Mated to the Alpha: Sold to the King

Chapter 21: 0021

Lorelei POV

"I told you last night would be our lucky night."

"How is it lucky? We only caught one girl. That other bastard slipped right out under our noses."

"But she’s pretty. Do you know how much her kind would be worth?"

"You do have a point."

My brows slowly knit together at the unfamiliar voices around me, and my eyes fluttered open just as bright rays of sunlight hit my face, forcing me to wince immediately.

The last thing I remembered was running for my life before something slammed into the back of my head hard enough to knock me unconscious instantly.

Now the blinding morning light only made the throbbing in my skull feel ten times worse.

I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the haze clouding my vision, and that’s when I realized I wasn’t in the forest anymore.

The damp scent of earth and trees was gone.

Instead, the air was thick with the suffocating stench of stale smoke, cheap alcohol, sweat, and something rotten lingering underneath it all.

Nausea twisted violently in my stomach.

As the blurry figures in front of me slowly sharpened into focus, I realized I was lying on a filthy concrete floor. Just a few feet away stood two men dressed in tattered, grease-stained clothes. Their faces were rough, unshaven, and completely devoid of mercy. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

Rogues.

Even in their human forms, there was something deeply wrong about them. Something feral.

"Look at that. The prize is awake," the first one sneered the second he noticed me moving. He nudged the other rogue with a cruel grin spreading across his face.

My heart immediately slammed against my ribs, but the fear was quickly followed by panic as I desperately looked around the room for any possible escape.

Nothing.

I tried to move my arms to push myself up, only to realize my wrists were tightly bound behind my back with thick coarse rope that dug painfully into my skin.

"Don’t bother struggling, little missy," the second rogue grunted as he took a slow step toward me. "You’re a very, very long way from home, and your little gray friend isn’t here to save you this time."

The moment he said that, all the color drained from my face.

Cole.

Oh God.

"Please..." I choked out as tears instantly filled my eyes again. "Please... please let me go. I beg you."

I had heard stories about rogues my entire life but had never actually seen one until now because I spent most of my life locked away inside the estate. But Jaxen had told me enough over the years.

They were merciless.

Lawless.

Monsters who lived by their own brutal rules without answering to anyone.

Practically the parasites of the werewolf world.

And now I was completely at their mercy.

"Let you go?" The first rogue burst into a loud mocking laugh, the sound bouncing off the cracked walls of the dilapidated room. "Now why would we do something foolish like that? We went through a lot of trouble to fetch you, sweetheart."

He walked over and squatted down in front of me, his heavy sour breath washing over my face and making my stomach turn violently. Then he reached out with a dirty hand and gripped my chin tightly, forcing me to look directly at him.

"Two of our men are dead," he said. "We can’t let that go to waste. With a face like yours, I’m sure you’ll sell for a very high price. But if that doesn’t work out..." His lips slowly curled upward as his other hand brushed against my shoulder. "Then we’ll just keep you for ourselves. Have you carry our pups. Continue the rogue bloodline."

A wave of pure revulsion hit me so hard I physically gagged.

"Get away from me!" I choked out, desperately trying to jerk my face away from his grip, but his fingers only tightened harder.

"Feisty," he chuckled darkly, his eyes gleaming with something that made my skin crawl. "I like them with spirit. Makes breaking them in a lot more satisfying."

"Leave her alone for now, Drax," the second rogue grunted from across the room as he tossed a rusted pocketknife onto a nearby metal table. "We don’t need her marked up before the buyers see her. High-tier traders want pristine cargo. Save your appetite for later if the deal falls through."

Drax stayed there for another horrifying second, his gaze dragging slowly across my face like he was already imagining all the things he wanted to do to me before he finally released my chin with a rough shove.

I instantly recoiled away from him.

"Fine," he muttered, standing back up and wiping his hand against his dirt-caked jeans like I was the disgusting one. Then he kicked a stray piece of gravel toward my legs. "But if things go south, I’m taking the first taste."

My stomach twisted so hard it hurt.

The two of them eventually turned and walked toward the heavy metal door at the far end of the room.

The second it slammed shut behind them, every bit of strength I had been desperately clinging onto completely shattered.

I curled into myself on the filthy concrete floor and broke down sobbing.

After thinking I had escaped one hell, I had somehow fallen straight into another.

Who even knew what kind of person I would end up being sold to?

And if that didn’t happen, then I would really be trapped here with these monsters forever.

There truly was no escaping for me.

Maybe I really was cursed.

Cole, please be alive, I prayed desperately as I stared up at the filthy ceiling while tears blurred my vision completely again, even though deep down I knew there was very little chance of that.

But please.

Someone find me.

For over a week, I was trapped with those men.

Three of them.

Drax, Silas, and Jax.

For the first few days, all I did was cry.

Every single time the heavy metal door creaked open, my heart would leap straight into my throat because I was terrified the deal had fallen through and Drax had finally come to make good on his sickening promise.

But as the days slowly bled into each other, the tears eventually stopped.

Not because things got better.

I think I just ran out of the energy to keep crying.

The fear was still there, constantly clawing at me from the inside, but eventually it faded into this horrible aching numbness that sat heavily in my chest.

Surprisingly, they actually fed me.

More than they even fed themselves sometimes.

They forced me to bathe regularly and made sure my clothes were changed whenever they got dirty, but it didn’t take long for me to realize they weren’t doing it out of kindness.

They were maintaining me.

Keeping me presentable.

Like livestock waiting to be sold.

Countless times, I thought about trying to escape on my own, but they were smarter than I expected. One of them always stayed behind to watch me no matter what.

I never got a single real opportunity.