Page 6 of Owned By the Hvrok

No. Not here. Not in front of them.

She clenched her jaw, bit down hard, andglared through the glass at the next one who came near.

They wouldn’t see her cry. They wouldn’t see her break.

Her fear was ice beneath her rage, and both held her upright.

Let them stare. Let them prod.

Let them wonder what they were really buying.

Because she wasn’t just some trembling thing from a backwards planet.

She was Sylvia. She was human.

And she would survive. Shehadto.

CHAPTER 4

It began with a tone: shrill, metallic, echoing through the market.

Then came the glyphs.

They flared to life above her transparent cell: glowing shapes, alien numerals she couldn’t decipher. They pulsed in midair, shifting with every new bid.

It took Sylvia a moment to understand.

They were bidding.

Onher.

Her stomach turned. “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”

But it didn’t stop.

Figures pressed toward the platform—dozens of them. Creatures of every shape and size, waving devices, issuing commands to floating consoles. Voices overlapped in a frenzied mess of languages: clicks, snarls, trills, and mechanical tones.

She staggered back, hitting the rear wall of the display cell.

The tall, gray-skinned alien with the glassy black eyes and razor-thin limbs started the bidding. Then came the red brute—the same one who had touched her earlier—shouting in some gravelly language, his claws flashing as he barked his bid.

A thick, slug-like being chimed in next, its voice a wet slop of vowels that made her gag. Then another, a being made entirely of overlapping scales and chitin, its mouth constantly moving as it spoke through what looked like translator tech fused to its jaw.

All of them. Staring at her. Competing.

Competing toownher.

Sylvia's pulse thundered in her ears. She could hardly process the horror. Every motion, every raised device, every flickering glyph above her cell chipped away at what was left of her reality.

She backed into the corner, trembling.

And then, her mind… slipped. Just a little.

She felt distant. Detached. Like she was floating above herself, watching someone else go through this nightmare.

Maybe she was breaking. Maybe that was the only way her brain could cope.

She watched the red brute bark a final bid, his body tense, victorious.

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