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I ready my fingers over one of the vials that’ll give us a distraction. “Sofia,” I warn her. She crouches down as she catches the serious tone of my voice.

“Get ready to run.”

CHAPTER 3

The countryside rushes by as I keep an eye on the windows, but I don’t spot the hooded figure again.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, assuring me that I hadn’t imagined it.

I’m a ball of nerves, but the other girls seem to be completely worn out by the spike of adrenaline and have decided to indulge in a bath while we all still have a chance.

“Who knew enslavement would be this relaxing?” one girl asks as she sinks into the warm water. “This is even better than the spa train we took to Monster City.”

Another girl giggles, then eyes the entry door I had used. “It’s just missing some topless guys. Speaking of, did you see the pack master? Ho-ot.” Her glance strays to me for half a second, flashing with jealousy before she looks away. “Maybe he has a thing for the sickly looking.”

The two girls snicker as I turn away.

I make a mental note to try not to earn any more of the pack master’s interest. I don’t need to be a source of supposed envy with these girls, not that there’s anything to be envious of. In fact, I think the pack master hates me, at the very least, or has already forgotten about me.

Hopefully the latter.

“Better sickly than a bitch,” I murmur.

A scoff earns my attention, and I find a girl with long black hair clothed in tight leathers. She watches me as she slides her hand down a sheath that I expect once had a dagger in it but is now empty. She remains silent, but I can confidently guess she didn’t come from the Elite City. More likely, she’s from one of the villages.

She looks away, seemingly losing interest in me just like everyone else. But I’m interested in her. She looks nothing like the rest of the gaggle of skinny girls with ringlet curls weighed down from the salty air.

Is she a volunteer? How did she wind up in this group?

A shadow unfurls over me, making me freeze. “Use this,” a new female with a thick accent says, jolting me from my curiosity.

I turn and stare at the soap in her hand, then admire the array of beads on her delicate fingers. I frown when I realize they’re not beads at all, but tattoos.

Shifter tattoos.

I had presumed that the train car had been left unguarded, but I was sorely wrong.

When I glance up, I notice the strange elongation of her pupils. They stretch in a vertical direction like a cat’s, which isn’t a shifter trait at all. If anything, it marks her as something else. I’m from the Elite City, not Monster City, so my knowledge of various species is lacking. The kind of monsters I dealt with on a daily basis were the small-cock-big-ego human types, not the literal claw and fang types.

“What are you?” Sofia asks as her eyes widen. The question is too innocent to be taken offensively, but I worry it might get her in trouble anyway.

Where we come from, curiosity is punished.

The female only smiles at her as her green eyes soften, as much as they can with their strange appearance. I can’t decide if the lines on her face are tattoos or a natural pattern she was born with. “I’m… different. Godric took me in when I was very young. I owe him my life, as do all of you.” She says the last bit with reverence that doesn’t match my first impression of the rugged pack master who was swinging his giant bag of silver, among other things, around just moments ago.

“If being a sex slave is a life,” I grumble as I reach for the soap, but she curls her fingers around it. I hadn’t noticed that her nails resembled claws. Or maybe they had been regular fingernails just a moment ago, which was even more concerning.

Can all shifters change form so easily? I file that bit of knowledge away in my mind.

“No one will touch you,” she promises. I match her gaze, trying to find any hint of a lie in her eyes, but all I see is indignation and irritation. She unfurls her palm again. “As long as you follow the rules. You can’t expect a bunch of shifters to ignore you the second you step off this train. You’re unmated, and human, which means you can’t regulate your scent like a shifter can. So I suggest you mask it.” As I continue to stare at her, she adds, “Now. We will be arriving shortly. And I can’t help you if you don’t help yourself.”

Taking the soap, I glance at Sofia before I strip and then step into the warm water. I don’t have to be told twice to wash the black market off my skin.

The water feels amazing, but I’m too preoccupied by the female shifter’s words to enjoy the sensation. My bones feel like they’ve been chilled all the way to the marrow after the voyage I’ve endured. I wasn’t in a group holding cell with the other girls. Instead, I was set aside, along with Sofia.

Meaning our families took a price cut to make sure no one knew we had been sold until it was too late. My brother, Edward, would have made sure to keep my sale very quiet. I wondered if my mother even knew about it.

Of course she did, I chide myself. She probably planned it.