Chapter 1 : The Sale

Serena POV

The air reeked of smoke and fear before I saw him.

My father’s voice was first. Harsh and low, in a tone he saved for closing deals he didn’t want me to hear. “She’s strong-blooded. Proven. You’ll have no trouble breeding her.”

I stood frozen in the hallway. My instincts screamed at me to run but my feet wouldn’t move. The words stung worse than a slap. Breeding. He wasn’t talking about livestock. He was talking about me.

A voice answered, deeper, darker, a dangerous calm in the edges of its control. “Strength is nothing without obedience.”

That voice did not belong to any man in my father’s circles. It was the voice of a predator—slow and measured, more dangerous because it never needing to shout.

Closer, I inched. Quietly, until the floorboards under my feet complained. The door was cracked, smoke curling from a fireplace through the slit. I couldn’t see the stranger’s face, hidden in a shifting orange glow, but the silhouette sitting perfectly still like a statue seemed chiseled for the sole purpose of sin. Broad shoulders, black coat, pale hair haloed by firelight. My father sat across the room from him, sweating, bottle between them half empty.

“She has got fight in her,” Father said. “But I’ve kept her chained to the house long enough. You’ll tame her.”

The stranger turned his head so slowly that I wasn’t sure if he had moved at first. I caught the ghost of his eyes. Silver, inhuman, and cold as moonlight. A scar ran down his jaw, fine and white as if lightning was caught in flesh.

“Chains,” he said, “are only useful when she learns to crave them.”

My throat closed. My wolf roiled under my skin, wary. That tone wasn’t for trading. It was for claiming.

Father shook his head, his hands trembling as he poured more wine. “We have an understanding then?”

The man—Luca, I would later learn his name—rose. He was taller than I expected, his shadow spilling across the wall like smoke. “We do. But understand this, Valente.” His gaze flicked to the door, and for a heartbeat, I thought he’d seen me. “I don’t buy weakness. I consume it.”

I stumbled back, but the floor creaked out my cover.

There was a pause, heavy and sure.

Then—“Come in.”

It was a command, but his wolf was flinching before my body could. I fought it. Stay back, I told myself, hidden where he couldn’t find me. But my feet moved on their own, the door creaking wider, spilling firelight across my bare legs and thin nightdress.

My father’s face whitened. “Serena—”

The stranger was no longer looking at him. His gaze drifted down my throat, over my collarbones, pausing over the pulse fluttering in my throat. It was not lust—it was appraisal. Like a wolf scenting where to sink his teeth.

“So this is your daughter.”

Father’s hand twitched. “She—she didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“Quiet.”

One word. No raise in tone, no visible anger—yet my father obeyed.

I swallowed. “If you’re here to buy something, you should know I’m not for sale.”

Luca smiled. “Everything sells, little wolf. It’s only a question of what you pay in blood.”

“I don’t bleed for anyone.”

He took a step closer. His boots made no sound on the carpet, his movements measured, the air charged with something animal, something that smelled of heat and storm. He stopped a breath away and I could feel the thrum of his power against my skin.

“You’ll learn,” he said softly. “They all do.”

My heartbeat stuttered, half fear and half defiance. “I’m not them.”

He smiled, a sharp, knowing thing. “You will be.”

My father cleared his throat behind him. “You’ll get your payment once she’s delivered.”

The words were a sentence. Delivered.

I turned on him, vision narrowing. “You can’t—”

But Luca’s hand curled around my chin before I could finish. It was not cruel, not yet, but it stole my breath. His thumb flicked across the corner of my mouth, brushing the tremor in my jaw.

“Defiance,” he said, a low purr. “Good. I prefer when they fight. It makes the surrender worth watching.”

My wolf bristled, claws scraping inside my chest. I wanted to bite him, to take blood, to rend that calm from his face—but something in his eyes anchored me. Not magic. Something older. Command.

He leaned close, close enough his breath swirled around my ear. “You’ll kneel soon enough.”

It was not shouted. It was whispered, low and certain, as if he’d already seen it happen.

When he released me, air rushed into my lungs. I stumbled backward, spine scraping the wall. My father poured another drink, pretending not to see.

Luca scanned the room, as if memorizing it, before saying, “By dawn.”

And then he was gone, leaving the air smelling of smoke and cold iron.

The door shut.

I looked at my father. “You sold me to a wolf.”

He didn’t look at me. “You were born for it.”

Something broke inside me I didn’t know could still shatter.

Outside, the wind shifted. The scent of the forest came through the open window, through the smell of smoke and ash—wet pine and a scent beneath it I couldn’t place. Metal.

Father lifted his glass again, but his wrist trembled so much he gave himself away.

Outside, beyond the window, a brazier hissed. Someone was heating iron. Firelight licked the courtyard stones, bright enough to stain the sky.

A scream, high and thin, rose from the ground floor, quickly smothered. Then another.

The firelight danced across my father’s face and for a heartbeat I thought I saw shame. Then it was gone.

I pressed my fingers into the windowsill until my nails bit through skin. Outside, the air was red with heat, thick with smoke. I didn’t know if the next breath I took would still be mine—only that the man who’d bought me was already burning something in my name.