Page 15 of Wolf Caged
I lazily raised my right hand, snaring everyone’s attention, because the vampire and demon were not the only ones unwilling to let another win her.
“One million,” I drawled, my bid met with laughter from some and a muttered comment from the demon that questioned my intelligence as the bid had already surpassed that figure, and calmly finished, “gold coins.”
The room hushed.
Incredulous stares all aimed at me.
Even the female fell silent halfway through a particularly vicious series of growls and snarls.
“That has to be worth a hundred million dollars at least,” the vampire said, his gaze questioning my sanity as much as the demon had questioned my intellect.
The magic user lifted a hand, and a skinny male dressed in tight-fitting black clothing appeared behind him.
The servant dutifully bent towards his master.
“Who is he? He was not on your list.” Displeasure rang in the master’s voice, threaded with an unspoken spell that had the servant twitching as he struggled to answer.
“I do not know. My deepest apologies for my failure, my grace.” The servant was a spymaster then.
Perhaps I should have employed my own spymaster to investigate the auction and the attendees, but then it would have alerted my sister to my intentions and nothing good could have come from that.
The bodyguard showed something in his palm to the ringleader. I presumed it revealed the dollar equivalent of my bid judging by his reaction.
“Sold!” The disgusting wolf’s eyes lit up, so grossly eager to take my coin.
Perhaps I would kill him once I had secured my prize.
I lowered my gaze to that prize.
She sat in the centre of her cage, peering in my direction, squinting to see through the glare of the harsh spotlight, as if it would allow her gaze to pierce the shadows.
Fear radiated from her, but it was tinged with the curiosity that glimmered in her eyes as she tried to glimpse me.
And then the bodyguard hit her in the back with a feathered dart.
She flinched and her luminous eyes widened, edging towards her shoulder. Before she could even spy the dart, she swayed and slumped, hitting the ground hard, out cold.
I barely held back the snarl that rose up my throat, and the claws that wanted to punch from the tips of my fingers. The urge to let them out, to give in to the darkness and rip apart the male for treating her with so little respect, was strong.
I wanted him to bleed. To beg for mercy.
Just as I wanted to utterly destroy those males who dared to approach me as I stood, vilely offering coin in exchange for time with the wolf female once I had claimed my prize—her virginity.
I stared them all down, silencing them with only a look as I straightened to my full height. Impudent wretches.
I stalked to the cage, gaze fixed on the unconscious female in the centre of it, and summoned the chests I had prepared, pulling them to me through the void.
They slammed down with a rattle of coins between myself and the blond wolf as he thought to approach me, forming a wall between us and halting him in his tracks.
“If you’re ever in the market for another, you know where to find me,” he said, already flipping the lid of one wooden chest open to inspect his fortune.
“This one will suffice.” I kept my tone emotionless and measured as I held his gaze and reached for the cage door.
The iron was cold beneath my touch, the ward fighting me as I reached into it, pouring my shadows down the corridors between each word of it, but it surrendered easily enough. I yanked the door open in one brutal movement, shattering the hinges and the lock, and tossed it away from me, savouring the startled gasp of the male wolf.
My shadows tore it to shreds and the wolf swallowed as he watched them destroy it before his gaze shakily met mine again.
I grinned, flashing my jagged fangs as my darker side rose to the fore. “But yes, I know where to find you.”
