Page 12 of Sold Wolf Slave

“Now, you’re going to sit here quietly like a good girl,” he said. “And we’re going to wait until your sister gets home.”

***

True to his words, less than two hours later, the door to the upstairs opened, and Ronan sauntered down the steps. He whistled, the shrill, unpleasant sound heralding his arrival as he moved down the row of cages, twirling a chain in one hand. I watched him, unsurprised when he came to a stop in front of me.

Ronan opened the cage. “Come on now,” he ordered.

Part of me wanted to argue, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. It would just make things more complicated. So I obeyed.

The instant I stepped out, he attached my collar to the chain and tugged me toward the far end of the room, where a second door stood. He walked at a fast clip, forcing me to trot to keep up with him. I had no doubt that if I stopped or tried to drag my feet, he would keep going and yank me along.

I didn’t want to talk to him, but curiosity got the better of me. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“The prize gets to watch,” he said.

He pulled me up a new set of stairs, long enough that I could feel myself getting winded toward the top. When we finally cleared the final landing, he pushed open a new door.

The room beyond was airy and spacious, with purple light from the sky streaming in through the windows. We weren’t the only ones there, either. Another group of men lounged on sofas, looking out as they sipped champagne and muttered amongst themselves.

So this was a VIP sort of lounge. Lucky me.

I could feel some of the men’s eyes on me as Ronan steered me toward one side. I ignored them as he took me over to the large window. It overlooked the fighting pit, the stadium below filled with raucous men waiting impatiently for the fight to begin.

The man I had met in the cage below with Ronan stepped out of one of the doorways. He was naked, normal for whenever a shifter expected to go into wolf form. He waved to the crowd, hamming it up. He looked like an idiot. His eyes landed on the box where I was standing next to Ronan. He gave me an oily, feral grin, winked, and blew a kiss. My skin crawled as I bristled. I could feel my hands lengthen into claws instinctively.

“Knock it off,” Ronan snarled.

The claws vanished, returning to fingers. Not that shifting would do anything. The shackles the slavers used, besides being impenetrable, changed shape when you shifted. They shrank or grew to accommodate your new form, making it impossible to break out.

I kept my gaze locked on the pit below. Another figure emerged, this one with long blond hair that hit just below his shoulders and a short, well-kempt beard that suited his longer face. His muscles, rippling whenever he moved, seemed chiseled from marble. His eyes swept across the stadium but didn’t flick up toward us.

Unexpectedly, my wolf stirred at the sight of him. My breathing went shallow as I stared down at him. I couldn’t describe it, but there was something about him that made me feel drawn to him. Part of me was intrigued, wanting to know more about him. My wolf wondered what his scent was, what it would feel like running through the woods with him…

I stifled the thoughts, slamming them down deep. I wasn’t going to listen to my wolf. This man might have been attractive, but he was still one of the assholes fighting to win me. And any customer who wandered through those portals was one more person who spent money to keep this whole damn operation running. It made all of them allies with Cain.

A bell rang. The two men in the pits faced one another as the crowd roared around them.

“Let the fight begin,” Ronan said.

Chapter 4 - Will

When Declan told me about going on a simple mission to check out rumors of a trafficking ring, the last thing I had expected was getting dragged through a magic portal and somehow winding up in the middle of a fighting pit.

The whole area was set up like a colosseum, with a large, circular fighting arena with a dirt floor surrounded by tall walls. The walls ultimately morphed into stairs high enough that the fighters couldn’t clamber out. Because most of the fighters wanted to be here, I doubted that was much of a concern. Though, based on the shifter across the pit from me, currently giving wide smiles and waving to the crowd like a celebrity, I wondered if I wasn’t wrong about that part.

Everything about my opponent screamed danger: the broad, hulking shoulders, the crooked nose that looked like it had been broken at least three times, the sneer he gave me as he continued wandering closer. At one point, he stopped, winked, and blew a kiss to someone up in the stands. I followed his trajectory, only to see a shadowy viewing box, the inside of which I couldn’t see.

What the hell was I doing? I was in a fighting ring, preparing to go against this guy in order to win a slave. A slave I didn’t want in the first place.

But this was part of the mission, and I wasn’t going to go against that. If I did this, the more likely it was that I could learn more about the operation here. If I walked away now, then there wasn’t any use to me sticking around. I needed to fit in, and that’s what I intended to do. So, the instant the bell rang, I shifted, my body turning into a large wolf.

I stretched, my wolf relishing the feel of dirt beneath our paws. It had been too long since I’d just let go and run through the woods as a wolf or gone on a hunt. There’d been too much work to do so I hadn’t had the chance to get away.

I didn’t have the chance to relish it for long before I caught sight of my opponent—Pierce, according to Lucas. He ran toward me, jaws already open, preparing to bite into me the second he cleared the distance.

I dodged out of the way, claws lashing out, catching fur as I tried to drag them across his side.

Before I could readjust, he rounded and charged to the side. Pierce barreled into my side, shoving me backward. Stumbling, the force knocked me off my feet, and I went sprawling, dirt spraying in the air as I slid across the ground. I rolled, just managing to avoid Pierce’s next attack as he charged toward me.

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