Page 25 of His Place in the World
Someone had appeared on stage, and it wasn’t Fulton.He was still there, standing to the side, holding his microphone, looking like a kid in a toy shop at Christmas, but he wasn’t the center of attention anymore.
“Our first item is a twenty-six-year-old unicorn shifter,” he said, watching a woman being chained to a hook at the center of the stage.
She wore just enough to hide her breasts and her private parts.She folded her arms around her and looked around, but Angus suspected she couldn’t see much because of the darkness of the room and the brightness of the light on stage.She was blonde, and her hair hung around her face, making her look like an angel.
Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t.
Angus tuned out while she was being auctioned.He clutched the arms of his seat, keeping himself anchored there so he wouldn’t do something stupid.He was glad when the woman disappeared from the stage, but she was replaced by a man who couldn’t be much older than eighteen, if even that, and it was almost enough to send him running to the stage.
A hand landed on his shoulder.He turned around to see that Matt was looking down at him rather than at the stage, and he was grateful that his father-in-law had stopped him from doing something stupid.
“Thank you,” he said.
Matt nodded.His expression was hard, and Angus realized they were in very much the same state.They both wanted to intervene, but they couldn’t.
The next man looked even younger, although Fulton made sure to explain he was in his mid-twenties.It didn’t seem possible, given how tiny the man was.
“Now, this one is special,” Fulton drawled.“I know that by looking at him and how small he is, you’d never think it, but Tyler here is a gargoyle shifter.”
Murmurs in the crowd told Angus several people were interested.He could understand why.Gargoyle shifters were incredibly rare, and Tyler was adorable to boot.He was short and slight, and he looked like a fragile cherub with his messy blond hair.There was something to Tyler’s face that made him look barely adult.
Angus’s stomach churned with disgust at the thought of what the people who bought him would do to him.He wanted nothing more than to protect Tyler, even more so than he’d wished for the other shifters that had been auctioned tonight.
“Let’s start with a hundred thousand dollars,” Fulton said.
The offer was taken up, but whoever had bid wasn’t the only one interested.Angus gritted his teeth, waiting for the auction to be over, dreading what would happen to Tyler when it was.
He was stunned when Ryland raised one of his hands.“Five hundred thousand dollars,” he declared.
Mercer grumbled behind him, but Ryland didn’t seem to care or even hear him.He kept his focus straight on the stage, locked on Tyler, who was trying to hide his body with his arms with little success, since he was only wearing a pair of tight white briefs.
Fulton looked around, squinting as if to find out who was offering so much money for a shifter.“I don’t think I recognize that voice,” he said.
“You don’t have to recognize it,” Ryland snapped.“Is the shifter mine?”
Fulton chuckled.“We’ll find out soon enough.Does someone offer five hundred fifty thousand dollars?”he asked, looking around.
No one did.That meant that Ryland had just bought Tyler, and Angus had no idea whether or not it was a good thing when it came to their mission.He also didn’t care—Tyler was safe, and that was all that mattered.
* * * *
“What the fuck is he doing?”Remi muttered.
His focus was stuck on the screens, and Del didn’t blame him.He wanted to ask Ryland what he was doing, too.Why had he bought that guy?Had he played all of them and gotten a way in the auction for that?
“He’s trying to help,” Doyle murmured.
“By buying a guy?”Remi was angry.
Del didn’t blame him.Ryland was putting the entire operation in danger, even if he was doing this for a good reason.Angus was right there next to him, and Del prayed nothing would happen to him.
“By getting him out of there.Wouldn’t you have done something if you’d been in his place?”
Remi sighed, and his shoulder slumped.“I wish he’d buy all these people, but we can’t draw that much attention to us.”
“Buying one guy isn’t going to do that.If anything, it’ll tell these people that Ryland is serious about all of this and that he has money to spare,” Everly’s voice said.He was back in Rosewood, but he was working the operation with them.
Del understood.As soon as he’d seen the first shifter being auctioned, he’d wanted to help her.He wouldn’t have been able to buy her or any of the others, but every time one of them was bought, his heart broke a little more.It was a relief to know that at least this guy would be safe—as long as Ryland kept up his role as a rich asshole.
