Page 57 of Betrayed Auctioned Mate

“Go!” he shouts. “Keira, stay low!”

Something hard lands against the back of my skull.

I’m so tired of deja vu, I think.

I stumble to the steps ahead of me, head spinning, and claw my way to my feet. I find myself halfway up to the stage where I was once auctioned off like property.

Hard white lights burn down over me. Something thunderous grows between my ears, digging itself into the front of my brain.

I think it might be rage.

A shape moves to my right, swiping at me from the ground below. A guard coming at me with a knife. I lurch out of the way, a small scream escaping my lips, and then nail him in the stomach with a hard kick. He goes flying right onto Rafael’s knife.

On the stage, only a few feet from me, through the haze of my fury and fear, I see him—the slick-haired man who took bids for me.

He stares into my eyes, and I can’t tell you half of what’s happening in this room right now, but I know precisely the moment he recognizes me.

I raise my gun and fire three shots.

The men on the stage scatter. One drops to the ground hard—another launches to the side and tries to flee through a nearby door.

But Ado is faster. He catches the criminal by the collar, throwing him to the floor.

I have eyes only for the head auctioneer. I watch him stare down at the hole in the middle of his shirt, in the middle of his chest, spreading with red like a blooming flower.

He looks up at me as he falls, and I know the fear in his eyes is a sight that will haunt me and comfort me alike until I die.

Then, the room is silent except for the heavy breathing of the victorious pack.

Chapter 28 - Ado

I know Keira’s going to fall before she does it.

In the dim light, flickering through the haze of our adrenaline, I see her shoulders rise and fall fast. The bond seems to pull, tugging like a loose thread. It strings itself all the way through me and pulls like a tripwire, ensnaring my soul.

Bigby appears at my side. One of his boots lands on the chest of the man, gasping on the floor, pinning him like a bug.

I am on the stage beside Keira before my body or brain has decided on the plan.

When her legs give out, I catch her, lowering her to the ground against my chest. She curls her arms around her middle and presses her face to my shoulder, beginning to weep.

I hold her tight. We breathe, neither of us speaking.

This mansion, where so many have lost their freedom and their hope alike, rings empty, its foundations settling and creaking. Soon, dawn will draw in over Border Ridge.

“It’s over,” I find myself whispering into Keira’s hair. “It’s over, I promise, it’s over.”

We both know I don’t just mean the mission. I mean her days of fear. Her loneliness—her life of anonymity, and likewise, my life of silent reclusion. The shape of our lives before we ended up back in each other’s. It’s clear—it has ended.

The rest of the world regains its dimension slowly, in pieces.

“In the basement,” the man on the ground is gasping as Bigby’s foot crushes down on his chest. “The girls—they’re in the basement—”

Percy helps Byron off the ground ten feet away, both of them bleeding from the head but still looking alert and mostly unharmed. Nearby, Rafael groans as he pokes at a graze on the outside of his bicep where a bullet grazed him. Aris ties a piece of an unconscious guard’s shirt around the middle of his calf, probably to patch a bleeder.

We have no way to contact Veronica and Maisie—we’ll have to find them in the woods surrounding the property, wherever they parked.

I can’t move yet, though. I don’t think I’ll be able to move for a long time. Not for as long as Keira is here in my arms, heavy as the weight of my entire future, holding me as if I’m the only thing keeping her in one piece.

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