Blood Bound

“Prologue: The Crimson’s Cost,”

────── ꕥ ⋅ IVORY ⋅ ꕥ ──────

Three minutes before I sold myself, I was still free.

For some reason, I keep thinking about those three minutes.

Those three precious minutes.

They were like a song, or the time it takes to make coffee. Enough time to change your mind, if you're paying attention.

In my case, I wasn't.

When the curtain opened, everything after that was just the story of how I survived it.

Backstage smelled like money and hairspray and something else underneath, something sweet and sharp I couldn't name and didn't try to.

Chandeliers spilled gold light through velvet curtains. Even the dust looked expensive here. Everything was a performance. Even the air.

"Arms up, lady."

A stylist appeared out of nowhere and slid something cold and silky over my head before I could argue.

Red. Deep, dark red. The exact color of what everyone in this building had come to buy.

I caught myself in the narrow backstage mirror and almost laughed.

Arterial red. A color like blood. How subtle.

God, Ivory. You shouldn't be here.

This wasn't the plan. My paintings were supposed to hang on walls like these.

Not me.

"Lot 24, you're on deck."

A woman with a clipboard said it without looking at me, like I was one more item to check off her list. Something heavy settled in my chest.

Lot 24.

That was me now.

Through the gap in the curtains I could see the hall. Men in suits, glittering jewelry, paddles rising and falling. They were deciding something. I thought I knew what.

I was scanning the crowd the way you scan a room for the nearest exit when something made me stop.

A man in the front row.

He wasn't doing anything. Hadn't lifted a paddle. Wasn't talking to anyone. Just sitting there, still and certain, like the room had been built around him.

He was, undeniably, there's no other word for it, devastatingly handsome.

Hair and a face that looked carved out of something incapable of mistakes.

He held a stillness that didn't come from calm. It came from never needing to move fast, because nothing could outrun him anyway. Like he was always in control.

Then he turned, slow, like he already knew I was there.

His eyes found mine straight through the curtain gap.

Ice blue. Deep and cold and direct.

My heart hit my ribs so hard I felt it in my throat.

Then, for one second, barely a blink.

His eyes shifted.

Blue to amber. Cold to burning. Something old and wild, completely at odds with the tailored suit and the chandelier light and the two hundred wealthy people around him.

Gone before I could be sure I'd seen it.

He smiled. Just barely. The smallest lift at the corner of his mouth, like he knew exactly what he'd just done to my heart rate and found it interesting.

I couldn't look away.

"Lot 24. Now."

Someone grabbed my arm and shoved me forward, and then there was nothing but blinding light and the sound of a crowd turning to look at me all at once.

"Ladies and gentlemen." The auctioneer's voice was smooth as glass. "Lot 24. A rare find. Untapped artistic genius, requiring only proper patronage."

Paddles rose.

Numbers climbed.

I stood frozen while my value got counted out in millions, my brain stuck on one thing.

His eyes changed color. Normal eyes don't do that.

The blue-eyed man never lifted his paddle. He didn't need to. At some point he simply stood, quiet, unhurried, and the entire room went still the way a forest goes still when something at the top of the food chain decides to move.

"Five million," he said. Low and calm. The voice of a man who expects to get what he wants. The voice of a man who isn't used to being told no.

The gavel came down.

Done.

Five million dollars. For me. For my blood. For whatever came next.

I didn't know yet what I'd actually sold.

I told myself it was just a transaction.

I told myself I was in control.

I told myself the way my pulse jumped when his eyes met mine was just fear.

Just fear. Normal, logical, self-preserving fear.

I was wrong about all of it.

My name is Ivory Marwood.

This is how I died.

And how, through death, I finally began to live.