“Fuck if I know. No need for names. Just use numbers.” She swung the door of our cage open and grabbed me by the scruff of my sweater.
As much as I wished to get out of this damned cage, her dragging me out, then dropping me onto the sand as if I were a bag of dirt, enraged me.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” I cursed.
She pulled my hair, trying to get me up that way. The pain spurred my anger. She’d been treating me horribly ever since I’d kicked her in the knee back at the camp.
“Let me go!” I slammed a fist in her shin.
The blow likely hurt me more than her. But I couldn’t get a better aim with her yanking me around like a rag doll.
“Dirty, smelly, and unruly…” Xavix tsked, displeased. “It’ll cost you more for me to sell them.”
Piara let go of my hair, tossing me back onto the sand, then moved onto Xavix menacingly.
“You’re not hiking up your fee, asshole. We know what we’ve got. These are the only Joy Vessels in Ashgate. You will have no trouble selling them, then my boys and I will pay you the fee we’ve agreed on, and not a single coin more.”
Haral smoothly inserted himself between the angry Piara and the fairly intimidated Xavix.
“Hey, there is no need for arguments,” he said brightly while ever so subtly turning Xavix to face the camels instead of Piara. “We will all get enough money for these sweeties, regardless if they’re clean or dirty. Now let’s count them all, shall we?”
He maneuvered Xavix over to our open cage.
I climbed to my feet but kept close to the camel, keeping away from the outstretched hands of the onlookers who tried to grab my arms, hair, or clothes.
Erik climbed out of the cage. He stretched his back and shoulders, then shook his legs out, trying to get his blood flow going to his limbs again.
“Should I record this one as number one?” Xavix asked, pulling a sharpened stylus from the knot of his braids on the back of his head, then pointing the stylus at Erik.
Erik didn’t spare him a glance, scratching theleilatharibbon around his neck.
“I need to take a piss,” he grunted to himself, then lifted his tunic, turned around, and peed right there in the plain view of everyone.
I envied his stellar ability not to care in these circumstances. Erik had always been a bit distant, sarcastic, and even aloof. We hadn’t interacted often back in thesaraiin Teneris. I knew little about him, only that he was recently divorced, with no kids,and came from somewhere in Europe. Sweden or Switzerland. Or Austria maybe? I couldn’t remember. It didn’t really matter since we were all very much the same here—a handful of humans in the world of fae. In the Alveari Kingdom, we all spoke the same language too.
Over the course of our journey in the cage, Erik’s aloofness had turned into numbness. His indifference spread to encompass everything, even the matter of his life or death. He simply stopped caring. And I wished so badly that I could be like him at this moment.
Xavix frowned with disgust at Erik’s back. “Well, we should have a different number one. Someone a little more appealing maybe? To get the bids going.”
Piara smirked, then grabbed my arm.
“This one is going to be the number one. Sell her first.”
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 howunrulyyou 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,muchworse for you.”
I didn’t doubt she would. Biting my lip, I kept quiet, even as everything inside me boiled with anger and fear.
