Page 10 of Auctioned Wolf Bride
I stared at the knife. I recognized it. I had seen Thea playing with it on more than one occasion. Astrid had trained her to carry it everywhere, to use it to defend herself since she couldn’t shift. She adored that knife.
If she had dropped it… if it had blood on it.
“Fuck.”
I picked it up, running my thumb along the smooth, polished handle, then smelled the blood. It wasn’t hers. Normally, that would have come as a relief. But if it wasn’t her blood, that meant she hadn’t been alone. And if she had left her knife here, that meant something had pulled her away from it before she could get it back.
My eyes scanned the clearing again, taking in more of the details, growing more and more certain about what had happened here. Someone—multiple someones—had ambushed her, dragging her off somewhere. She hadn’t gone without a fight, though, something I admired. But looking at the tracks and following the struggle, it was clear she’d lost.
Bottom line: someone had kidnapped Thea, she was in trouble, and I was the only one who knew about it.
And if I hadn’t made a mess of things earlier, none of this would have happened.
I considered calling Rand or someone else and telling them what had happened. But if Astrid found out I was responsible for Thea running off into the woods on her own, she’d kill me before I could say anything else.
Besides, this was my fault. I had to find out what had happened to her, and I didn’t have the time to wait for backup. It was already late, and I had no idea how far away she could be.
The scents seemed to travel west. That was as good a place to start as any, and I didn’t have any time to waste. I stripped, shoving my clothes and Thea’s knife into the backpack I always carried in case I needed to shift—a trick I learned back when I was in spec ops. Then, I shifted. Without delay, I turned to follow the scents of the other shifters and Thea, unsure of what I was going to find but knowing I was going to get her back no matter what.
I ran through the night, continuing to move despite the exhaustion creeping in. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Thea. Not just because of who she was to Rand and Astrid but because it was Thea. The idea of her in danger chafed at me in a way I couldn’t properly describe. I was going to get her back, no matter what.
Eventually, the scents led me to a large bunker-like building in the middle of the woods. I didn’t see any sign of Thea as I scouted the area. A crowd had gathered in a small area in front of a wooden stage. A general buzz of excitement and interest seemed to hum from that area. Something about it raised my hackles, though I couldn’t figure out why.
Wanting to investigate further and knowing Thea was around here somewhere, I shifted back to human, threw on my clothes, and went to join the throng of shifters, hoping it might give me some answers for what had happened to Thea. As I pushed my way into the cluster, the scents of over a dozen shifters all blending together, I finally realized what was bothering me so much about the group.
The crowd was all male.
I waited, wondering what was going on and what all these shifters were waiting around for. I was certain it couldn’t be anything good.
It turned out I didn’t have to wait long to figure out my answer.
A tall shifter with dark hair and a scar on his face hopped onto the stage. The crowd fell silent.
“Thank you all for coming to this special auction,” the man said. “You know me. I’m Damien. We’ve got a real treat for you.” He turned to look at the steps. “Why don’t you bring up our guest, Viktor?”
Damien. That name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. That train of thought flew out the window as my attention snapped back to the stage.
A large man, chain in hand, strolled up the steps. A blond woman trailed after him, her head lowered. She was dressed allin white, her hands manacled in front of her and a collar around her neck. Viktor jerked at the leash, and she stumbled forward onto the stage. She raised her head to glare at him, and my stomach lurched as I recognized the woman in chains.
It was Thea.
Viktor tugged at her chain again. She glowered at him, her jaw set. But when he twirled his finger in unspoken command, she turned in a circle. An appreciative murmur rose through the crowd as she did so.
My jaw clenched, fingers curling into white-knuckled fists as I watched. My wolf howled in rage, thrashing, pushing at me, wanting to break out and tear every one of these assholes to shreds for doing this to Thea and ogling her. I nearly did, but I forced myself to stay calm, knowing that I couldn’t give the game away or things would get a lot more complicated. Still, my wolf hated this idea. He snarled, claws flexing, his anger fueling mine as I watched the scene unfold on the stage in front of me.
Damien grinned, strutting toward her as she stopped. She kept her head low, her blond hair curtaining her face. Something told me it wasn’t out of fear or despair or even resignation. Something about the set of her shoulders and the coiled tension in her body made me think it was more out of defiance than anything else, as if she was trying to make it as difficult as possible.
“Besides having an incredible body, there are a couple other things that are special about her,” the dark-haired one said. He stepped forward and tilted her chin up so the men could get a look at her face. “For one, she’s a virgin. Completely pure and innocent.”
The words felt like a slap in the face. Thea was a virgin? I couldn’t understand it. She had to have had a dozen guys hiton her since coming to Brixton alone. It seemed impossible she hadn’t had sex. But the look on her face and the coloring of her cheeks told me it was true.
An interested murmur rumbled through the crowd.
Damien held up his hand. “She’s also an absent, meaning she’s going to be a lot more docile, and it’s a lot harder for her to escape.”
The shifters in the crowd chuckled, though if they thought Thea was going to be docile, they had another thing coming.
I had to get her out of this before one of the other shifters got his hands on her. I forced myself to stay calm, thinking through all my options. I could jump onto the stage, kill Damien and Viktor, and get away with Thea on my back, but I couldn’t imagine this was a two-person operation. I’d have a bunch of other furious shifters on my tail the second I moved. I could wait until after the auction and ambush whoever took her, but that seemed too risky.
