Chapter 1 Bought

Ava POV

When I opened my eyes, the first thing that hit me was the pain, sharp and burning. My head throbbed so hard that I thought it would split open. I tried to move, but my arms wouldn’t budge. That’s when I realized I was tied to a chair.

My breath hitched, and panic started crawling up my chest. Where am I? What happened? One minute I was walking home from the river, and the next… this.

“Don’t struggle too much, lady,” a rough, toothless old man barked from somewhere in front of me. “You’ve been selected for auction.”

Auction.

My stomach twisted. I almost threw up.

It was finally happening, the thing every girl in my village feared. Once you were taken, there was no going back. In this world, humans were at the bottom. We were weak, powerless, and considered useless except for one thing: breeding or slavery.

I shut my eyes and tried to breathe. I wanted to scream, but what was the point? No one would come for me. No one ever came for people like me.

They dragged me out into a large hall filled with people, wolves, vampires, fae, all creatures with power and money. I was shoved onto a wooden stage under a dim light that made everything look worse.

“Announcement, everyone!” the auctioneer shouted, his voice too loud, too proud. “We’ve got a pretty one here! Beautiful, young, and untouched!”

The crowd erupted in cheers and laughter.

My skin crawled. I wanted to slap the old man for smiling like that, for selling me like I was a prize pig. Instead, I clenched my fists and looked down. “Let’s get this over with,” I muttered under my breath.

“Twenty coins!” someone shouted.

“Eighty!”

“Two hundred!”

The numbers kept climbing, and with each one, my chest tightened. My body was being sold , my worth measured in coins.

Then a cold, deep voice cut through the noise.

“One thousand coins.”

The whole room went silent. I froze.

Even the auctioneer’s mouth fell open. “O-One thousand?” he repeated, almost choking on his words.

Everyone turned to see who had made the bid. I tiptoed slightly, peeking through the crowd, and my breath caught.

A man stood there, tall and dangerously handsome. His dark hair fell slightly over his sharp eyes, and the air around him felt… cold. Powerful.

No one dared to bid after that.

“Sold!” the old man yelled, his grin stretching wide.

They untied me and pushed me toward the man. My knees almost gave out, but I forced myself to stay upright. He was close now, close enough for me to smell his scent, crisp pine and something darker underneath, like smoke and iron.

“What’s your name?” he asked, his voice low but strong.

“Ava,” I whispered.

He nodded once. “Well, Ava, I’m Beta Ryan from the Black Moon Territory. I bought you for breeding.”

His words hit me hard. Breeding. Like I was an animal.

Still, I nodded, keeping my eyes down. Looking a royal directly in the eye was considered disrespectful and punishable.

The ride to his territory was long and quiet. I stared out the window, watching the thick forest blur past. My hands trembled in my lap, and my mind wouldn’t stop racing.

Would I die here? Would he force me? Would I ever see my home again?

When we finally arrived, the pack lands were even more terrifying than I imagined, huge stone walls, armed guards, and a dark castle looming over everything.

I thought he would take me to a room or a chamber. Instead, he stopped at the dungeon gates.

“Take her down,” he told a soldier without even looking at me. “I’ll fetch her later.”

Before I could say anything, the soldier grabbed my arm and dragged me away.

The dungeon was cold, damp, and smelled of rot. The air was heavy with fear and death. Chains hung from the walls, and faint groans echoed in the dark.

They threw me into a small cell. I fell hard against the floor, my knees scraping against the stone. The door slammed shut behind me.

That was the last time I saw Beta Ryan.

Days turned into weeks. Then months. He never came back. It was as if he had forgotten I existed.

At first, I kept hoping he would remember me. Maybe he was busy. Maybe he would come tomorrow. But he never did.

I lost count of how many times I woke up in the dark, hungry and weak. The only light came from a crack high in the wall, and sometimes, when I was lucky, one of the female guards would toss me scraps of food and water.

The screams of other prisoners echoed around me at night. Some begged for death. Some just… stopped talking one day.

I tried not to cry, but sometimes the loneliness broke me. I would curl up on the cold floor and whisper to myself, stories about my village, my mother, the sun. Anything to keep my mind from falling apart.

Six months passed. My hair was tangled, my skin bruised, and my spirit nearly gone. I no longer dreamed of escaping.

Maybe this was my fate.

Maybe I was meant to die down here, forgotten and nameless.

I stared at the ceiling one last time, whispering to the darkness, “if this is my fate then I accept it”