Alphas Captive Human Mate

They say humans are at the top of the food chain. That’s a lie.

We were fragile. Mortal and easy to control. Easy to kill.

And to the werewolf elites, we were currency used to seal alliances, pay blood debts, or breed heirs for the powerful.

I learned that the moment I was shoved onto the stage, trembling under the gravity of a hundred hungry eyes. All werewolves. The truth is, there is no top. There was only power, and those who didn’t have it, were the ones like me.

Away from everything and everyone.

They had claimed everything-every city, every government, every inch of this godforsaken world. Humans like me were prey. Abducted, forced, beaten and sold to please higher rank shifters.

Women were merely sued for their bodies.

All my life, I’ve seen violence.

The chain around my neck was tight. The cold iron biting into my skin. And the dress, if you could even call it that, was nothing but a strip of silk, meant to showcase rather than cover. The air smelled of sweat, expensive cigars and something darker, muskier. Something inhuman.

It was not my first time in here, and something told me it wouldn’t be last. I was sold to the highest bidder. Pity how I could never knew the faces of my parents. The man who brought me said they were dead, but I never believed him. I always hoped maybe one day they’d come to retrieve me. Lies. They never did. Not in the twenty years at least.

It was heart-breaking some nights when I was not tired enough to pass out. My life here, in this hell-hole, had come to be repetitive. Wake up, dress up, please the men, if lucky, they’d give me some extra tips that’d go into Brandy’s pocket, and repeat. By pleasing the men, I didn’t mean only sleeping with them. No. Pleasing them required praising them, boosting their egos, and pretending I wasn’t choking on their power.

Smiling when they touched me. Laughing at their cruel jokes. Biting my tongue when their hands wandered too far. It was all part of the daily routine I’d been numb to.

Tonight was also the regular night. One of bidders would bid on me. If pleased with my appearance, he’d probably invite me to his bedroom, and share me with his friends.

“Look up, little girl,” I lifted my head, unable to look at the crowd and the voice of the host as he sold another virgin.

“Sold for $460,000!”

“No! No, please!” I shut my eyes again. I couldn’t do it. Not today.  Not at days when they kidnap little girls from their homes and sold them brutally to the predators leeching off young girls flesh.

Unfortunately, there was so little I could do for her. Hell, I couldn’t do anything for myself either.

Her screams faded into the background noise of the applauses and cheers. I forced my expression to remain blank, to swallow the bile rising in my throat. I had learned long ago that showing weakness only made them hungrier.

Sharp nails dug into my skin. “You’re up next, smile for the crowd, come on.” His voice was sickly sweet. I didn’t move, didn’t even flinch, but the erratic beat of my pulse pounding against my skin was terrifyingly noticeable.

I knew Brandy liked when I shudder.

The crowd murmured as the host’s voice boomed again.

“And now… we have something special.”

The murmur turned into an unsettling hush. My stomach dropped. I didn’t like this silence. Silence was worse than the jeers, worse than their cruel laughs. And worse, silence made me exposed, and that’s the last thing I wanted right that moment.

Brandy yanked the chain at my throat, dragging me forward as the lime light followed me. My bare feet padded against the cold wooden panels, and I was blinded by the harsh lights. I felt more exposed on stage rather than in the bedroom of strangers.

I had been paraded before. Displayed, touched and stripped. I should have been used to it by now. But not tonight. Something felt wrong. So strange I could feel it in my bones.

I swallowed hard, and my throat scraped against the iron collar. Brandy’s nails bit into my skin as he shoved me further under the lights. “Stand up straight,” he hissed under his yellow teeth, as his skull tattoos gleamed with menace. “Show your pretty face to the crowd. Don’t embarrass the organization.”

Embarrass? As if I wasn’t already laid bare. As if my existence wasn’t open wound for them to pick at.

I forced myself to stand taller, though my knees threatened to buckle. My skin prickled as the auctioneer’s voice cut through. “A rare find, gentlemen. Breedable and untouched.”

