The Black Market's Prey
In the empire's most secret and most fetid shadow, the air in the auction-house basement always throbbed with the stench of rotting blood and burning oil.
Beneath the faint candlelight that fell through the iron bars, a bloodied heap of a body huddled beside a dented slop bucket. A small frame, its shame barely covered by a single scrap of half-torn hemp. The skin — split by the lash and crushed beneath a Fire Brand — looked less like a human being than the hide of a beast dragged into a slaughterhouse.
"Come, come! Pay attention, honored guests of the Crimson Viscountcy! This lot is the spawn of a slave who crawled through the scrap territories of the northern empire!"
The auctioneer's sly, piercing voice rang through the secret hall, its floor laid in red velvet. He kicked the girl's thigh through the bars with the tip of a leather whip.
"As you can see, they cut out her voice box when she was a child and tortured her until she couldn't speak a word — but her skin is softer than silk, and she's a stubborn little creature! The flavor of taking a beating without making a sound — now that's a genuine masterpiece!"
Crack!
The whip that snaked through the bars struck the girl's tender shoulder full-on.
"Ah… nnh."
What burst out was not a voice. What leaked through the torn throat was only the sound of wind mixed with blood. A red line scored across the thin hemp, and drip, drip — fresh blood fell onto the cold stone floor.
The noblemen seated in the private boxes let out unpleasant laughs.
"A doll with her tongue cut out, eh? Might actually be more useful than the ones that do nothing but scream all night."
"Shall we put a wager on how much of a beating she can take?"
Their eyes, drunk on that stimulating, blood-soaked amusement, held not even the barest respect for life. Only the ugly greed of how much to pay, how to break her, and how to throw her away.
But there was one exception.
In the deepest shadow of the private boxes, in the seat of honor draped in black silk, a man — Cayen Genoa — merely propped his chin on long fingers and looked down into the cage with cold eyes.
The young patriarch of House Genoa, the most powerful family in the empire, for whom cruelty was a virtue. A man raised on the sight of his parents' heads being severed before his eyes in a blood-soaked rebellion of their own retainers.
What Cayen had learned in that scent of blood was not morality. It was a ruthless rationalism: meaningless abuse and destruction were nothing but unnecessary losses.
To him, this underground auction was nothing more than a tedious playground born of human ugliness.
Nothing but uncivilized dregs.
The very moment Cayen clicked his tongue in contempt and made to rise from his seat—
Slap!
The auctioneer seized the girl's hair again and yanked her head up by force.
"Hey now — you've got to show your face to the noble gentlemen!"
Through the tangled, blood-matted hair, the girl's face was revealed. Skin destroyed by abuse. Cheeks caked with grime. And yet… in the depths of those eyes, gone cold as death, Cayen found something.
For a husk that had lost everything and been shattered to pieces, there flickered in those depths an unidentifiable hunger — a vicious, chilling will to live, a determination to survive somehow and rip out the throats of her tormentors.
These were not the eyes of someone settling into despair to die. They were the eyes of a beast that bared its teeth even beneath the slaughterhouse blade.
The thin corner of Cayen's mouth curved.
…Interesting.
More than a perfectly tempered weapon, more than a finely cut jewel. What stirred Cayen's sadistic, exacting hunger to salvage was wreckage like this — shattered to pieces and still surviving. Not a perfection too flawless to be worth breaking, but the possessiveness of reshaping with his own hands something already broken.
"Five hundred thousand gold."
Silence dropped over the auction hall. The voices of the nobles who had been snickering a moment before vanished completely.
Five hundred thousand gold was an absurd fortune — enough to purchase an entire frontier territory of the empire.
The auctioneer's hands trembled as he looked toward the seat of honor. The hall held its breath as Cayen's arrogant face appeared, parting the black silk curtains.
"Y-Your Grace, Duke Genoa…?"
"One million gold."
