The main hall is brighter than the warehouse, lit by strips of moss that crawl across the ceiling. The platform stands four feet high, silver chains at each corner. Decorative now, but the metal is real, the implications clear.
Buyers gather in loose groups. I position myself near the back wall, half in shadow but with clear sightlines. The tentacled merchant is here, talking to something that chimes when it moves. Others I do not recognize—the market draws buyers from far territories.
Three women sell quickly. A weeping young thing to a scaled merchant for eight hundred credits. A fighter to someone with too many arms for two thousand. A drugged beauty to the chiming thing for three thousand.
“Final offering,” the auctioneer announces. “Female. Twenty-six years. Previous medical training. Various skills. Bidding starts at five hundred credits.”
She walks onto the platform without assistance. No tears. No drugs. No defiance either. Just observation.
Chin length brown hair pulled back from a face that would be unremarkable except for the eyes. Dark, almost black, but not empty. Calculating. Her dress is simple, gray, clearly provided by the auction house. She is smaller than the others, maybe five and a half feet.
Then she does something odd.
She presses her thumbnail into her palm. Deliberately. Hard enough that I smell copper across the room. Fresh blood. Not much, just drops, but intentional. Her face does not change. No wince, no relief. Just pressure until blood wells, then release.
She does it again. Different spot. Same pressure.
The crowd shifts, uncomfortable.
But I have stopped breathing because her scent hits me fully as the blood releases into the air.
Honey. Sweet enough to make my mouth water.
Copper from the blood.
And something else. A trace of something other, so faint I almost miss it.
My teeth extend fully. The need in my chest—always there, always gnawing—explodes through my entire body. My cock hardens so fast the pressure is a sharp, demanding ache.
The frenzy.
No. Not now. Not after three centuries of control.
But my body does not care about control. Every cell screams to claim, to feed, to mate. The platform lights make her fully visible—the way she stands, the small scars on her hands, the way she breathes.
Someone starts bidding.
I step forward from the shadows.
BRAITH
The platform lights burn my retinas after the dim waiting room. The crowd smells wrong—sulfur and metal and something rotting-sweet. Not human. There seem to be so few humans these days. Most of them aren't even pretending to be.
I count buyers while the auctioneer drones about my stats. Forty-three visible. Maybe more in shadows. The tentacled thing in front drips something viscous. The mercury-puddle shifts constantly between shapes. The one that chimes has too many joints in all the wrong places.
Then him. Back corner, half in shadow despite the moss-lights crawling across the ceiling. Seven feet at least. Black armor that eats light. He's gone completely still, but it's the stillness of something about to snap.
A Vethani lord.I’ve heard about them. Glimpsed them on the battlefield, from a distance. The rumors called them Pain Hunters. Things of nightmares.
Interesting.
I press my thumbnail into my palm. The sharp edge breaks skin easily—I keep them filed for this purpose. Blood wells. The pain sends heat shooting through my nervous system, not the clean simplicity I expected, but something deeper. Something that makes my breath catch and my pulse quicken.
I press harder. New spot. More blood.
The tentacled thing withdraws slightly. Damaged goods are worth less.
But the giant in the corner? He leans forward. Just an inch. His eyes burn brighter—amber sliding toward gold. He's staring at my hand. At the blood.
