Chapter 2
Two
Elaine
“Listen here, you filthy little rat,” Piara hissed in my ear while dragging me past the crowd of onlookers and into the giant tent. “If you think you make things better for yourself by being a brat, you’re sorely mistaken. Act up, show everyone how unruly you are, see what happens.”
“What can be worse than being sold to the highest bidder?” I snapped.
I tried to stand my ground, tried to resist her dragging me along like a rag doll, but it was useless.
Much stronger than me, the fae woman easily overpowered all my struggles, practically carrying me to the middle of the crowded tent, then tossing me onto the wide upturned wooden crate in the center.
I landed on my side, painfully hitting my hip and elbow.
She crouched in front of the crate. Taking my chin in her hand, she brought my face to hers and snarled through her teeth, “If no one buys you, you’ll stay with me, Sweet One. And trust me, I’ll make it much, much worse for you.”
I didn’t doubt she would. Biting my lip, I kept quiet, even as everything inside me boiled with anger and fear.
Piara stormed off, and Xavix moved forward.
“Our first item this morning, my friends, is a female Joy Vessel,” he announced.
Two shadow fae yanked me to my feet. Several more, who I assumed served as a security force for this bizarre version of an auction house, controlled the crowd, keeping the onlookers away from the crate where I stood.
“She’s young,” Xavix listed my attributes. “Of childbearing age. Capable of experiencing all kinds of pleasures, including sexual.”
Sexual?
The word cut through my hearing, sending a stab of alarm through me.
But it made no sense. Shadow fae didn’t care about sex.
Why would they? They lacked the organs for it.
Even their mating fever couldn’t start without shared affection between the partners.
And I certainly wasn’t going to share my affection with anyone who bought or sold me like this.
“Fifty gold coins,” a deep voice sounded from the crowd.
I looked up, turning toward the voice.
The auction guards had organized the audience, pushing most of the onlookers back and away from me. A tall fae man stepped into the cleared space around my crate. He was dressed in a long red robe open in the front and a floor-length skirt from the same silky red material.
His straight, long hair was shaved on the sides and braided into a long pleat in the middle.
The bald scalp over his long pointy ears glistened with gold.
I couldn’t make out the painted designs without my glasses, just as I couldn’t see his face clearly enough to read his expression, but I didn’t miss the bright yellow cluster pinned to the lapel of his red robe.
Was it the golden hyacinth? Or whatever the traders call that fucking flower?
Dread gripped my muscles, sending a chill down my spine.
Now I remembered that shadow fae didn’t need sexual organs to enjoy sex through humans.
They didn’t even need affection from us when they had the juice of that flower at their disposal.
The scene of the sex frenzy into which it had sent Peter and Maria back at our camp in the desert had burned into my brain.
After ingesting the juice or the tea brewed with it, humans lost all control over their minds and their bodies.
Was that what waited for me in this place? Being stripped of my free will, of my dignity…
“Fifty coins from the esteemed Ray, the Master of the Wall!” Xavix pointed with his rolled scroll at the bidder in the red robe.
Was that it? Had I been sold? Did I no longer belong to myself?
I took a step back in horror, as if I could jump from this crate and run away.
A finger poked me from behind, jammed between my shoulder blades.
“Easy, Sweet One,” Piara’s voice hissed in my ear.
There was nowhere to run, no escaping this tent.
“Sixty coins!” a woman offered.
I darted a look in the direction of her voice.
The sun rose outside of the tent, but its light only partially filtered in through the dark fabric of the patchwork ceiling above our heads.
Save for the small cleared area immediately around me, the entire space in the tent was densely packed with shadow fae.
Their glowing ink-black bodies merged with the shadows in the tent, making it hard for me to make out individual shapes or faces.
“Sixty from the admirable Mazra, the Mistress of the Beach!” Xavix extended his scroll in the direction of the female bidder.
The fae woman wore a skirt of pale-yellow fabric tied with a belt of large shells strung together around her waist. Two long braids were draped over her shoulders, each ended with a bright red tassel.
I squinted my eyes, examining the woman’s chest as closely as my sight allowed it.
She wore a mesh of black strings over her torso, with shells, beads, and small trinkets attached to it.
As far as I could tell, none were the dreaded yellow flower.
“Seventy coins!” came from someone behind her.
“Seventy, from the—” but Xavix got no chance to name this new bidder.