Cayen doubled the sum as if mocking the nobles' stunned gazes. Without so much as putting to his lips the cigar he had drawn with a gloved hand, he walked down toward the iron cage with leisurely steps.
"S-Sold…! Sold to His Grace, Duke Genoa!"
When the auctioneer, shaking, opened the cage door, burly men moved to drag the girl out.
"Take your hands off her."
Cayen's icy voice froze the entire basement. He set his leather shoes directly onto the floor filthy with blood and waste, then slowly lifted the girl's blood-soaked chin with a gloved hand.
The girl exhaled a ragged breath and looked straight up into the cold man's black eyes. Her slender body trembled with terror and spasms, but her gaze, at least, was still alive.
"Can't speak, they say."
Cayen murmured it low, and with a gloved finger he slowly wiped away the bloodstain at the corner of the girl's lips. The red that smeared from her crushed mouth stained his pristine white glove.
"Doesn't matter. At my side, you have no need to make any sound I haven't permitted."
Without hesitation, Cayen shrugged off his luxurious black velvet coat and draped it over the blood-clot of a girl. Then, as one might scoop up a beast, he gathered the blood-soaked girl into his arms and walked out of the auction hall.
Inside the black carriage bearing the crest of House Genoa, the girl who had been set upon silk cushions seemed terrified that the horrific stench of blood and filth coming off her body would defile this sacred, luxurious space. She crawled into a corner of the floor and huddled tight.
"What do you think you're doing on the floor?"
Cayen, seated on the fine leather opposite, taking a sip of strong liquor, asked in a languid voice.
Instead of answering, the girl trembled her lips and clutched at her own throat. From the voiceless gullet leaked only a scraping sound of wind.
Please don't kill me. Please don't beat me.
The desperate scream her entire body was screaming. Cayen set his glass on the table, rose from his seat, and crouched down in front of her.
Long fingers gently brushed the red whip-mark on her cheek, as if tracing it aside. His touch was utterly cold and arrogant, yet to a girl who had known only beatings and Fire Brands her entire life, it was a heat so fierce it was almost unbearable.
As if gazing upon the only god who had ever saved her life, the girl, even in her terror, nuzzled her cheek against the man's gloved hand as if bewitched. Instinctive submission — and a struggle to survive.
"Your name?"
The girl shook her head. She had no such thing as a name. She had only ever been called "Number 34," or "Rags," or "Beast."
"None, then. Well. A beast wouldn't have a name."
Cayen stripped off his gloves and threw them aside. The long fingers revealed beneath seized the girl's nape with force. It was a pressure that cut off her breath, but it was different from crude violence. It was the touch of a ruler's perfect control.
Cayen whispered it low against the girl's ear. A voice thick with persistent, secret, and merciless possessiveness.
"Genoa's beautiful cinder. My child, whom I will raise again with my own hands."
Ella shed tears, her eyes reddening at the strange emotion welling from deep in her chest. Perfect salvation sprouting from sadistic ruin. The absolute being who had bought her out of the world that trampled her, and given her a name.
It was the moment absolute submission and affection took deep root in those icy pupils.
Genoa Ducal Castle. The master's private bath.
Cayen pushed Ella straight into the marble tub from which steam rose in lazy curls.
"Ah—! Nnh, nn…!"
When the hot water touched her wounds, Ella twisted her body as if in a seizure. A stinging pain spread through every torn gash, and the water instantly stained a bloody red.
"Stay still. If the wounds aren't cleaned, they'll rot."
Cayen dismissed the servants and took up a towel and herbal oil himself.
With emotionless eyes, he tore the hemp rags from Ella's body. The slender form revealed was covered in torture marks too terrible to look upon. Scars on the inner thighs. Fire Brands scored along the spine.
Cayen's hands rubbed those scars one by one. It was rough and it hurt, but what followed was the cool warmth of herbs that would keep the wounds from festering.
"Who did this to you?"
