Kain growled at the empty room as his friend’s words echoed in his mind. The Breeder would be auctioned no matter what he did now. In less than a week, Selma would be on her hands and knees underneath whichever Lord won her, and that Lord’s claim would be seared into her for eternity.

His knuckles itched with the urge to punch something—or someone. Sure, he could go to the Governor’s manor and bid on the girl, but she would be just as miserable with him as she would with someone else. She’d proven that when she’d lied to him about what she was. She hadn’t trusted him—she’d manipulated him to escape.

And just the thought of being the cause of her pretty eyes dimming the way his mother’s had made his lungs constrict.

The letter lay innocently on the floor, tormenting him with its neatly curved writing. One week. One week, and she would belong to someone else.

13

Selma

“It’s time.”

Time. It was a concept that’d long since stopped making sense.

Selma didn’t have the strength to look up at the sound of Valarina’s gentle voice, so she remained facedown on the bed, breathing shallowly through the pain.

At first there had been pleasure after Maell’s manipulation of her ring, like there always was. Sick, throbbing, overwhelming pleasure as the dark magic locked within the sleek metal assaulted her trapped clit, driving her to insanity with need.

Yet there’d been no release no matter how much she’d begged, and she’d been aware enough those first few days to comprehend the humiliation all too keenly.

They’d kept her locked in this room since her arrival, Valarina bringing her food and water and urging her to eat to preserve her strength. And Governor Maell visited her once a day to tighten the vicious ring on her throbbing, oversensitive nub of nerves as she screamed.

There was only pain now. Pain and despair.

“Selma,” the other woman murmured, the cool touch of a wet cloth pressing between her legs taking the edge off her torment for the briefest of moments. “It’s almost over, child.”

Selma managed to twist her neck to look at the blonde Breeder. There was so much empathy in her eyes, but no matter how often Selma had pleaded with her, she had never left the door unlocked.

It had been a while since she’d had the strength to plead.

“Over?” she rasped. When a glass of water pressed against her dry lips, she drank on instinct alone.

“Your auction is today. You just need to get through the next few hours and then… then it will be better.”

Her auction.