“Yes.”
“Yes!”
“Of course.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Yes,” I agree to a chorus of similar responses throughout the room. It kills me to justify the edict with a response, but my uncle, I can tell, is listening specifically for my voice.
“Good. Brilliant. Now, let’s move on to the details of the auction, shall we?” Lucian claps and smiles. “Two nights from now, we’ll convene in the viewing room in the east wing. Your assigned seat will be labeled, and with it, you’ll find an iPad. This is the device you’ll use to enhance your viewing of the women and where you’ll place your silent bid. Each woman will be numbered randomly, and they’ll be presented in lots of ten, to keep the confusion and time to make a decision to a minimum.”
Lots of ten. Like fucking cattle.I fight the urge to grimace.
But Lucian just keeps prattling on. “There are no secondary bids, so please, I beg of you, make your selection carefully and put your very best offer forward. If you’re outbid on your choice, you’ll be moved to the secondary selection lot with the remaining women, and the process will repeat until each match is made. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I say once again, my voice a small roar among a crowd of eager cheers. Every muscle in my body stands out in sharp relief, rage and indignation rendering them solid.
I swear to the end of the world and beyond, Iwilldestroy this place and all the men who’ve condoned it.
“Fantastic.” Lucian smiles. “Before retiring to your accommodations tonight, you’ll be asked to sign a document at the door. It’s your sworn agreement to these rules, a violation of which will remove you from your elite stature and exclude you from all auctions moving forward. Depending on the severityof your violation, further punishment may also be deemed appropriate.”
He nods toward the door, where his assistant stands and gestures for everyone to take note before we’re escorted out to our accommodations—otherwise known as the châteaus scattered across the far side of the property, each at least a mile away.
In addition to the sworn contracts we’re forced to sign, the Elite Council goes to great lengths to keep us separated from the women’s scents at night. Each of us is assigned one of the châteaus as a private residence for the duration of our stay.
It’s also where the bonding night festivities are meant to take place.
After that comes a polite little goodbye breakfast the following morning, where we’re expected to leave the estate with our new women and return to our lives in the real world.
“Good. Now I’d like to welcome Max Gustav up here to say a few words of thanks to the men who’ve made this possible.”
My uncle steps aside, and Max whoeverthefuck takes the floor, pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket to read a list of names like this is some sort of governmental press conference at the scene of a national disaster.
He hems and haws, and I close my eyes to log each and every name on my growing hit list.
Joseph Froth.
William Aster.
Hoyt Carson.
Lucian Wrath.
The list carries on for well over a minute before the president of the Council, Narris Novak, steps forward once again.
“Thank you, Max. Lucian. Gentlemen of the Council, and all of you here tonight—”
I jolt as a voice I recognize overpowers the ass-kissing being done by the president of the Elite Council and takes over my awareness.
“Cal, are you there? Can you hear me with those big-ass ears of yours, or did they cut them off?”
Relief, swift and unrelenting, hits me square in the face at the sound of Kane, my clowning, taunting, always playing brother…alive and well and talking directly to me using one of the only advantages we have—my super hearing. If I were with him right now, I’d kiss him on the lips for thinking of it.
The only problem, of course, is that my ability to listen doesn’t help at all with the part where I’m supposed to be answering him back.
I listen harder, hoping he’ll keep going without getting an answer from me. “Yes, Rook, I know. Relax. I’m getting to it,” Kane says. It’d be annoying to listen to their bickering right now if it weren’t so good to know that they’re together,alive, and sounding so much like themselves I could yell.
I don’t know if that’s by design or if they’ve managed to sneak a visit, but either way, it’s a small victory in an ever-deepening cesspool of bad news.
