.”
“Fifteen.”
“She’s not worth that.”
“She will be once I break her in.”
Her stomach twisted, but her body did nothing. Her hands remained behind her. Her knees stayed apart. Her eyes stared forward, empty and unfocused.
But she heard everything.
And then, she felt something.
It didn’t announce itself. It didn’t enter with sound or light or words.
It was a presence.
Heavy. Silent. Watching.
She didn’t know who he was.
But every man in the room seemed to feel it, too.
The bidding stuttered. Voices fell quiet.
Even the auctioneer hesitated, just slightly, before clearing his throat.
And then the voice came.
Deep. Measured. Calm.
“Ten million.”
The room stopped.
And Lina—
still trembling, still naked, still held open for strangers to claim—
felt the silence crash down on her like a second spotlight.
She didn’t know who had spoken.
But something told her… her night had only just begun.
- Writer
