Alpha Draco And His Omega Luna

o

ng the days somewher

e, people who were expected home for dinner, people whose names hadn't been reduced to a nu

ho had, at some point, been someone's daughter, someone's friend, someone's whole world. Now we were merchan

ruelty of men who had decided that power meant ownership. I had not made peace with this rhe

ere I

for the ot

punching a small, quiet hole in my chest. Beatrice. Amara. The girl whose name I never lea

to cry, and the effort of it made her face do something terribl

he said. To me, or t

. I held her hand unt

ded in front of her. Lilly had never needed words to say everything, a glance, a tilt of her chin, the caref

s terr

We just wore

dy thick with smoke and the low murmur of men who

legant in a twisted, grotesque way. Crystal chandeliers threw fractured light across the walls. Men in tailored suits sat in tiered rows, their faces half-h

platform and I d

ok from me, they would not take that. My eyes. My spine. The particula

d. But they didn't

n, esteemed bidders,

ing serrated. He was a small man with a large voice and the

fia Fletcher. A true treasure. A masterpiece of ref

d point on the bac

bidding at five hund

Fletcher, daughter of Marcus Fletcher, Beta to the former Alpha King, and I was going to survive this t

housand. Do I hear seven h

ats, for the specific quality of stillness that preceded violence. The faces in the rows were cold and calculating. Some cur

was going

t. Still, something small and stup

I hear one million? Goi

ence ca

rely a sudden, total, suffocating absence of sound, as though the air itself had been instructed t

ard the f

elonged to someone who had never once in their life need

ed to

ng, broad shoulders and a presence that seemed to extend several feet beyond his actual body. Dark hair, perfectly dishevelled. A jaw cut

ful and most terrifyin

in that room had dropped

th in seven-figure increments thirty seconds ago. All of them heads bowed, eyes down, should

e any of them. He wa

looking

ysically felt it like a hand pressed flat against my sternum. Som

not lo

Stubbornness, probably. Four years of training myself not to flinch. Some furious, irration

thout breaking stride, and the c

e, the blueness of his eyes was almost violent, like staring

out hi

go,"

e in my ribcage, and I hated the way it moved throug

ked at the crowd of bowed h

know you,

. More like the faintest shift. As though he had expected

agreed. "

going anywhe

e, horrified intake of breath that told me I had just d

g unreadable moving behind those impossible eyes, and then before I could so much as step back, he reached

t into his back. Once, twice,

g. The crowd kept their eyes on the floor, and not o

id put me down. I don't know who you thi

ra

rrying me was cold. He was looking at Draco with an expression that might have been concern, or might have bee

Xavier," Draco sa

iefly to mine something apologetic in them

and what take ca

lly opened it, with his own hand, which struck me as absurd given that he had just abducted me placed me inside with a care that made n

familiar territory, no money, no allies, nowhere

r

und like a controlled exhale. He pul

and tried to slow my heartbeat d

you taking

om

not an

ly one I hav

way he held the wheel with one hand like the car itself was beneath his full attention. He smelled of something I couldn't name. Sandalwo

n't bid,

N

alked in an

es

one stop

N

le for a moment

a flicker of those blue eyes and someth

ooking for you for a ve

o with that, so I looke

t the dark sky, the building where I had spent the last hours of my captivity was engulfed i

ped. Kara. Lil

me out very quiet. Very controlled. The way it

id no

ed, turning to him, "w

ad. His jaw was set. His e

I had carried for four years. There is no one coming. There is no o

back to t

d no

e fire shrink in the mirror as we drove away into the dark away from everything I had known, toward something I couldn't name, sitting besid

belong

make sure he