Chapter 3 #2
Cyprio retrieved the potato sack from the ground. As he moved toward me, he addressed Fark. “Put the first chain around her legs.”
My stomach lurched. “Don’t!” I yelled, struggling against my bonds. Fark tossed the chains. The links landed heavily on my thighs. Dizziness swept me.
Then nothing.
T he chatter of a crowd dragged me out of unconsciousness. As Cyprio yanked the sack from my head, I debated telling him that sustained exposure to silver made me vomit. But as the sea of blobs before me formed into faces, speech deserted me.
I stood in the center of a wooden platform, my back against what felt like a wooden post, although it might have been silver.
No. Too expensive.
My vision swam, the faces of the crowd sliding over one another.
Brightly colored jerkins and fur-lined cloaks joined the roiling sea.
The nobles of Sausberg, come to buy a “pet” from Nocta.
Tears pricked my eyes. Mama had warned me not to cross the Feyline.
But maybe the bigger monsters lived in Ghedda.
Laughter rang out somewhere to my left. When I tried to turn my head, the room tilted.
“Be quick about those chains!” Cyprio barked from somewhere behind me. A second later, rough hands fumbled at my hips. Metal clanged. More fumbling at my thighs.
The ache eased. Fark stepped into view. His dark eyes met mine briefly as he unclasped a third chain from my waist. The nausea receded. A light, buoyant sensation filled me.
I tried to shake the hair from my face and found that I couldn’t. Sometime between the storeroom and the platform, they’d put a collar on me. It held my nape to the post. My wrists were still lashed behind my back. I’d kept my nightgown, thank the gods, but my robe was gone.
Fark smirked, showing a missing molar. He shoved my hair behind my shoulders. “Enjoy the view,” he said, then stepped away.
My vision was sharp now, and I stared over a crowd that was smaller than I initially thought.
Or maybe it was just that the space was so large.
Beamed ceilings soared overhead. Barrels and crates were everywhere.
Enormous windows lined the walls of what could only be a warehouse.
The smell of rotten fish drifted on the air.
The Kingsway. Cyprio’s warehouse was on the banks of the river.
“Gentlemen!” he boomed, striding from behind me and stopping just short of the edge of the platform.
“And ladies,” he added, smiling toward a pair of women in rich gowns and pearl-studded headdresses.
The taller of the two, an older noblewoman with tight gray ringlets arranged like a doll’s, raised a pair of jeweled binoculars and studied me through them.
I jerked away my gaze. It landed on a man in the rear of the crowd.
As soon as I saw him, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed him before.
He towered over the men in front of him, but that wasn’t what made him stand out.
Whereas the others wore the rich velvets and silks of the nobility, this man was swathed head to toe in black.
Black gloves covered his hands. A black cowl rested over his head, casting his face in an impenetrable shadow.
Even with human blood lingering in my veins, I couldn’t make out his features.
The men in the crowd shifted, brushing shoulders.
By contrast, the man in black stood still as a statue.
Awareness tingled over my skin. His eyes were hidden, but they seared me all the same. My heart thumped painfully.
Anyone but him. Whatever happened, I couldn’t let him buy me.
Cyprio spread his arms as he addressed the crowd again. “I know you’re all eager to begin, so I won’t delay.”
“Then shut up and open the bidding!” someone called from the middle. Laughter rippled through the crowd.
The man in black didn’t move.
Cyprio grinned. Fark lurked just behind him, his dark eyes moving from the nobles to the big double doors at the far end of the warehouse.
The woman with the binoculars lowered them and turned to Cyprio. “The girl looks too docile to be a dhampir.”
A man behind her snorted as he folded his arms. “Have a lot of experience with dhampirs, do you, Duchess?”
She rounded on him. “No, Lord Prestus, but I guarantee I’ve fucked far more women than you, and pleasured twice as many. It’s a pity your cock only works half the time.”
More titters ran through the crowd. The lord’s face grew a mottled shade of red.
“Cunt,” he muttered.
The duchess smiled thinly as she faced Cyprio. “Lord Prestus offers an excellent suggestion. Let’s see everything this dhampir of yours has to offer. Strip her.”
“No!” I shouted, the protest bursting from me before I could stop it. I jerked against the post. The collar dug into my throat, gagging me, and I coughed as I forced myself to stand still.
“In good time,” Cyprio said. He motioned to Fark, who turned and bent over a small chest I hadn’t noticed before. When he faced the crowd once more, he held my mother’s black dress in his hands.
Murmurs and gasps rose from the nobles, several of whom went on tiptoe as they angled for a better look. The dragonstones glowed red under the beams of sunlight that slanted through the warehouse’s windows.
Triumph spread over Cyprio’s features as he surveyed the crowd. He glanced at the duchess as he raised his voice. “As you can see, the dhampir comes with a piece of Nocta. This gown is one of a kind, just like the girl.”
My gaze locked on the man in black. He was as still as ever. No one paid him any attention as they struggled for a closer view of the dress.
“Now, you asked for proof that the girl is a dhampir,” Cyprio said.
He strode behind me. Abruptly, my hands were free, although thick manacles still circled my wrists.
Before I could fully appreciate my newfound freedom, something clicked like a latch being turned and suddenly my neck was no longer pinned to the post.
I rushed forward. Metal clanked, and the collar bit into my neck as I was yanked backward. Spinning, I took in the length of silver that still stretched between my collar and the post like a leash.
Cyprio appeared from behind the post and drew a length of thin, bright cord from his pocket.
More silver. He’d fashioned a whip out of it.
My insides quivered, and my heart thumped like a drum.
The cord ended in a polished wooden handle no thicker than Cyprio’s finger. Face impassive, he drew back the whip.
