"Get her ready for the auction," the man's voice ordered.
Rough hands grasped me violently. I cried out and struggled half-heartedly, dazed and so weakened that I couldn't resist the men.
The men didn't even notice me. They yanked me back into a darkened room where there was a vanity with harsh light in front of it and a stout woman with makeup attempting to fill in the potholes on my face standing in front of it. There was clothing, if it even deserved the name, draped on one hook. The black piece of cloth was translucent and far too short. The realization that they expected me to wear it sickened me.
"No!" I shouted, pushing back feebly from the handlers' attempts to undress me. "Please, please let me go!"
The woman with the makeup hissed and struck me across the face, not enough to bruise, but enough to shut me up but enough to tell me they were serious.
"You don't want the buyers to see the bruises on such beautiful skin," she sneered. "Now be a good bitch and stop talking."
Tears flowed down my cheeks because they refused to yield to my pleas to stop changing me. After they were done with me, I couldn't even recognize myself in the mirror. I saw a stranger staring back at her. A stranger who was dressed to be sold.
My stomach was churning violently, and I was fighting an impulse to vomit right there and then.
They pushed me through a dark corridor with cages lining the walls, other girls in them. I locked eyes with empty gazes, with sunken faces. I wanted to scream but it remianed lodged in my throat.
Eventually, however, I was drawn behind a heavy velvet curtain. On the other side, I could hear the murmurs of men, low and lewd, calling out numbers with the enthusiasm of dogs in season. The atmosphere reeked of sweat, smoke, and gold.
"Lot Number Seven," someone shouted back. "A very special and rare item. Virgin. Certified Werewolf Of Breeding Age."
I tried to protest again. "You must be drunk, Werewolves are not real, you are going to look stupid…"
The curtains were violently pulled aside and I was nudged forward and the spotlight was right in my face, striking me as if slapped there, temporarily blinding me to not see the staring eyes of the audience before me.
Some were bloodshot. Others were glowing yellow or red. Either too small or too wide. Hungry. Predatorious. I felt a chill run through me, some of the eyes in the crowd looked a little different from any human i had seen.
The room was full of an expectant silence.
I was shaking in the gaze of the onlookers and wished to cover myself with something or at least cover some parts of my bare skin but i could not, since my arms were bound together at the wrists in front of me. The slight clinking of chains accompanied me as I took one terrified step back.
"As you can see, gentlemen and ladies, this werewolf is in the prime of life and would be an excellent addition to your brothel, or to be used as a breeding female and even for those of you who happen to have sophisticated paletes and would love to round out your collection with something unique such as a female werewolf."
Paletes??? Did he mean they would eat me?
My stomach sank at the man's words, and a glance at some of the faces in the crowd greedily licking their chops sickened me.
How disgusting.
All in all, everything that was happening was pointing to the fact that if I didn't find a way out, I was headed to hell.
"Start the bidding," exclaimed the auctioneer gleefully. "We start at five hundred thousand marks."
Voices began to erupt
"A million!"
"Two million!"
"Three point five!"
The numbers rose rapidly, a rush of masculine growls and roars in the hunt to claim me with blood-curdling pleasure.
I was shocked at the sum of the money being asked for in exchange. I was stunned because they were paying such a sum for someone like myself, and it was clearly just a mistake.
"I'm not a werewolf!" I screamed indignantly, "Please! This is a mistake!"
Unfortunately, my cries were lost in the roar of the bidding war. I tried to stand back, to run, but arms wrapped around me from behind, forcing me to stand tall on the raised dais, like one of the prize mares whose market price was being determined before the assembled onlookers.
"Ten million!" came a voice.
It was cold, deep, and it cleaved through the room like a knife.
The onlookers became silent, with no one daring to question the owner of the voice.
A figure emerged out of the darkness.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a black coat that was at least knee-length, adorned with gold trim. His face was shaded by the brim of his wide-rimmed hat, whose only features revealed were his scarred jaw and shimmering golden eyes.
The auctioneer even choked on the word "Sold." "Sold. To the honored representative of The Royal House Ironfang."
"No!" I shouted while the masked man stepped forward.
I struggled, the clinking of the iron clashing with the wind in her mangled locks. The masked man did not speak. He simply stared at me and i felt a sudden prick in my side.
My screams grew weaker. The world tilted on its axis. The floor gave way from under my feet.
As i lay crumpled on the ground, the last thing I was consciously aware of before losing consciousness was thinking one thing.
Who… or what… had bought her?
What was planned for me, was I to be slowly barbecued on a pit over an open flame or raped by an unending stream of monsters.
*
The scream of the girl reverberated in the vaulted room even after the representative of the Alphas stood up from his seat. The offer, final and irrevocable, has determined her destiny. The iron clanked as she was pulled towards the darkness in the direction of the carriage that would take her to the palace. The onlookers parted ways before her like grass before an advancing blaze.
Nevertheless, no sooner were the iron-clad doors closed on the departing lords than the silence was shattered.
Whispers circulated in the auction room.
"They gave that much for her?" whispered a man in robes of crimson velvet, his fingers thick with rings that sparkled with blood-like jewels. A vampire, with his mouth twisted in scorn.
"They are desperate," was the reply of a witch whose green eyes showed briefly through the veil that covered her face. "The curse draws closer and closer with each year that passes. No female has offered them what they seek." There was no warmth in the witch's words, only the cold calculation of werewolf vulnerability.
On the other side of the aisle, there was a noble of human blood leaning in close to his peers. "Desperate men are dangerous rulers." His smile was thin and sharp. "Desperate rulers, however. can be overthrown."
The vampire gave a low chuckle. "You dream, little lord. For all their decay, the wolves are still at the top of the food chain. Fangs and claws, and armies raised on blood. Just one Alpha would dispose of your best knights."
"True," whispered the witch, "but they are five, bound together in half-brotherhood, each wanting what the others do not offer." Her eyes followed the darkened exit where the girl was dragged from. "And brittle things can break."
Around them, the room was abuzz with plotters like a beehive.
"A girl without pedigree, what makes her different?"
"Perhaps she is nothing. Or perhaps… she is their last chance."
The witch's smile widened, knife-like. "A female werewolf has not walked the earth in centuries. If the Moon Goddess left even one seed alive…"
"Then she will be their salvation," concluded the vampire with mockery in his tone. "Or their undoing."
The human lord tapped his goblet, his eyes aglow with plots and schemes. "And if the wolves succeed in breeding with her? If the curse is lifted? What becomes of it? Another generation of heirs, wolf puppies trained to destroy all competition." He was so lost in gloom that his smirk undermined his denial. "No, we can't allow it."
The witch leaned in close, whispering words meant to be poison: "Perhaps, then, the girl should not come to maturity. Or perhaps… She should be taken from them before she can bear fruit."
Silence fell, but it was not fear-driven. It was the silence of communal thought, communal hunger. In that underground chamber where coin and flesh were always exchanged, something else was in motion now. Something in the nature of an unspoken promise to everyone. The wolves' weakness was revealed. And weakness was an invitation.