“I’ll pay a hundred,” sounded in a deep, quiet voice from a dark corner near the entrance.
The newest bidder hadn’t come forward into the open space by the crate.
Unlike the other potential buyers, he remained in the shadows.
All I could see was a black blot of his shape.
It was considerably shorter than any other fae present and at least twice as wide.
I squinted, straining my eyes, but couldn’t see much more than the bizarre dark shape in the corner.
“A hundred coins!” Xavix exclaimed with satisfaction. “From…um… What is your name, good man?”
Good man?
I hoped with all my heart that it was true, even as I realized that Ashgate was not a place where good men lived.
A pause followed Xavix’s question. The auctioneer, who had named everyone before, didn’t appear to know what to call the newest bidder.
“Timur,” the men by the entrance replied in the quiet voice that carried hidden power.
Xavix tilted his head, raising his eyebrows in anticipation for the person to continue with an adjective, a title, or whatever honorifics were used in this place. But the bidder, Timur, said nothing more. The silence stretched for too long, leaving Xavix no choice but to break it.
“A hundred gold coins from…um, well…Timur.”
Ray winced in annoyance, clearly unused to not getting his way.
“One fifty,” he snapped.
“Two hundred,” Mazra countered promptly.
Not sparing a glance at the shrouded figure by the entrance, she glared at Ray, clearly considering him her main competitor.
“Three hundred.” The bidder behind her raised his hand.
“Four hundred!” another woman shouted, stepping forward.
Xavix wielded his scroll, pointing it at every bidder while parroting the amounts of gold coins offered for me.
The bidding accelerated, too fast for me to keep up as the numbers were shouted into the humid, stuffy air with the speed of bullets.
The fae raised their hands, shoving each other out of the way.
Someone punched the bidder behind Mazra. The auction guards rushed the area, dragging the two men out amidst the noise and scuffle.
“Five hundred!”
“Six!”
The bids continued as fights broke out in the crowd.
“One thousand gold coins,” Mazra said loud and clear.
She tossed her braids over her shoulders, hiking her chin up, as if daring anyone to challenge the huge amount she offered. Silence suddenly spread through the tent. Even Xavix delayed to repeat the number.
Whispers fluttered through the crowd.
“It’s insane…”
“Well, we all know she has gold…”
“But that much? For one puny human?” someone scoffed.
“For a Joy Vessel,” another corrected. “There won’t be many more of them coming here.”
There were just six of us in Ashgate. A few more might come later, including Ciana. But that was it. There were no more humans arriving here any time soon. Not to this city. Not to this world. That must be what drove the price up. The price for me.
Ray grunted. Cupping his chin, he came closer, then walked around me, circling my crate. I looked straight ahead, paying him no attention, but his scrutinizing stare proved inescapable. I felt it with my skin, like a touch of probing fingers.
“Does she have leilathas?” he inquired.
“Yes.” Piara yanked my sweater off my shoulder, exposing the side of my neck and my upper arm. The black ribbons of the leilatha harness circled them both, merged with my skin.
“See?” Piara murmured. “She’s ready to share her pleasure with you.”
I jerked my shoulder, trying to shake her hands off me.
Dark tendrils of shadows emerged from Ray’s arms, curving and stretching my way.
“How about a little taste?” He advanced toward me.
I shrank back, but Piara’s finger jammed between my shoulder blades again, like the barrel of a gun.
Ray towered over me. The crate I stood on helped me little in gaining any height on him.
From this close, I made out the designs painted on his skull.
Golden hexagons of various sizes were scattered against his coal-black skin.
Some were painted solid gold, others were just outlines, and some were three-dimensional images, like golden coins lying on his head or melting into his skin.
Knowing how much shadow fae preferred patterns and symmetry, I suspected Ray chose such a chaotic design on purpose, to unsettle anyone looking at him.
“What’s the matter?” he cooed, curling his shapely lips into an exaggerated pout. “Do you not want to share your pleasure with me, Sweet One? Lucky for me, I have something that can help.”
He raised his hand to the yellow flower on his chest, and my heart all but stopped seized by terror.
“No…” I barely managed to squeeze the sound out of my tightening throat.
The images of Maria and Peter fucking against their will rushed through my mind. To me, it was the worst kind of violation, the one when one's mind was assaulted along with the body.