Phoenix
One Month Later
“Hey Phoenix.” Kelly sidles up next to me as I watch McKenzie. It’s parents’ weekend, and it looks like her father didn’t show up. Again. Anna walks up to her with a frown and hands her an envelope. She leans down and hugs her, whispering something in her ear. McKenzie offers her a fake smile and nods.
“Are you ignoring me?” Kelly asks.
I scoff. “What was your first clue?” I swear this girl gets on my last nerve. She’s so desperate for it. She giggles like I’m joking and I roll my eyes.
“Who are you looking at?” She turns her head and when she sees I’m watching McKenzie, she huffs. “Even her own family doesn’t like her. They never show up.”
I ball my hands into fists and remind myself I shouldn’t hit a girl. Even a bitch like Kelly. My father already came and left. I still think he’s hiding something because he was very evasive the entire time he was here, but I did find out how to get into the council.
You have to be a member for at least a year before they’ll consider it. If you don’t have a daughter to put up for sale you have to buy someone else’s daughter, you have to pay a membership fee, and you have to have sex with the person you bought twice. Once in front of everyone and the second time in front of the council. I don’t quite understand that, but it’s their twisted way to have some semblance of control, I guess.
I know McKenzie’s father is on the council, so he’s agreed to sell his daughter. And I’m going to buy her. Then I’m going toget him removed from the council. The daughters have to be sold between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three. So, I will make sure I’m at every auction so I can buy her when her father finally does it.
“Do you plan on going to prom?” Kelly asks, interrupting my thoughts.
“No.” Prom is the same night as the next auction. If I plan on getting in the council, I will be at every single auction they have.
“What? Why?” Kelly whines.
I grind my teeth and stand.Never hit a woman. Never hit a woman.“Because I don’t want to.” She doesn’t know how to take a hint. I regret the day I stuck my dick in her.
McKenzie is still staring at the envelope Anna handed her. I wonder if she’s going to open it. I walk toward her slowly just in case she does open it she’ll have time to read it before I reach her. But she never does. She just stares at it.
When my shadow falls over her, she looks up, startled. “Phoenix?” The lines between her eyebrows show as she squints up at me. Her eyes are glossy and I know she’s trying her damnedest not to cry.I’m going to make Marcus Knight pay.
I climb up on the picnic table and sit next to her. “Your father didn’t show.” It’s a statement, not a question.
She sniffs. “No. I’m sure he had something important to do.”
“You are important.” She inhales sharply, but doesn’t reply. I imagine wrapping my hands around Marcus Knight’s throat and watching the life drain out of his eyes. She has no idea. No idea one day her father is going to sell her and one day I’m going to buy her.
She probably has this plan for her life that doesn’t involve me. What she doesn’t know is I am her future. I’m going to make sure she has a good life if it’s the last thing I do. The heat from her gaze is penetrating my skin, so I turn and look at her.
She offers me a small smile. “Thank you. I really needed to hear that.”
I have this overwhelming urge to lean the few inches between us and kiss her. Take her full plump lip in my mouth and suck it. Then I would mark her so everyone knows she’s mine. My fingers tingle with the need to wrap them around her neck, pull her to me, and show her how good we would be together.
Instead, I stand, tap her on the nose with my index finger and walk away. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on her and she’s doing okay. You don’t have to worry,” Dick is saying as I walk into his office without knocking. His eyes widen when he sees me, making me wonder who he’s talking to. “I have to go.” He hangs up without saying bye, and I arch an eyebrow at him.
“You didn’t have to end the call so abruptly on my account.” I sit down in the chair in front of his desk and place my foot on my knee.
He narrows his eyes at me. “I don’t know who you think you are walking in my office without knocking.”
I wave his comment away. “What were you doing at the auction?”
He stops breathing, and his face turns bright red. If he passes out because of lack of oxygen, I will not be resuscitating him. He takes a deep breath, like he’s coming up out of water.
“What are you talking about?”
I laugh and his face begins to turn red again. “You really need to work on your poker face.” His mouth opens and closes severaltimes like a fish. I lean forward and place my hands on his desk. “What were you doing at the auction?”
I want to ask him why he was talking to Marcus Knight at the auction as well, but that will be showing my hand and I’m not doing that. Not with this sleaze. It’s been a month since the auction, but I’ve noticed how he looks at some of the girls and it makes me wonder what his ulterior motive is for being the dean here.
