Chapter 9
Elodie
Dorian Vale just bought me.
For sixty thousand dollars.
Dorian.
Like some vengeful god, he stands in the aisle, eyes boring into me, and I can’t breathe.
I’m on the podium—basically naked—shock paralyzing me to my core. The world dims around me, narrowing to this moment with him.
What is he even doing here?
I never thought I’d see anyone I knew, let alone him. And he bid on me. He won.
Sold to Dorian Vale for sixty thousand dollars.
That kind of money should feel like salvation, considering I had ten bucks in my bank account when I walked in here. Instead, it feels like a cage snapping shut.
A handler appears at my side, his presence cutting through the suffocating tension. He’s here to usher me to the private room where I’ll meet my bidder—Dorian.
He takes my hand and helps me down from the podium. I let him. My legs feel like they don’t belong to me.
But before I’m fully off the stage, I look over my shoulder and find Dorian still watching.
The men in the crowd are whispering. They wanted to bid more, but then he came along. I caught what the auctioneer said—boss’ orders.
I’m guessing Dorian must know the boss here.
No surprise. He’s a Vale. They all have connections. I just never expected his to reach this place.
My view of him breaks when I’m led behind the curtain.
The handler hands me my robe, and I put it on mindlessly.
The next girl goes out, and the auction continues as if nothing happened. As if I didn’t just sell myself to my brother’s ex-best friend. A man I shouldn’t owe.
My head is spinning, and I can’t quite grasp what truly just happened. But it happened.
I’m so embarrassed. First, he ran into me at the coffeehouse. Now this.
And this is far, far worse.
Before he arrived, I thought the worst thing in the world would be going through with the auction to pay Marcus.
I’d been freaking out about the timing. About not being able to see Marcus before midnight.
He never responded to any of my messages letting him know I’d go to the office tomorrow and pay.
I hated that I never heard from him. I went into the auction with an extra dose of fear curdling in my gut.
But I was worried about the wrong things.
I swallow hard, trying to breathe through the panic tightening around my ribs.
Because the only thing I can think of is Dorian.
My legs shake inside the six-inch heels as we move through a corridor that smells like perfume and something darker underneath.
After a few minutes, we stop outside a door.
“Your bidder is inside,” the handler says, like he’s telling me my coffee is ready.
I try to speak, but my mouth is dry.
I stare at the door, my stomach twisting so violently I feel it in my throat.
He opens it, and warm light spills into the corridor.
He nods for me to go in.
I do, moving like I’m walking through deep water.
The room looks like a hotel suite, except there’s no bed.
The door closes behind me with a soft, final click.
I walk deeper inside. And there he is.
Dorian stands near the window in the corner, jacket open, tie loosened.
My breath catches. My lungs lock. I stop midstride, staring at him like I’ve forgotten how to exist.
His gaze slides over me, slow and deliberate, landing on my face last.
Shame floods me, but I don’t look away.
He pushes off the window and walks toward me.
One step. Then another. Slow. Measured. Then he stops, and his eyes rake over me again.
The suite suddenly feels too small.
“I wonder. What should I ask you first? What the hell you’re doing here or why you thought selling your body in an auction at a sex club was a good idea?” He clenches his jaw, and a vicious glint flashes in his eyes.
The words hit hard, and tremors race down my spine.
My throat tightens. I open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out—only breath.
“Well,” he prods, brows knitting.
“I needed the money.” I guess that’s the first true thing I’ve told him since he came crashing back into my life.
Saying you’re saving and that you actually need money are two different things.
His gaze pins me. “What for?”
“A loan.”
“What the fuck kind of loan would bring you to a place like this?”
I think of how I can answer him without looking as foolish and trusting as I did when I told Jack. “A really, really big one.”
His eyes blaze. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so angry before. “Go on. Tell me more about this really, really big loan.” He cocks his head and intensifies his stare.
“I made a mistake,” I whisper, deep shame and disappointment burning through me like acid. Then I tell him. I tell him exactly what I told Jack.
When I’m done, his gaze doesn’t soften like I thought it would. I imagined him understanding, but he looks more enraged.
“Does Jack know about this loan?” His hands ball into tight fists at his sides.
“Yes. He couldn’t help me. He’s…” What should I tell him about Jack? “He’s struggling financially.”
Again, his gaze doesn’t shift. “Does he know you’re here?”
