Chapter 4

Eliana POV

After the auction, I'd been guided toward a black SUV with tinted windows and told to wait until my master joined me. Master! Someone fucking owned me now!

It felt like forever before the door opened again and the guy who had bought me - my mate, my master - joined me, his face blank. He looked me up and down as the car began to move away from the haunted looking house before he nodded and looked away. I felt dirty, worthless, violated.

All of a sudden the panic attack which had been teetering on the edge of my consciousness shattered over me and nausea washed over me. I covered my mouth as I gagged, trying to force whatever was in my stomach down so that I wouldn’t embarrass myself in front of him.

"Stop the car," he instructed the driver.

I gratefully clambered out of the car and into the bushes on the side of the road, emptying the contents of my stomach into the foliage. Just what I wanted my mate to witness! He handed me a bottle of water and I rinsed my mouth out before we both climbed back into the car and resumed the journey to who the heck knew where.

"Thank you, " I whispered, my eyes glued to his expressionless face.

He was gorgeous, more so than I'd ever remembered. He was dressed casually in a v- neck t-shirt and jeans so it made me assume that he hadn't anticipated attending the auction. I wondered why he was even there in the first place.

"What is your name?" The smooth timber of his voice jolted me from my thoughts and I found myself stammering.

"I, I,” I swallowed hard before I attempted to continue. “I'm Eliana Marino."

He nodded and looked pleased - as if he had known my name all along but was needing the confirmation - staring out the window as the scenery flashed by. I looked down at my hands as they gripped each other tightly, my knuckles white.

"I'm going to say this once and once only," his voice was hard and cold, and I resisted the urge to shiver in response. "You're my property. I bought you because having my mate in the hands of one of my enemies would be dangerous for me. But, we will not be mated."

His green eyes glinted momentarily and I could tell that there was some sort of internal struggle between him and his inner beast.

"I, Luca Castello, reject you, Eliana Marino as my mate and Luna."

Luca.

His name was Luca. He was an alpha and he'd just rejected me.

I felt a sharp pain in my chest as the fragile thread which bound us together as mates snapped. It knocked my breath out of me and I leant against the cool glass window of the SUV panting.

He, on the other hand, didn't seem the slightest bit affected. He looked bored if anything, and it made flickers of anger pulse through me.

"So, what now?" I asked once I'd composed myself, slightly embarrassed that I had cracked in front of him.

"Now, you get to work off what you owe me."

A slight smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he spoke. It made me want to slap it from his face, instead I gripped my hands together even tighter. I had to play it smart and angering the bastard probably wasn't the best idea.

"If you're planning on making me your sex slave, you might as well take me back and get your refund now that you've rejected me. I'll fight you with all that I have," I said boldly, no longer caring if I angered him or not.

He laughed.

"No, I have enough women coming willingly to my bed. I don't need another."

Ouch.

"I need something else from you. Something only you can provide, you and your talented fingers."

He lifted my hands from my lap, looking at them critically as he noticed my chipped nail polish and the scar on my right thumb from where I'd burned it on the stove when I was a kid.

"What do you need me to do?" I could hear the curiosity in my own voice and I wanted to kick myself for it.

"I understand you were meant to be enrolling in your final year at university to study computer programming, am I right?”

I was taken aback for a second that he knew that about me, but then again he had clearly done his homework.

“Yeah, but my scholarship was rejected so…”

I couldn’t continue noting the slight smile on his lips. “You won’t be going back there anyway.”

“What did you do?” I almost shouted before I shrunk back into the seat, his glare telling me I had crossed a line.

“You forget, bambina, that I own you now. If you return to university it will be because I desire it, not because of your own wishes. You are mine to control until you’ve repaid your debt to me. My little puppet.”

The SUV stopped outside a well known five-star hotel and the concierge stepped forward to open the back door, greeting Luca Castello as if he owned the place. He motioned for me to follow him as he made his way through the grand double doors into the lobby. Business men in suits and beautifully dressed ladies loitered around the lobby, reading newspapers and sipping tea. Their presence made me painfully aware of my own poor attire, the silk negligee far from being acceptable in a place like this. The women scowled at me and muttered amongst themselves while the men cast lustful looks my way. I hastened my step, keeping as close to Luca and his bodyguard as I possibly could and was grateful when the elevator doors closed behind us.

The elevator opened onto the penthouse suite and immediately a woman dressed in a black minidress and three inch high heels made her way to greet Luca, her smile faltering when she spied me behind him.

“And this?” she asked, pointing to me with her beautifully manicured fingernails.

"Business, Nina. She's our new hacker." Luca said casually, his Italian accent suddenly more pronounced. "Enzo, deal with her." His gaze ran down the length of my body before his lips tightened in distaste. "And someone get her something appropriate to wear."

Luca and the dark haired, olive skinned Nina went into a room together and shut the door firmly behind them. I let out the breath I didn't know I had been holding, my eyes fixed on the door as the sound of Nina shouting in an unfamiliar language reached my ears.

“Ignore her, she’s just got her panties in a bunch that he left her here with me for the whole day,” a guy quite similar to Luca said with a grin on his face as he approached me. “I’m Enzo, Luca’s younger brother, Beta and second in charge. As you can probably tell,” his grin broadened and he winked at me, “I’m the sexy brother.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

Enzo was so different from Luca, he chatted and flirted as he guided me to a table on the balcony of the suite which overlooked the city. The view was breathtaking, made even more so by the sun which was setting slowly over the horizon, bathing the scenery with a golden glow.

“It’s gorgeous up here,” I heard myself whisper.

Enzo just smiled at me, his eyes warm. He gestured toward a dining table piled high with papers, motioning for me to take a seat.

“While I would love to watch the sunset with you, if we don’t get business sorted I will never hear the end of it from my big, bad brother.” Enzo slid a wad of the papers toward me.