Lies. A hollow sales pitch meant to drive the price higher. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe in purity here. It didn’t exist. Not when your worth was measured in how easily you could be broken and raped.

They didn’t want innocence. They wanted someone they could ruin. Enjoy while girls like me screamed at them to stop, they wanted to feel their male ego boosting while crushing the female in me.

My gaze flickered over the crowd, searching for the usual faces. The ones sneered and licked their lips, clutching their whiskey glasses, murmuring to their partners, weighing my worth with their eyes. I knew most of them. Knew their faces, their habits and their brutal truths.

I was sure one of them would raise their card, bid the highest amount, probably less than the last virgin girl, and I’d lose another part of myself tonight. Just as I shifted my eyes from the front row to the back, I felt it before I saw it.

There was a slight shift in the air. A stillness that didn’t belong in a place like this. Out of all the eyes on me, these ones were the intense.

My breath snagged in my throat as I kept looking, slower now. The hairs on my arms rose as I scanned the crowd, my instincts screaming before my mind could catch up.

When my eyes clashed with the ones looking straight into mine, my stomach clenched with anticipation.

He wasn’t one of the regulars. I could tell, cause in these sixteen years, I had never seen anyone like him. He was at the back, cloaked in shadows, yet he was the only one with aura strong enough to catch my attention.

He didn’t lean forward, didn’t gawk, wasn’t even sipping on the whiskey, instead he lounged like the every air bent around him. Like the gravity of the room meant nothing, like he was more than the power combined in this room.

My fingers curled into the blue silk.

“$200,000!”  Someone shouted from the crowd. My pulse spiked as I stared at the man who raised the card. A middle-aged man, with protruding belly and bald head.

The host beamed. “200,000, one. 200,000, two…”

“$250,000!”

No. Please no, stop it. I didn’t want this.

Tears started flowing down my cheeks. I didn’t want to be sold as a breeder. Getting forced to bear some brute’s children. I didn’t want to bring a child into this cruel world. As long as it was a boy, they’d let me be, but if it’s a girl… I didn’t even want to think.

The bid kept raising $50k per round and I was already on verge of collapsing. Someone, stop this.

But they wouldn’t. Because to them, I wasn’t a human. I was a womb, a commodity, a thing to be bred and used.

A tear slipped down my cheek.

$400,000.

I wanted to vomit. I would rather die.

I sucked in a deep breath. My vision swam. I wanted to run, to claw at the chain around my throat, beg for anything but this after. But there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

I was ready to get sold at this amount. This was as much high as it could get. For a girl like me. Even this was high judging how a virgin was auctioned at almost same price. I was ready for Brandy to remove the collar from my neck and shove me to that old man when another cold voice muttered.

“Ten million.”

The room went silent. Even the auctioneer faltered. The gavel hung mid-air, his mouth parting as if he hadn’t heard correctly.

But I had. I had.

The blood in my veins froze. I had expected a monster. I had feared the sweating men in their suits, the drunkards slurring their bids. But this… this was worse.

A muscle in jaw ticked as he leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees.

The auctioneer regained his voice. “T-Ten million, going once…”

“You’re insane! She’s a used whore. She’s not worth-“ The middle aged man turned around to shout at the man in cloak when his eyes widened and he quickly sat back down. I didn’t understand the reason behind this. Only thing I could tell was he wasn’t just an ordinary buyer. He wasn’t the regular either. I had never seen him. But the fact that something about him was so familiar, it sent shivers down my spine.

“Sold.” The word slammed into my skull. Sold. To him. The man with dark gaze and darker soul. A tremble raced down my spine as I was shoved forward, the chain around my neck was unshackled. All while all I did was stare at him. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t be so terrified. I would’ve tried to fight, to run, to claw and do everything in my power to change my fate.

But he’d bid millions on a body like mine. A body that had already been touched, used and discarded like yesterday’s trash. And as far as I was familiar with this world, monsters didn’t spend millions on things they wanted to keep safe. They spent millions on things they wanted to ruin.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t know if I should be grateful or horrified. Cause the man staring at me looked like he’d ruin me more than I could bargain for.