“No. And I don’t want him to find out.”
“Oh, believe me, he won’t hear about this from me. I don’t have time to battle over me buying his baby sister in a fucking auction.”
Baby sister.
Great. After all this time, he still thinks of me as Jack’s baby sister.
“I did what I had to do.” I lift my chin, hoping an appearance of confidence will mask the tremor in my voice. “You think I wanted to auction myself off? My choices were limited.”
“But you had choices.” He steps closer, those sharp blue eyes locking with mine. “I gave you a choice. You could have come to me.”
“I didn’t want to go begging for your help,” I rasp. “I wanted to fix the problem myself.”
“Oh, I see.” The tension in his gaze loosens, but it’s not with something softer. It fills with something dark and daring. “Have you ever been here before, Elodie? To the Dark Odyssey?”
“No.”
“Do you know what kind of men come here? What kind of men bid on girls like you?” His gaze travels down my body, stopping just above my knees where the robe cuts, giving him a good view of my bare thighs.
“Men with money.”
The smirk he gives me treads the edge of psychotic. “Money? Oh no. It’s not just about money, little lamb. It’s about power that goes way beyond money. The kind of power that allows you to do whatever dark, twisted, fucked-up thing you desire, no matter the cost.”
A shudder coils through me and settles in the pit of my gut. He’s right. But the thing that grips my attention is how well versed he sounds. Like he’s talking about himself.
The fact that he’s here says a lot. It’s not like he found out I was here and came to save me. We ran into each other here—one hell of a coincidence.
“You agreed to do anything, didn’t you? On the application.” He searches my eyes. “That’s why your bids skyrocketed.”
“Yes. I was desperate.”
He moves closer, closing the distance between us. He stops a breath away. He’s too close. So close the scent of his aftershave and his dominance tickle my nose.
He presses a finger to my chin and lifts, making sure my gaze is on his. “Pray tell, little lamb. What would you have done if I didn’t step in to save you? Would you really have done anything with anyone?”
My breath catches. I try to swallow past the lump in my throat, but I can’t. His gaze is too intense.
“Would you have allowed a complete stranger to own your body and do whatever they please with you?” His brows lift.
“I… would have to.”
The scathing look he gives me makes me feel like a cheap whore.
“Oh, so you’d allow them to come in here, bend you over, and fuck you just because they paid for you?
” He catches my face, fingers digging into my skin.
“What if they brought company and wanted you to fuck all their friends, too? Would you have done that, Elodie? Because that’s what anything means here at the Dark Odyssey. ”
My stomach churns at the sickening image that comes to my mind, but the determination that sent me to the auction takes over. I know he’s trying to scare the fuck out of me—and it’s working—but I didn’t come here because I was bored or wanted some crazy new sexual experience.
I came here because my life depended on it.
Someone like him wouldn’t understand what it feels like to have your back against the wall. He’s Dorian Vale. He wouldn’t know what helplessness looked like if it hit him in the face.
“Would you have—”
“Stop it.” I hold up my hand, cutting him off, and pull out of his grasp. “Stop trying to scare me. I knew what I was getting myself into.” The words tremble out of me, but at least I’m talking. “I knew coming here could have destroyed me.”
“Yet you came anyway?”
“Yes. Now get off your moral high horse and tell me what you want.” My breathing turns shallow as his eyes darken, that familiar predatory stillness settling over him like a second skin. “What do you want for your sixty thousand dollars?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
For a moment, he just stares, his eyes drifting over me with brutal patience.
His gaze lingers on the robe, and I remember that he knows what I look like underneath.
A flush of embarrassment grips my insides like a hand at my throat, but then I swear I see a flicker of something that looks like desire hidden within his arctic gaze.
Maybe I imagined it.
When I was younger, I would have given anything for him to look at me like…like I wasn’t just Jack’s baby sister. Like I was one of the girls he liked.
He steps forward, slow and deliberate, his eyes still fixed on me.
What is he going to demand from me?
He gave me a list of possibilities—things that could have been demanded from me in this room.
What will I do if he wants to have sex with me?
He’s not some stranger.
He’s Dorian Vale, the unobtainable, unreachable, off-limits guy with a side to him that’s darker than pitch.
He moves closer, and my God… I’m right. His eyes—the look in them turns sharp, shifting into something hot and possessive that makes my stomach drop.
