Page 7 of Sold Bullied Mate

My heart beats so hard in my chest, I wonder if they can see it, all the people staring up at me, the way it’s shaking my entire body, like it’s trying to reach right through my rib cage. What’s worse—being sold to some random in this crowd, or going with Dorian?

Gaze traveling over the crowd, I take in the different species, the shifting eyes, the blatant hunger in some of the stares. These are the very same men who would spit at me, call me disgusting, all while thinly veiling their lust for my body.

“Other bids?” the auctioneer looks giddily around, almost like he’s disappointed that there won’t be more fighting. “Going, going—”

I suck in a breath, eyes finally landing on Dorian again. He’s staring up at me, face passive, slack. It doesn’t make any sense—why buy me when I was once a part of his pack, and cast out? Why bring me back when it was obvious nobody wanted me there?

My mind turns over his comment about having a servant. Dorian was a bully in high school—cruel, sometimes viciously so. But he never touched me. I was very aware of the fact that our skin never came in contact, that no matter how mean he was, it was always verbal.

So what would he do with me now? Surely he wouldn’t actually take me in as a servant. And, given my low standing as an omega—completely unwanted, thanks to the incident—why would he want to be seen with me?

It’s possible that Dorian could be even worse than I remember. My cheek stings with the memory of Jerrod’s hand across my face, and I feel a flash of dread through my body.

Leaving the pack doesn’t mean I know nothing of what’s happening over there. News travels, which means I know that Dorian fulfilled his grandfather’s wish and took over as the alpha leader of the pack. I know that Emin is on the council with him.

But what I don’t know is what the hell Dorian wants with me. What he’s doing at this market, in Grayhide territory. If Jarred found out—if any of the shifters from the Grayhide pack found out—Dorian would be ripped to shreds. Even the most powerful shifter couldn’t take on dozens of other shifters at once, and I’ve seen how Jarred and his men treat trespassers.

With the bad blood between the packs, and the chaos it would cause if Jarred killed their alpha, Dorian being here is a huge risk. And yet, here he is.

The auctioneer’s loud voice next to my ear cuts me off, and he runs a finger down the side of my arm, eliciting yet another shift as he calls out, “—gone! Sold to this gentleman in the hood. Fifty-three thousand. Please bring your payment forward.”

I watch Dorian push through the crowd, blood turning to ice in my veins.

Whether I want to or not, I’m going home.

Chapter 5 - Dorian

Trees and cacti fly past on either side of the road. Further out in the distance, animals pause, watching the truck as we speed past, their eyes glinting from the headlights in the inky black night.

Kira sits in the passenger seat, wrapped in my cloak, refusing to look at me.

This entire fucking car is drowned in her scent—sweet and spicy—and it’s driving me wild. I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white, bite my tongue, anything to keep from reaching over and touching her.

I’d forgotten how strong the urge was. The carnal, pulling lust toward her. It tortured me throughout high school. A memory flashes through my mind—Kira, showing up to school, not realizing she was going into heat. Apparently, nobody in her family—her mother and father, both betas, Emin an alpha—had bothered to tell her the omega cycle.

What the scent of her would do to the alphas.

More importantly, what the scent of her would do to her mate.

That word rings through my head, and along with it comes the image of her face, stricken and twisted, the day I publicly rejected her. No matter what I do for the rest of my life, I will never be rid of that expression, hanging in the back of my mind.

If I examine the memory, I can list out all the reasons I had to do it. First, Kira didn’t come from a very high family in the pack to start. Then, around the time all the rest of us werecoming to school, proud with the boastful stories of our first shifts, Kira was noticeably silent.

Things only got worse when she started talking about her gift, whispering to herself in class. Then there was the incident—her certainty that her premonition was right. How she’d managed to convince the council to listen to her. Howbadlyeverything had gone after that day.

And how I’d rejected her publicly. While we didn’t officially cast her out of the pack, she wasn’t seen again after that, slipping away quietly. Later, once I was firmly in power, Leta informed me quietly of news that she’d been seen in Grayhide territory.

The Grayhides—known for abusing their omegas. Known for the recently appointed alpha, who was too wrapped up in his own ego to take proper care of his pack.

Now, Kira shifts in her seat, and it sends a new wave of her scent through the cab. She was shivering and clearly uncomfortable in her nightgown, that little slip that clung to her body, but I gave her my cloak for my own sake, unsure of what I might do if my eyes caught on her nipples pressing against the fabric one more time.

“Kira,” I try again, voice low like she’s a skittish animal I might scare off. I notice the way she shivers when I speak, and it causes my own shiver in return. My body is hyperattuned to hers, even more so than with the rest of my pack.

I can practically feel her heartbeat. Right now, it skips along, a staccato, a tiny little beat against the inside of her chest.

There are so many questions I should ask, so many things I’d like to know. But the question that sticks in my head has everything to do with the darkening bruise on her cheek, the scabbed-over dash where she was clearly bleeding.

Somebody hit her. And every cell in my body needs to know who it was, so I can end them. Make sure they never have the opportunity to touch her, hurt her, again.

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