Auctioned

I was raised from infancy as the heir to the Blue Moon pack, one of the original packs that had broken off the Moon Goddess’ pack back at the beginning of our history.

Though it was a role traditionally given to the eldest male, it was bestowed on me at my birth, despite my parents being unaware they wouldn’t be blessed with more children.

I was my father’s daughter, and I trained harder than any son, knowing I had to prove myself to others. So, I sharpened myself mentally and physically, as a blade for my pack.

At twenty-five, I was to take over the pack, but my twenty-fifth birthday had passed months ago. My father had fallen gravely ill, and we still had no explanation.

___

“Come quickly, Katerina,” one of my favorite Omegas, Grace, roused me from my now always fitful sleep. The look etched on her usual overly optimistic face terrified me.

My father was stable; he had been for a few weeks. We had time; we had to have time to find another healer, to find another option.

I grasped her hand and ran behind her. My heart thrummed loudly; each beat echoed my fear.

I almost skidded past his room. The door was open, and I made my way to him, my breathing heavy and erratic.

I grasped his hand in mine; it was cold and clammy, colder than it had been when I visited him a few hours before.

His eyes were closed, but there was movement under his lashes. A small bit of the tightness lifted—he was still with us.

I searched for other signs of life, of the person he had been months prior. He seemed as if he had aged fifty years since that time. His face was too pale, his golden hair, which I had inherited from him, was now almost white.

Our doctors hadn’t seen anything like it, no one had, but that wasn’t strange. As werewolf shifters, it was unheard of to die of sickness. Physical injuries—yes, but not this.

No one could find a logical explanation.

“What happened?” I demanded to no one and everyone.

I had just seen him before I went to bed. He had been sitting up, chatting with me, and I had left his side with the hope that he might be getting better.

He was getting better.

My uncle John came to the other side of the bed next to the doctor.

Our pack doctor suddenly seemed so breakable, or maybe that was because I wanted nothing more than to break the man without answers.

My uncle stood tall and imposing. His dark brown goatee accentuated his angular face. His light-blue eyes were constantly assessing, even now as they held mine.

These past few months, he had stayed here at Blue Moon; it was the longest I had remembered him being with us, even when I was young. He would go off for years at a time, only to return sporadically with rumors following him.

My father had tried to get him into various roles, but he always turned them down until he was offered an ambassador role, which he fucked up so horrendously that my father finally stopped asking.

Though I didn’t know the details, I heard they involved an Alpha’s daughter, too much wine, and some stolen money.

I always wondered if his fuck up was intentional to get his brother off his back.

Though my uncle’s actions caused a rift between them, my father never stopped reaching out to him, never stopped sending invitations, which mostly went unanswered.

Now that he was here for longer than I ever recalled, I prayed they had time to work out anything amiss between them, and when he got better, they could go back to being as close as they apparently were as children.

“Just now, he had a fit,” my uncle explained, motioning to his brother lying between us.

I noted the cuff of a suit now and actually looked at him. His hair was slicked back, and he was wearing a dress jacket and pants.

"What time is it?" I asked, unsure why that mattered.

"Uh, almost three in the morning," the doctor responded.

I eyed my uncle. What could he have been doing at this hour? My dad let out a rattling wheezing breath that captured my entire attention.

“Will he be okay?” I asked, my voice shaky. “What are the next steps?” I demanded.

The doctor looked at me, his face almost as ashen as my father’s. “I-I-I’m afraid.”

“Speak up,” my uncle commanded.

“Yes, sir.” The doctor bowed his head. “This might be it,” he explained with a flinch.

One of my dad's longest adversaries, Cletus, bustled into the room. “John, what is it?” he asked, wringing his hands and glancing at me.

His name, Cletus, suited him, somehow. He was robust for a werewolf, and his cheeks were red from the effort of running here. He locked eyes with John and swallowed, forcing myself to look away from the confirmation I saw in his eyes.

I grasped my dad’s hand; his fingers were frail, his grip nonexistent. The man who lay here was nothing like the man I still saw in my mind. The one who raised me on his own since my mother passed when I was a child.

This man was a ghost, a hollow comparison haunting me.

“Dad? Please,” I begged, tears streaming down my face.

His mouth only twitched in response.

“Daddy—?” My voice cracked.

“Leave us,” my uncle said to the doctor.

The door shut, but Cletus still lingered in the room. I didn’t care; nothing mattered; the entire pack could be watching right now.

The mask I so carefully composed over the years, the one my father helped me create so I could compartmentalize and keep a level head even in the most dire of situations—shattered.

My dad slowly opened his eyes; once vibrant brown, now remembered was now dull, as they searched the room, settling on my face.

“Katerina,” he rasped. The name he gave me for his own mother was a struggle on his lips. He reached out to me, but his hand fell back to the bed. “You have the most beautiful eyes, your… mothers… eyes.”

“Dad,” I cried, lifting his hand and holding it against my cheek as if it were a lifeline.

“You were the best… are the best... daughter,” he managed through wheezing breaths.

“It’s okay, Daddy," I croaked, "you can rest now." I tried to mean it.

“The best… heir,” he went on as if he didn’t hear me.

I swiped at my eyes, blurry with tears, so I wouldn't miss what I knew to be one of his last moments in this world.

His eyes flickered to life for a moment, and I saw my father again for the last time. “You will be a great... Alpha,” he managed out, and then his hand went limp in mine.

“Dad?” I asked, but I knew he was gone.

Pain lanced through my heart, and a choked sob tore from my throat. The agony that ripped through me, threatening to tear me apart.

The only thing I knew was the torrent of grief that poured from me.

I don’t know if or when I left my father’s body.