It’s pure hunger, and it’s so potent my instincts kick in and I step back.
He follows.
He keeps coming until the only place left for me to go is the wall.
My back meets it, and my breath catches.
What I’m not prepared for is him.
Dorian lifts one arm and plants his hand against the wall above my head. His body boxes me in, and there’s nowhere to go but into him.
My pulse turns stupid, and my body locks down. The little bravado I had moments ago fades, and all I’m left with is whatever happens next.
I’m trembling, and I hate that he can see it.
“What indeed shall I take for sixty thousand dollars?” His gaze drops to my mouth for half a second, then lifts, locking onto my eyes like a warning. “A kiss. I want a kiss.”
My heartbeat stalls, then surges back into a panicked rhythm. “A kiss? You want a… kiss? For sixty thousand dollars?” Not sex. Not humiliation. Not some twisted punishment. Just a kiss.
“Yes.” His voice doesn’t waver. “You…kiss me. But be warned, little lamb, you’re about to find out what darkness tastes like.”
I don’t move for a beat. My mind catches on his words—his warning.
A warning I should heed, except I’ve always wanted to know what darkness tastes like.
Everyone knows what happens to moths who chase flames. And still, I’m the moth, drawn to his darkness.
“Don’t keep me waiting, little lamb,” he murmurs, and the smile that curves his lips is filled with menace and dangerous promises, like watching a wolf bare its teeth.
His hand stays braced above my head, blocking the world out and trapping me in the space between his body and the wall.
I lift my chin.
He’s so close I can count the seconds between his breaths.
I gaze at his mouth.
His lips are parted slightly, relaxed like he’s not about to become the thing he warned me about. I swallow, my throat tight, and move slowly toward his lips, hovering a heartbeat away.
Then I press my mouth to his.
Soft.
Careful.
A kiss that barely exists.
My mouth lingers there, memorizing what I’m not supposed to want.
For a moment, he allows me to explore the curve of his firm lips, searching for the darkness I’m supposed to taste.
Then his control snaps.
His hand slides to my jaw, firm, claiming, tilting my face exactly how he wants it. His mouth takes over—no patience, no softness—like he’s done letting me pretend I’m the one in charge of this.
He deepens the kiss.
His coldness is instantly replaced by warmth, and the searing kiss he gives me makes my head spin. I melt into him, molding myself against his strong, hard body as if all the life has left mine.
The tip of his tongue darts into my mouth, parting my lips. I open for him eagerly, then I taste it. Darkness.
It tastes like smoke and sin and ruin. Hot and dangerous and sweet.
Like stepping too close to a flame and deciding the burn is worth it.
A burst of arousal shoots straight to my core. I should hate how fast my body responds to him and how this new taste in my mouth ignites the hunger I’ve suppressed for him all these years. But God, I lose my mind.
Dorian cups the back of my neck to kiss me harder, and his tongue captures mine in a claiming grasp of passion and fire, a wanton promise for things I never knew I needed.
I’m not thinking. I’m feeling.
The part of me that cautions to be careful goes quiet, and his dominance steadies me.
Everything inside me tilts toward him, like my body has been waiting years for permission to feel alive.
I forget the auction. The debt. The shame. Everything. There’s only him.
My hands press to his chest, exploring an array of sinewy muscles beneath his shirt.
Outside my dreams, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to him.
He pushes me up against the wall, his massive erection digging into my thigh.
A thrill shoots through me at the realization that I made him hard for me. But the moment is short lived because he pulls away without warning, leaving me breathless and my body throbbing for more.
Dorian grips my chin and stares me down. His thumb traces my lower lip with deceptive gentleness before his grip shifts, fingers splaying across my throat. My pulse jumps, and I go still.
“Payment received.” If not for the slight huskiness in his voice, I would have never thought the kiss had any effect on him. “Don’t let me catch you in a place like this ever again.”
He releases me then steps back, his warning clinging to the air like smog.
He doesn’t wait for my response. He turns and walks away, unhurried, like he hasn’t just rearranged my entire body with his kiss.
Without looking back, he heads to the door, opens it, and he’s gone. Just like that.
I collapse against the wall, my heart pounding.
I feel like I just stepped into the wrong side of an alternate universe.
And that kiss…
That wasn’t just a kiss. It was a line being crossed.
I’m not sure I can find my way back. Or if I want to.