“We are under attack! Run for your lives!”

The words slammed into my chest like a bullet.

My hands trembled. The plate in my hands slipped from my fingers and shattered on the floor, but I barely heard it over the screaming. Over the howls.

Over the death.

I blinked once, twice but the nightmare didn’t fade. The village was on fire. I saw flames devour the training hut. I smelled the acrid scent of burning fur. I heard the sound that would haunt me for the rest of my life:

A child screaming for their mother, then going silent.

My legs refused to move. My heartbeat roared in my ears.

Was this real?

No… no, not like this.

“Eliora!” Jenny’s voice cracked. She grabbed my arm, yanking me back to the present. I looked at my younger sister’s face which was pale with fear, eyes wide, her claws half-shifted. “We have to run now!”

I stumbled beside her, but I couldn’t stop looking around. Wolves I grew up with were being slaughtered. Fangs, blood, fur, fire. My stomach turned. I couldn’t breathe.

“Over there!” Jenny pointed to the caves near the ridge. “We’ll be safe!”

But fate had other plans.

Something massive crashed into her. I heard bones break. Jenny let out a gurgled scream as she was thrown like a rag doll.

“No! Jenny!” I cried, turning back, trying to reach her.

But she was already gone. A rogue’s jaw clamped down on her throat, her eyes wide and locked with mine in those last seconds. They were pleading. Screaming.

And I did nothing.

I stood there like the coward I was shaking, sobbing, useless. I watched my sister die in front of me and I was wolfless I couldn’t do anything.

I dropped to my knees. My body trembling with fear at the sight in front of me. One that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Then I heard a growl.

Low. Deep. Terrifying.

I turned slowly.

A massive rogue stepped forward. His eyes were glowing. Black saliva dripped from his teeth.

My soul screamed.

I couldn’t run. Couldn’t cry. Couldn’t even beg.

I closed my eyes and waited for the pain. At least I could join my sister alongside my parents who were killed by rogues. This was a good thing. I would be able to reunite with my family in the afterlife

I shut my eyes as I awaited death.

But instead…

“Enough!”

The command tore through the air like lightning. Even the rogue froze.

Alpha Kade.

He stood at the edge of the clearing, his body coated in blood…none of it his own. What was left of our pack gathered behind him. We were less than twenty now. Maybe less than ten.

The rogue leader emerged, tall and smirking like the devil himself. “Your pack is broken. You lost. We’ll spare what’s left… if you give us a slave.”

Kade didn’t hesitate.

He pointed at me.

“Take her.”

For a second, the world just… stopped.

Me?

I looked behind me. Surely he meant someone else. Anyone else.

“She’s wolfless” Kade added. “Worthless.”

The words hit harder than any blow could.

I opened my mouth to scream, to protest, to beg.

But the rogues were already moving.

“No! Stop! Please, Alpha, please!”

Two of them seized me, claws digging into my arms. I fought. I kicked. I tried to shift even though I knew I couldn’t.

I was born without a wolf. Weak. Unwanted. Orphaned. And now… discarded.

“You’ll regret this!” I sobbed. “I’d rather die!”

I just wanted to die and meet my family in the afterlife. This was never what I wanted.

The rogue leader leaned in, his breath foul against my skin. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We might let you live.”

What?

And then…I felt a cloth cover my nose before darkness swallowed me.

—————————

The first thing I felt was cold metal biting into my wrists, heavy and unyielding. My legs were bound too. Chains.

My heart stumbled into a frantic rhythm. Where… where was I?

Blinking hard, I tried to adjust to the dim light. Torches burned beyond iron bars, flickering against weathered stone walls. The air was thick, damp, and stinking of sweat and fear. A sound broke through the pounding in my ears…a sob. Then another.

I wasn’t alone.

Four others knelt in the same cage, their bodies slumped like discarded dolls. A young boy maybe fourteen rocked back and forth, whispering something I couldn’t hear. Beside him, a woman stared blankly ahead, her face hollow, eyes empty as if her soul had already given up.

Panic coiled in my chest like a living thing, clawing its way up my throat. Where am I? The last thing I remembered was Jenny’s scream… the blood…Alpha Kade’s betrayal and the rogue leader’s smirk before darkness swallowed me whole.

And now this.

Chains rattled as I shifted. The sound felt louder than thunder. No one looked at me. No one cared.

Then the silence shattered.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice boomed, slick and poisonous, “welcome to tonight’s auction!”

Auction. The word slammed into me like a fist.

I pressed my back to the bars, my breathing sharp and shallow. No, no, no this wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.

“Fresh stock from the Silverfang Pack” the announcer crooned, strutting across a raised wooden platform at the center of the square. His smile was all teeth, his eyes glittering with greed. “Healthy. Young. Strong. Ready for service or pleasure.”

Laughter erupted from the crowd a sea of hungry faces bathed in orange torchlight. Men with fat purses. Women with cruel smirks. Creatures with eyes that gleamed too sharp to be human.

My stomach lurched. I wanted to vomit, but there was nothing left inside me but fear.

One by one, they dragged people from cages just like mine. A girl no older than sixteen screamed as they yanked her onto the stage, ripping at her dress to show her “value.” Her sobs didn’t matter. The crowd roared with bids. Coins clinked. Numbers climbed.

I couldn’t breathe.

Please, Moon Goddess… don’t let it be me.

But it was.

The cage door screeched open like the cry of a dying beast. “Number Five,” a guard barked, his claws curling around my arm.

“No no, please!” My voice cracked as he wrenched me forward, the chains biting deeper into my wrists. My knees scraped against the rough wood as I stumbled onto the platform.

The crowd fell into a hush. Dozens of eyes devoured me…men and women, wolves and worse. They didn’t see me. Not Sora. Not a person. Just a body. A thing.

“Eighteen years old,” the announcer purred, gripping my chin hard enough to bruise. “Look at that face. Untouched. Spirited. A rare find.”

I jerked my head away, teeth clenched against the hot sting in my eyes. I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

But inside, I was screaming.

Hands shot up like daggers. Voices overlapped, sharp and eager.

“Twenty gold!”

“Fifty!”

“Seventy-five!”

Seventy-five gold for a life. For my life.

My stomach churned as the numbers climbed higher, each one another nail in the coffin of who I used to be.

“Sold!” The announcer’s voice cracked like a whip. “To Lord Calderon!”

A man stepped forward…tall, draped in crimson silk, his smile sharp enough to cut. His eyes slid over me slowly, stripping me without touching me, peeling away the last of my dignity.

“Bring her” he said lazily, like he was ordering wine.

The guards yanked me down the steps. My legs barely worked. Every breath scraped my throat raw.

My sister is dead, My last family. My pack gave me away. And now…

My gaze snagged on the shadows beyond the square. For a moment, I thought I saw eyes watching me…dark and endless, like twin pools of blood. Then they were gone, and I was shoved into a waiting carriage.

The door slammed. Chains bit into my skin. And the last thing I heard as the wheels lurched forward was the crowd’s laughter echoing like a funeral bell.

Where are they taking me?