Page 23 of Sold Wolf Slave

Something didn’t add up. I held up a hand. “How long were you waiting for me?” I asked.

“Few hours?” Chris shrugged. “Not very long. Why?”

“Because it’s been at least twenty-four hours since I showed up,” I said.

We all fell silent, digesting the new information.

“So time goes slower here,” Chris muttered.

“I guess that makes sense,” Nolan said. “Gives the creeps here more time with their new acquisitions. But that doesn’t answer my biggest question. How the hell did you manage to get a house this nice in about twenty-four hours?”

“Ah.” I paused, trying not to glance at the steps. “About that…”

Before I could even come up with a way to explain everything, light footsteps sounded as Kendra descended the stairs. Both Nolan and Chris’s heads turned toward the sound, and Chris’s fingers turned to claws. Nolan, slightly less trigger-happy, stared, alert, waiting to see what the threat was.

Kendra froze at the bottom of the steps as she took in the newcomers on the couch. Her hair was still damp from the shower, her red hair a shade darker than normal but still striking. Her eyes went wide as she glanced from them to me. Distrust and caution flickered through her gaze as she stared at me, but she remained quiet. I could see her entire body coil like a spring, as if waiting to start fighting at any moment.

Chris and Nolan continued to gape at her. I could see their eyes go from the bracelet to her collar. It didn’t take long for them to understand. Their heads slowly turned back to me, each with identical quizzical expressions, both waiting for an explanation.

“It’s not what it looks like,” I said.

“Right,” Chris said, glancing back at Kendra again.

“Um, hi,” Nolan told her.

Kendra didn’t answer, just glanced at me. Her jaw set as her lips turned into a frown, and she took a step back up the stairs.

“Mind filling us in, Will?” Chris asked.

“It’s okay,” I told Kendra. “They’re part of my group.”

Her shoulders relaxed, but only a little. She didn’t step fully into the living room. I moved forward so I stood between her and Chris and Nolan, hoping that might soothe some of her anxiety.

“This is Kendra,” I said. “She was a slave from the fighting pits.”

“Right. And how did she come to be staying in the mansion that you managed to get in the span of a day?” Nolan asked.

“He won me,” she answered matter-of-factly. “And the house.”

Chris and Nolan turned back to me, still waiting for a more thorough explanation. I took a deep breath and walked over to Kendra. I reached out, putting my hand on her shoulder. She didn’t flinch away, but I could still see the mistrust in her expression.

“Why don’t you go upstairs?” I said. “I’ll come talk to you later. But I promise, we’re all on the same team here.”

The tension in her shoulders eased a bit more, knowing she didn’t have to stick around. Though she still didn’t know what to make of any of this, she at least seemed to get that I had no interest in taking advantage of her or letting anyone else do that. She gave a short, sharp nod, turned, and walked back up the stairs.

Chris and Nolan stared after her, still gawking just a little bit. They stayed silent until the door upstairs closed, and they turned back and looked at me again.

“You have a slave now?” Chris asked.

“It’s not like that,” I said. “I got roped into the fighting pits while I was wandering around. I pretended I was interested in getting a girl, got put into a fight, and won. Then they made me marry her and—”

“Youmarriedher?” Nolan gaped.

“It wasn’t as though I had much of a choice on that end,” I growled, running my fingers through my hair. “I had to play along, or I risked giving up the whole game. And the only other option was losing and effectively having a psychopath kill me in the pits.”

Nolan blinked. “That’s a hell of a lot to get up to in twenty-four hours. You’ve been busy.”

“This place is bad,” I growled. “We need to take it down, and the best way to do that is from the inside.”

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