I lurched to the side.
He anticipated the movement and jerked his hand in the other direction. The cord whistled through the air and lashed my calf below the hem of my nightgown. Fire blazed bright and hot against my bare skin, wrenching a scream from my throat.
I darted as far away as the chain allowed. My fangs punched down. Smoke rose from my leg as the skin knit sluggishly back together.
“A thousand kromni!” a nobleman in the front called out.
“Two thousand!” another man shouted.
More offers quickly peppered the air. Cyprio smiled as a bidding war ensued.
The duchess lifted her binoculars and studied the dress. “Spread it out more, fool,” she said to Fark. He scowled but did as she said, fluffing the sleek skirt so it fanned over his legs, giving the appearance that he wore the gown.
A handsome nobleman with golden-blond hair and a pearl earring shaped like a teardrop raised his voice over the bidding. “Show us the girl, Cyprio!”
Eyes bright, Cyprio started toward me, the silver whip at the ready.
“It will be the last thing you do!” I shouted, baring my fangs.
He rolled his eyes. “Never heard that one before.” He let the whip fly.
I bolted to the right, but the chain wasn’t long enough. The silver cord wrapped around my hip, and I stumbled into the post.
“Five thousand kromni!”
“Ten thousand!”
“Twenty!”
Someone laughed. “You don’t have that kind of coin!”
“Yes, I do. I got it off your mother last night.”
More laughter, but I ignored it as I faced off with Cyprio. He balanced his weight on the balls of his feet, his eyes glittering. He was enjoying himself—the spectacle and the promise of money. My humiliation.
A growl rumbled in my throat.
His arm blurred as he swung the whip. It struck my calf right over the spot he hit the first time, reopening the wound and sending a fresh lick of fire over my skin. As I cried out, strong hands gripped my shoulders from behind, and Fark’s voice rasped in my ear.
“I’ve been waiting for this.” He groped at the front of my nightgown, preparing to rip it from me.
My growl broke free as I tipped my head down, then threw it back hard, connecting. I spun with his shocked cry still ringing in my ears. The collar gagged me, but it couldn’t dim the satisfaction that burst through me as Fark cupped his hand over his bleeding chin.
A whistling sound split the air. Fire slashed across my ankles.
Fark drew back his fist, murder in his eyes.
The man in black darted from out of nowhere and caught Fark’s wrist before he could swing.
“Hey!” Cyprio shouted behind me. “No patrons on stage!”
Fark tried to twist in the stranger’s grip, but the black-clad man was even taller than Fark.
Glowing eyes flashed inside the dark cowl as the stranger forced Fark’s arm to the small of his back and then wrenched it up sharply.
There was a sickening crunch , then Fark released a high-pitched scream.
When the man in black shoved him away, he collapsed on the stage.
Cyprio charged forward, brandishing the whip.
The stranger snatched the cord from the air in a gloved hand. In one smooth movement, he yanked the whip from Cyprio’s grasp, drew it back, and lashed the peddler. The silver cord wrapped around Cyprio’s neck. His golden eyes sprang wide with shock as he crashed to his knees and clawed at the whip.
The man in black drew a velvet bag from somewhere and tossed it down. Coins spilled across the platform’s wooden planks. Over Fark’s whimpers and Cyprio’s choking, the stranger turned to the stunned nobles.
“One hundred thousand kromni,” he said, his voice so deep I felt it in my stomach. “The woman is mine.”
I gaped at him.
He drew a sword, and I yelped when he slashed the blade through the silver chaining me to the post. He sheathed his weapon.
In another swift movement, he collected the black dress, grabbed my hand, and rushed me from the platform.
The nobles sprang back as he strode through them, pulling me in his wake.
“Please,” I said, running to keep up with him. The collar still circled my neck. The silver-lined manacles sent pain radiating up my arms. A stitch formed in my side.
The stranger ignored me. But as the double doors loomed ahead, he glanced at me over his shoulder. “Make yourself useful and scare them.”
“What?”
We reached the doors, and he kicked them open. More sunlight flooded the warehouse. As I’d suspected, docks lined a broad river. Dozens of boats dotted the blue water, which was so wide that the other side of the shore was a hazy suggestion. Behind us, shouts went up.
“Fuck,” the stranger muttered. Without warning, he swooped me into his arms and ran.
With a shocked cry, I clung to his neck with my mother’s gown squashed between us.
The man’s cowl slipped, revealing a firm jaw and high cheekbones.
A lock of russet hair spilled over his forehead, and a different kind of shock tripped through me.
I’d expected black. Or brown. Something that matched his clothes and demeanor. Something, anything, other than red.
Footsteps pounded behind us.
The stranger ran faster, rounding the corner of the warehouse. A horse waited, and the stranger rushed to it and flung me onto its back. As I scrabbled for the pommel, the stranger stuffed the black gown into a saddlebag.
“I’ll show you,” he said, cinching the bag’s strap.
Confusion joined my alarm. “Show me what?”
“Stop! You there, stop!” Nobles with drawn swords poured around the side of the warehouse.
I gripped the pommel as my heart tried to beat out of my chest.
The stranger yanked down his cowl, turned, and roared.
The sound rippled out like a shock wave, distorting the air before smashing into the nobles and sending them sprawling backward.
Men cried out as they hit the ground. Several sprang up, flung down their swords, and sprinted in the opposite direction.
The stranger spun back to me, his eyes a bright, glowing silver in a startlingly handsome face.
His fangs flashed as he smiled and swung up behind me. “ That’s how you scare humans,” he said.
Then he kicked the horse’s flanks and sent us hurtling onto the streets of Sausberg.