Chapter 1
I woke up choking.
Something cold and tight clung to my neck, heavy like it cost more than my life. My fingers flew up, shaking, brushing the hard ridges of tiny embedded stones. Diamonds. I was wearing a diamond collar.
Not a necklace.
A collar.
And the air... it smelled wrong. Not dirty. Too clean. Expensive clean, like leather polished with blood. My head pounded. Velvet curtains dangled from the vaulted ceiling. A chandelier spun slowly above me, no, wait. That wasn’t glass.
Those were... fangs.
Wolf fangs.
“What the hell,” I whispered. My voice cracked like a dry leaf.
Someone heard.
“She's awake,” came a voice, a woman’s voice, high-heeled and pleased. Then the door opened with a slow, elegant groan. Two women in long crimson dresses walked in. One carried a tray. The other carried a leash.
No.
No, no, no.
“What is this? Where am I?” I sat up so fast the velvet bedding tangled around me. “Who are you?!”
The woman with the leash smiled with glossy red lips. “Welcome to the Crimson Auction, Miss Thorn.”
Miss Thorn. She even said it like I was a guest.
“You've been... purchased,” she added casually, as if she was talking about a handbag.
“What do you mean purchased?!” I screamed. “I'm a teacher! I was at home last night, I was grading papers, I don’t remember anything after”
“Sedative mist,” the other woman explained. “In the vents. Your apartment was... selected.”
“I’m not a freaking pet!”
“No, darling,” she said smoothly. “You’re the centerpiece.”
The door opened again. This time, a man stepped in. A shiver ran down my spine before I even looked up. The air changed. Thickened. Like the room was trying to hold its breath.
He didn’t speak.
He just stared.
He was tall. Bigger than anyone had a right to be. Hair as black as oil slicked back from a face that looked like it was carved by something angry. Black suit. Black gloves. Red cufflinks shaped like claws. But his eyes...
God, his eyes.
Gold.
Not amber. Not hazel.
Gold like coins dipped in rage.
“Is that her?” he asked, voice low, as if he wasn’t used to saying much.
“Yes, Alpha Dravyen. Kessia Thorn. Age twenty-five. Human. Voice profile... unique.”
“She sings,” the woman added, “like nothing we’ve ever recorded.”
He walked over to me. Each step slow. Precise. Measured like he was walking on graves.
I scrambled back until my spine hit the velvet headboard. “Don’t touch me.”
He didn’t.
He just tilted his head like he was analyzing prey.
Then he said, “Seventy-five million.”
“What?” I blinked.
“She goes for seventy-five,” he repeated. “No bidding war. I’m ending this now.”
“You can’t just buy me!” I shouted.
He raised a single brow. “I already did.”
That’s when the leash clicked onto my collar.
And that’s when I screamed.
But it wasn’t just a scream.
It was something else. Something deeper. Rawer.
The women froze.
Not just paused, froze. One mid-step. The other mid-blink.
My scream had stopped them cold.
The man, Vexx Dravyen, they called him Alpha, he didn’t move either. But his eyes flared. His jaw twitched.
“I see it now,” he murmured. “She’s not just a siren.”
One of the women finally snapped out of it. She looked... terrified.
“Alpha, with respect, her brother, he never disclosed”
“I don’t care what he disclosed. He gave her to me. Debt paid.”
My stomach dropped. “What did you say?”
He leaned in, just a breath away from my face. “Your brother owed me fifty million dollars. And he paid in blood.”
“No,” I whispered. “No, no he wouldn’t.”
“He did.”
And with that, he yanked the leash. I stumbled, falling into his chest.
He caught me like it was nothing.
Then he dragged me out the door. The elevator ride was silent, except for the soft hum of jazz playing somewhere above us, distorted, like it was bleeding through the walls from another world. The leash Vexx held was black leather, but the clasp at my throat felt like fire. Not just because it was tight, but because every nerve in me was on edge.
I didn’t want to look at him.
But I couldn’t stop.
He stood like a god of war, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the leash like he owned every breath I took. His jaw was clenched. His golden eyes never flicked my way, but I knew he was hyperaware of me. I could feel it.
And the scariest part?
I wasn’t afraid he’d kill me. I was afraid of what I’d become in his hands.
Ding.
The elevator doors slid open.
A corridor of obsidian tile and velvet curtains opened before us. The air smelled like money and musk and something darker. I was barefoot. My heels clicked on the marble anyway, no, wait. That wasn’t me.
The floor was mirrored black stone, and it was warm. Heated from beneath. Designed to make you feel like you were walking through someone’s throat.
“This is kidnapping,” I muttered, heart racing. “I’m not some object you can chain up and own.”
“You’d be surprised what people sell,” he said without turning.
The door to the penthouse opened before he touched it. High-tech. Motion sensors. Maybe magic. I didn’t know anymore. My whole world had spun out.
Then I saw the inside.
And my mouth dried up.
It was a palace made of nightmares.