Chapter 1

Nora's POV

He grabbed my dress and ripped it off, revealing my stark nakedness. I felt exposed and alone. So, terribly alone.

"Hear ye!" The pudgy, bearded bellowed, arms outstretched. "I have come again, as I always do, and this time I have the choicest of slaves for you. Strong, agile and well-fed, the best you'd find anywhere. As you can see, she is young, undefiled and unsullied. She is a maiden of royal blood, the likes of which you'd never find again!"

I gasped as the man pushed me towards the front of the platform in the middle of the marketplace. My hands were bound with chains, and so were my legs, so walking was extremely uncomfortable. Fear clogged my throat, but I tried to push past it, facing the crowd in all my shredded dignity.

The slave master leaned towards me and whispered. "You'd better keep your eyes on the ground. No crying, no fighting, no fidgeting. You're a slave now, not fucking royalty. Do you hear me?"

I mumbled in agreement.

"Good." He murmured, then plastered a smile on his face and turned his back to me, facing the gathering market crowd. 

From the corner of my eyes, I could see the gathered crowd muttering to themselves and pointing at each slave in turn. I felt like a piece of meat on a butcher's table, being groped and scrutinized and haggled over.

"Auctions start from a hundred gold coins apiece. That's a hundred gold coins apiece!" The man continued.

"I'll take her!" A merchant called out. I felt rather than heard the murmuring of everyone around me, and I jerked my head upwards. 

His finger was pointed towards me. I could feel the weight of several eyes on my body, as my cheeks went red with embarrasment.

The slave master was looking at me with slightly bulging eyes, silently urging me to move forward. "Get a move on!" He growled at me through gritted teeth, and I stumbled forward. The slave master pushed me to my knees, and I gasped in pain as my knees scraped the wooden platform painfully.

"I bid two hundred gold coins!" The merchant called out, jiggling a small bag of coins in his hand.

The slave master grinned. "Two hundred gold coins! Do I see three hundred?"

"I bid three hundred!" A buxom woman called out from the edge of the crowd.

"That's three hundred! Do I hear five hundred? Five hundred gold coins?"

"Five hundred gold coins!" Another stranger yelled from the crowd.

And the haggling went on.

For some reason, the merchants continued to bid for me. The bidding went on for several hours, until the sun was high overhead and my skin was blistering with its rays. Tears and sweat dropped from my face as I heard people haggling over me, pricing my freedom as though it was theirs to own.

I wasn't sure I wanted this, but there was no way out.

I couldn't run again. This was my final destination.

"Ten thousand gold coins!" A merchant called out finally. I glanced up to see a severe-looking woman, whose face was nothing but unfriendly. And for the first time since I got to the market, it hit me that this would be my future for the rest of my life.

I would die a mere slave.

The woman walked towards the raised dais, shoulders raised proudly. The slave master was nearly bursting with happiness as he stretched out his hand to collect the bag of gold coins in her hand.

But as the money and my freedom was about to change hands, a new voice called out from the crowd. "I bid twenty thousand gold coins!"

The entire marketplace seemed to fall silent. "What—" the slave master whispered. Heads turned to the back of the crowd, and the people parted to reveal a man standing at the very end of the marketplace.

His face was covered in a white shawl to shield his eyes from the blazing sun. He was fully clothed with his hands in a pair of leather gloves, but my sharp wolf eyes could pick out the battle scars that snaked up his arms and disappeared into his short shirt sleeves. He stood with all the authority of a prowling alpha wolf, and every single gaze was on him.

And as we all watched, the man reached up and pulled the shawl aside, revealing his face.

There he was. 

My everlasting nightmare.

Alpha Chester.

The man was flanked on both sides by his beta and his gamma, but he had eyes for no other person but me. His gaze was green-eyed and difficult to ignore, piercing in its intensity. I watched as his lips lifted in a sinister smile at the horrified look on my face.

As I watched, Alpha Chester leaned to his beta and whispered into his ears. My eyes followed his movements as the beta nodded, then collected a large bag of coins from his alpha. Then the beta began to walk slowly towards the platform.

My heart leaped in fright as he walked towards us. I struggled to my feet and moved towards the slave master, hands gripping his cloth. "Sir...master...maybe you should reconsider selling me off to this man." I stammered. "I mean, I am sure there's someone who can bid higher than twenty thousand gold coins for me, right?"

"Damn right, there isn't!" The man snapped at me, scowling to show rotten teeth. "Twenty thousand is as much as I could hope for a pesky little vermin like you."

He shrugged my hands off and moved towards the beta, leaving me behind. My eyes darted around wildly, looking for a mode of escape, but there was none. I could see Alpha Chester's guards situated at every single corner of the small market. I knew I couldn't run far before being caught and dragged back.

The beta threw the bag of gold coins towards the slave master, who caught it in the air. The slave master smiled greedily, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a grin as he held the bag to himself.

I staggered backwards as the chains that bound my hands and feet was handed over to the beta. Forcefully he pulled me down from the stadium and dragged me to the very back of the market, to the waiting arms of my nightmare.

I could hear a wild rushing in my ears, and my heart hammered against my ribcage, filling me with terror. Alpha Chester collected the chains from his beta, then pulled me closer to himself, a victorious smile on his face.

"You are mine, Nora." He whispered into my ear, and an eerie chill went down my spine.

"Alpha....please—" I stuttered.

Alpha Chester smiled, the turning of his lips sending goosebumps down my arms. "I own you now, Nora. You cannot run from me."

Everything seemed to happen in one despairing thread after that. Alpha Chester turned to his beta and handed the chains that bound me over to him. The beta dragged me to a horse, then attached the chains to his saddle.

"Please..." I pleaded in a whisper, my head turned to Alpha Chester. "I don't want to go back....just let me go, alpha...."

The alpha's face was grim and forbidding. Ignoring my pleas, he mounted his own horse and trotted away, leaving his beta and I to follow closely behind.

My heart was shattered, and it felt as though the sharp ends were pressing against my chest.  I knew the last of my hope was lost, but in an obscure corner of my heart, I hoped this was a bad dream that I would soon wake from.