Chapter 1 The Auction Block

The clang of chains echoed through the underground chamber as Ember stumbled forward, the guards shoving her with rough hands. Smoke and sweat thickened the air, mingling with the metallic scent of fear. Torches flickered along damp stone walls, throwing monstrous shadows that danced over the jeering crowd.

“Another runaway,” someone sneered.

“She’s got fire in her eyes. I like that.”

“She’ll beg before the night’s over.”

Laughter rolled through the packed chamber, hungry and cruel. Ember forced her chin up, though her wrists trembled beneath the iron cuffs. She would not let them see her break. Not again.

The wooden platform ahead glowed under the torchlight, scarred, stained, and slick from too many lives sold upon it. It wasn’t a stage. It was an altar of humiliation. The auction block.

Her pulse thundered. She had sworn she’d never return to this place, never again be the prize of monsters who called themselves Alphas. She’d run until her lungs burned, until the betrayal she carried was the only thing keeping her alive. But the hunters had caught her at dawn, dragging her back in chains.

Now she stood where her freedom would die.

The auctioneer, a heavyset wolf with yellowed eyes, raised his hands.

“Tonight,” he boomed, “we offer something rare, a runaway unmated she-wolf. Young, defiant, and dangerous.” He smirked at her. “They say she once bit an Alpha.”

The crowd howled with laughter.

Ember’s heart pounded, but she held her stare steady, defiant. They wanted a frightened girl. She would give them a wolf.

“Let’s start the bidding!” the auctioneer shouted.

Numbers flew. Voices collided. The air turned to chaos.

“Ten thousand!”

“Twelve!”

“Fifteen!”

The prices rose faster than she could breathe. Panic clawed at her chest. Why were they fighting so hard for her? None of them even knew who she was or did they?

“Twenty!” someone barked, and gasps rippled through the crowd. No one paid that much for a wolf unless she was more than just a body.

Ember’s stomach dropped. Whoever won her wasn’t buying a mate. They were buying a weapon.

The auctioneer grinned, sensing blood. “Going once… going twice...”

A voice cut through the noise. Deep, cold, commanding.

“Fifty thousand.”

The chamber went still. Even the torches seemed to waver.

Ember froze. Her breath caught as her gaze swept the shadows. The crowd parted, reverent, silent.

And then she saw him.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. The light from the flames brushed against dark hair and eyes like tempered steel. The silver mark of his Alpha blood glowed faintly at his neck, a symbol she once traced with her fingers, once kissed under moonlight.

Her heart stuttered.

No. It couldn’t be.

“Sold!” the auctioneer roared, slamming his gavel down.

The sound cracked like thunder, sealing her fate.

Ember’s world blurred as the guards dragged her from the block. She barely felt the chains cutting into her skin. All she could see was him standing at the end of the aisle.

Damien.

Alpha of the Blackridge Pack. Her former mate. The man who had sworn to protect her, then left her to burn.

Whispers slithered through the crowd.

“That’s his old mate.”

“She ran from him.”

“He bought her back. Gods, she’s done for.”

The words struck like blades, each one driving deeper.

She lifted her chin, forcing the tremor from her legs as the guards shoved her toward him.

“Alpha Damien,” one guard said, bowing low. “She’s yours.”

The chain between her wrists jerked tight. The moment his gloved hand brushed it, something electric surged through her veins. The bond. That cursed, beautiful, unbearable bond. She had buried it long ago but it pulsed now, alive and cruel.

Damien’s eyes met hers. For one heartbeat, something flickered there, pain, regret but it vanished beneath a mask of ice.

“I should have known it would end like this,” he said softly. “Fate does love irony.”

Her throat tightened. “Fate didn’t chain me here,

Damien. You did.”

His mouth curved in a humorless half-smile. “You ran from me, Ember. This time, I made sure you’d come back.”

“You mean you bought me back.” Her voice cracked, filled with venom. “Just like every other monster in this pit.”

A shadow crossed his expression, quick and unreadable but when he spoke again, his voice was steel. “You’ll understand soon enough.”

Her heart twisted, torn between rage and the echo of the love she’d tried to kill. She had once trusted this man more than life itself. Until the day the rogues came. Until the flames took everything. Until he chose his pack over her.

He had left her to die. And now he stood before her, claiming ownership as if she were a prize.

The guards hesitated. Damien turned to them, his tone sharp. “Release her.”

“Alpha..."

“Now.”

The keys jingled. Iron fell away from her wrists. Ember rubbed the bruised skin, glaring at him through tears she refused to let fall.

She wanted to scream. To claw at him. To demand why. But the words lodged in her throat.

“Walk,” he ordered.

She hesitated. “What happens if I don’t?”

He stepped closer, close enough that the scent of him filled her lungs, dark pine, smoke, and something faintly wild. “Then I’ll carry you,” he murmured, voice soft but dangerous. “And neither of us will like what happens next.”

It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.

So she walked.

Every step beside him burned. The crowd’s eyes followed them, whispering and bowing, afraid to meet

Damien’s gaze. He didn’t look back. He didn’t speak.

But the tension between them throbbed like a living thing.

When they reached the iron doors at the chamber’s end, Damien paused. “You hate me now,” he said quietly. “That’s fine. Hate will keep you alive.”

Ember’s voice trembled with fury. “You already took everything from me. What’s left to kill?”

His eyes flickered, just once, with something almost human. “You have no idea what I’ve taken to keep you breathing.”

Before she could ask what he meant, the doors groaned open. Cold night air swept through, carrying the scent of rain and distant fire.

Damien stepped into the darkness without looking back. Ember followed, because there was nothing else to do.

Once, she had believed his love was her destiny. Now he was her captor, her curse.

But as the night closed around them and the chains fell silent, she felt the bond stir again, ancient, dangerous, and alive.

And though she hated him with every breath, a terrible thought whispered in her heart:

Part of her still remembered what it felt like to love him.

And part of her wondered if he had ever truly let her go.