CHAPTER ONE — “The Trading”
The cavern smelled of too many bodies and too much anticipation. Cloaked figures crowded the gathering chamber in overlapping rings, and at the center of it all — held apart by some barrier Tealeya could feel humming faintly against her skin — she and two others stood on display like livestock at a market that hadn’t bothered to pretend otherwise.
She could hear Asoppe beside her, all breathy laughs and swaying hips, working the crowd like she’d been born for it. On the floor to her right, Yewdi curled smaller with every step someone took toward the barrier, his whimpers barely audible under the crowd’s murmur. Tealeya kept her chin up and her eyes hard, daring anyone to mistake her stillness for surrender.
That was when he found her.
“I told you we would meet again, my sweet little Tea.” Moranav’s voice slid over her like oil, all mock affection and razor edges beneath. “An unclaimed mutt like you — I knew I would find you here sooner or later.”
He would be handsome, she thought, watching him approach, except for the permanent sneer, the entitled-prick energy rolling off him in waves, and the small fact that I know exactly how depraved he really is.
“And soon you will be my pet,” he continued, leaning in like he had every right to. “My plaything. Forever. Or at least until I get tired of hearing you cry for mercy.” His voice dropped, thick with old fury. “And decide to pay you back for this lovely little scar you left me.”
He tilted his head, showing it off — the thin line along his jaw, a trophy he clearly wore like an insult he intended to collect on.
“You’re welcome to try collecting again,” Tealeya said, low enough that only he’d hear it. “I’ve got the same hands I had last time, but with quicker reflexes.”
Moranav’s sneer sharpened, but before he could answer, a commotion rippled through the crowd behind him — bodies parting, voices dropping to murmurs of a different register entirely. The Alpha Leader had arrived.
The Alpha Leader was always blessed with the swirl pattern by the Ancient Ones, Tealeya thought distantly, her eyes drawn toward the procession despite herself. Only one in every generation was born with it. Always an Alpha. Never an Omega.
Her feet shuffled forward of their own accord, some pull she didn’t understand tugging her toward the barrier’s edge. Her skin had started to prickle, a heat building beneath it that had nothing to do with the crowded room.
“Oh — not this again,” she muttered to herself, pressing the heel of her hand against her temple like she could physically push the sensation back down. “I do not have time for this right now.” She let out a long breath through her teeth. “Focus, Tealy. Come up with a plan.”
The room had gone quiet. Too quiet.
She lifted her eyes and found the Alpha Leader standing directly in front of her, close enough to touch, watching her with an intensity that made the dread in her stomach curdle into something worse. The Alpha’s nostrils flared. Her penetrating white eyes flashed once, twice, like lightning deciding where to strike.
Before Tealeya could even open her mouth to demand an explanation, the woman was through the barrier — through it, like the thing meant nothing at all — and one hand had wound itself into her braid. Not pulling. Just holding. Steadying her as the Alpha leaned in and inhaled along the line of her throat, her pulse point, her jaw.
“What are you—” Tealeya started, but a sharp nip at her chin cut the sentence off clean, snapping her fully out of whatever daze had taken hold.
“MY MATE!” The words tore out of the Alpha Leader in a roar that seemed to come from somewhere beneath language, animal and absolute, and the sheer force of it knocked Tealeya backward onto the stone floor.
“WHAT?!” Tealeya scrambled back, staring up at her in open shock. “What did you just—”
“NO!” Moranav’s voice cut through the chamber like a whip, fury and disbelief tangled into one ugly sound.
