Page 53 of Dark Auctioned Mate

“Infiltration. Intelligence gathering. Extraction. Trauma response.” She looked him in the eye. “What they taught me, everything you saw tonight—how to approach targets and how to free captives and how to take care of those who survived afterward.”

“So, you were not a victim at that auction. You were there on a mission.”

“Yes.” No point in lying now. “The Lumen had been following that trafficking network for months. I went undercover to provide evidence from the inside.”

“So, me saving you ruined that.”

“Not exactly. You did save my life and seven other women. I can live with that.”

Rael scoffed, shaking his head. “I can’t believe this. You lied to me. For weeks. You made me think that you were a victim of some unlucky circumstance, when in reality, you were working for an organization that I have never heard about.”

“I did not lie. I just did not tell you everything.”

“That is the same thing, Alanis!” He inhaled deeply. “I told you everything from the start. Who I was and what I was doing, why I was at that auction. I was honest with you about my pack, my mission, my life. And you…you have been keeping secrets from me all this time.”

“I was just protecting my organization!” Alanis shot back. “You really thought that I would spill the beans to some stranger I met at a trafficking auction? Someone who purchased me and forced me into a bond after acting like an asshole after the first night we spent together, mind you! You brought me to your pack and got us bonded and married. So, excuse me if I did not confide in you or tell you information which might compromise an organization devoted to helping people like myself!”

The ensuing silence was heavy and filled with anger and hurt on both sides.

“I-I thought you were starting to trust me, Alanis,” he whispered roughly. “I thought—I thought we were getting somewhere.”

“I do trust you,” Alanis said quietly. “That’s why I am telling you the truth now.”

“Are you? Being honest?” He took a step closer. “Or do you have more secrets?”

Alanis reflected back on her childhood—the pieces she had left out when telling him about Caldwell Pack. The worst parts. The parts that continued to give her nightmares.

“I told you my pack sold shiftless girls,” she swallowed. “That I ran away before they could sell me. But I did not tell you everything.”

Rael waited patiently.

“They did not just sell us to buyers,” she continued, the words now rolling out like a poison that she must expel. “They had a system. When a girl turned fifteen years old, they would begin training her on how to please men, how to be docile, how to submit to pain, and not to fight back. They called it training. I called it torture.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly feeling cold, despite the cozy room. “I endured six months of it, starting just before my sixteenth birthday, and every day they would bring in pack members to see how I was doing. To touch me, to hurt me, to judge my performance. They said it would make me more valuable, that buyers paid premium prices for girls who had been ‘well-trained.’”

His hands clenched in fists by his side, but Rael said nothing. He just listened.

“On the eve of my sixteenth birthday, they had a last test. They gathered all the pack elders in one room to decide whether I was fit to be sold or whether I had to undergo further training.” Alanis’s voice cracked. “And I knew that I would have to stay there, and be sold, and then for the rest of my life, I would be bought and sold by one beast after another. So, I ran.”

She raised her head, locking eyes with Rael, expecting him to look disgusted or maybe even worse—look at her with pity.

Instead, she saw rage. Pure, incandescent rage.

“I’m going to find them,” Rael growled. “I know you said they disappeared, but if I have to pull all the pack’s resources, I will. I will find them and make them regret even breathing the same air as you.”

He walked closer, and Alanis looked down, noticing his hand shaking. “No one gets to do that to you and walk scot-free. No one.”

“Oh, Rael.”

“And when we find them, and we will, I want you to be there. I want you to see them pay. You deserve that.”

Alanis sob-laughed. She had anticipated criticism. She expected him to treat her differently now that he had heard the full story of what happened to her. Maybe also treat her as broken, used and inferior.

But, no. Rael was planning revenge on her behalf.

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.

“You need not say anything. But I want you to know that what happened to you has not made you any less worthy. You have survived something horrible, and instead of letting it ruin you, you have spent years helping other people to get out of similar situations.” He lifted her chin with his fingers. “You are not damaged, Alanis. You are the strongest woman I have ever had the privilege to meet.”