The taste of the medicine was always the same—bitter, like chewing on old pennies.
"Drink it," Alpha Miller commanded, standing over my cot with his arms crossed. "You want to look healthy for the buyer, don't you?"
I heaved up, feeling dizzy. The dizziness seemed worse of late. I grabbed the small vial of dark brown liquid from the nightstand. My hands were trembling, an effect of the so-called "condition"—Miller's words, really. I was the shame of the Silver River Pack, at twenty-two years old—an Omega who had never shifted in her life. Flawed. Useless.
"Who is he?" I demanded, swallowing the burning liquid down. It hung in my stomach like a ball of lead.
Miller sneered. "Someone rich enough to clear our debts. And desperate enough to take a broken toy like you."
He wrenched my arm and pulled me up. I stumbled as my legs felt like jelly. Weakness and nausea defined my world. The pack doctor said I was born with some "genetic frailty"; they said this treatment was keeping me alive. Sometimes, I thought it bore a strong resemblance to what was doing the killing.
Miller shoved a hanger at me. "Wear the white dress. Look innocent. Look breedable. If you screw this up, Maya, I'm not just going to beat you. I'm going to toss you to the Rogues."
Thirty minutes later, I stood trembling inside the grand office of the Pack House in a thin silk dress.
The room was drenched in cigar smoke and cheap whiskey with undertones of a different, sharper scent. The one that gripped you with an icy hand and announced the coming storm, blistered with power.
The door swung open.
Alpha Miller hunched low in greeting, a thin sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
"Your Majesty, King Dante, welcome!" stuttered Miller.
He did not look like a King. He looked like an executioner standing before me clad in an Italian three-piece.
He was enormous-somewhere close to six four, with broad shoulders bursting the seams of his black jacket. Jet black hair slicked straight back from a granite-carved face. But it was the eyes that froze the very air inside my lungs: golden, business-like, predatory, totally devoid of any warmth.
He did not even acknowledge Miller; instead, he looked right into my eyes.
I wanted to hang my eyes. Through my instincts, my body yelled at me to bend my neck down in submission, but I did not. I balled out my fists at my sides and returned his gaze.
Dante paused in surprise, tilting his head slightly as if a piece of furniture were looking back at him.
"Is this her?" His voice was a deep rumble that shook the floorboards.
"Yes, Your Majesty," Miller rushed, stepping to hand over a file. "Maya. Twenty-two. Virgin. Clean health record, aside from...well, the shifting issue."
Dante took the file, not opening it. He moved to me.
The air around him was stifling. He had the alpha aura weighed down so much that it felt like gravity had doubled. My knees buckled, but I locked them and willed myself not to fall.
He stopped inches before me, reaching his big hand and grabbing my chin. His fingers were calloused, and the grip wasn't rough. It seemed almost clinical, as if inspecting a horse's teeth.
"Open your mouth," he commanded.
I glared at him yet opened my mouth. He probed my teeth and turned my face side to side, inspecting my neck.
"She's pale," Dante said, dropping his hand. "And she smells... chemical."
My heart seemed to stall momentarily. The medicine.
"She's just nervous," Miller said smoothly. "She's a delicate flower, Your Majesty. Requires a gentle hand."
Dante scoffed. "I don't need a flower, Miller. I need a womb."
Those words resounded into a slap. In their eyes, I wasn't a real person. I was just a vessel.
"Fifty million," Dante started, turning his back on me and taking out a checkbook from his inside pocket. "That was the agreed price."
Miller cleared his throat in an effort to seem nonchalant, greed flaring in his eyes. "Actually, given the current market...and her exceptional beauty...we were sort of hoping we could renegotiate for sixty."
Dante froze, and I swear I felt the temperature drop ten degrees.
He turned to Miller, slowly. "You think you are in a position to negotiate?"
Miller's confidence seemed to falter but he pressed on. "She is the last un-mated female of her age in the sector. Sixty million is fair."
Dante didn't answer. He just looked. The silence stretched until Miller started trembling.
I looked at the contract lying in front of me on the desk. I saw the clause that Miller was trying to ignore.
"Section 4, Paragraph 2," I stated.
Both men snapped their heads to look at me. Miller looked furious. Dante looked interested.
"What did you say?" he asked.
"Contract," I said, my voice hoarse but steady. "It says the price is fixed at fifty million upon inspection, provided the asset has no communicable diseases—I don't." I looked at Miller. "If you try to change the price now, he can invoke the 'Bad Faith' clause and seize the collateral instead."
I looked back at Dante. "The collateral is your Alpha title."
Miller turned a shade of deep purple. "Shut up, you stupid bitch!"
Dante's lips quirked upward. It wasn't quite a smile, more a sharp expression of amusement.
"She can read," he said, drawling. "Impressive."
He signed the check-for fifty million-and tossed it on the desk.
“You’re lucky she knows your laws better than you, Miller,” Dante said coldly. “Otherwise, I would have taken your head as a down payment.”
Then he turned to me; the amusement in his eyes had faded, replaced with that cold, calculating stare.
“Pack your things,” he ordered. “We leave in ten minutes.”
“I have nothing to pack,” I said.
He glanced over my thrift-store dress. “Evidently.”
He turned toward the door. “Then we go. I don’t like being late.”
I spared one last look for Miller clutching the check like a lifeline. He didn’t even glance at me. I had been sold, bought, and paid for.
I was walking after the merciless King to his car when another wave of dizziness hit. I stumbled, my vision blurring.
Dante's hand shot out, gripping my elbow to steady me. He firmly held me up when I could not hold myself.
“Don't swoon,” he said under his breath, sounding annoyed. “I didn't buy a corpse.”
“I'm not swooning,” I said through gritted teeth while yanking my arm away. “I'm just...tired.”
“Sleep in the car,” he said, opening the door of a sleek black SUV. “You belong to me now, Maya. And I want my assets in peak condition.”
I got in, the leather seat feeling like a cloud compared to my cot. As the car pulled away from the only home I’d ever known, I realized two things.
First, King Dante was a cold-hearted monster.
And second, for the first time ever, I wasn't taking my medicine tonight.