Cayen roughly pressed his finger into the crest of another house branded into Ella's collarbone. Ella shed tears of pain, yet still clung tightly to Cayen's solid arm.
"Don't worry. I'll rip that house out by the roots and burn it to the ground."
It was a ruler's promise. Less love than an arrogant declaration of iron and blood — that he would punish anyone who had laid a hand on what was his. But to Ella, who had never had anyone avenge her, even that venom sounded like a hymn of salvation.
When the harsh medicine was applied, Ella, unable to bear the pain, bit down hard on Cayen's wrist. A bite strong enough to draw blood.
"Ha."
Cayen did not pull his wrist away. Instead, still bitten, he seized Ella's hair and pulled her upper body flush against his. Their breaths nearly touched.
"Haven't forgotten how to bite, I see. Good, Ella. Keep that venom exactly as it is."
Cayen's dark eyes burned red.
Ella slowly withdrew the teeth that had bitten his wrist, and with her bloodied tongue, gently licked the drop of Cayen's blood that beaded there.
Savior and devil. The first act of submission offered to the master who had purchased her — and the beginning of a viciously twisted affection.
The corner of Cayen's mouth lifted in satisfaction.
The highest tower of the ducal castle. Cayen's private bedchamber, from which outsiders were strictly forbidden.
In the center of a wide room laid with red velvet stood a plush down bed. But Ella could not climb onto it. A luxury she had never once in her life enjoyed. Its cleanliness frightened her, and more than anything, she was terrified that her existence would defile it.
Ella crouched beside the bedpost, on the cold marble floor, her body curled tight.
Click.
The door opened and Cayen entered. With two buttons of his thin silk shirt undone, wet hair swept back, a dangerous and arrogant masculinity radiated from him.
Cayen's cold eyes settled on Ella, crumpled and prostrate on the floor.
"Did the servants not dress you?"
A brand-new, thin white silk robe the servants had just put on her was draped over Ella's body. But whether from the unfamiliar softness, or from the terror that it might be taken from her at any moment, Ella only clutched the robe's collar with trembling hands.
Cayen approached with slow steps and sat on the edge of the bed.
"The floor more comfortable, is it?"
Ella bowed her head. From the throat that could make no sound, not even a suppressed moan emerged.
Cayen propped his chin, and with the toe of his shoe, lightly lifted Ella's chin. At the cold touch of leather, her body went rigid. The gaze she looked up into was cold to the point of cruelty, but strangely, it held none of the lewd or sadistic cruelty her previous masters had shown.
Only a perfectionist's hunger to refine his possession.
"Get up here."
Cayen indicated the space beside him on the bed with a jerk of his chin.
Ella trembled and shook her head. She could not dare place her body on this sacred duke's bed. She would surely be beaten. Convinced she would be whipped until she bled, Ella flattened herself and pressed her forehead to the instep of Cayen's leather shoe — a desperate petition for forgiveness, as if begging him to deliver the punishment now if he meant to.
But what burst from Cayen's mouth was neither abuse nor a whip.
"Seems my words don't sound like words to you."
Cayen's hand came down. He seized Ella's slender nape in one hand and lifted her nearly weightless body in a single motion.
"Ah—! Nnh…!"
A voiceless scream scattered into the air. Cayen threw Ella roughly into the center of the bed.
The plush down mattress enveloped her body. When Ella, shocked by the unfamiliar softness, tried to scramble away, Cayen climbed over her and pinned both her wrists toward the headboard.
"Let go. Hold. Get up. Get down. I give only four commands."
Cayen's black eyes bored deep into Ella's panting ones. Their chests pressed together, and Cayen's solid body heat passed through the thin silk robe and into Ella's skin, unfiltered.
"I don't care if you were a beast rolling around on the floor. But now that you're in my hands, you will take the shape of a human being. Breathe only on my bed, only in my arms."
"Nn, nnh…!"
"Do you understand?"
Cayen's long fingers pushed between Ella's thin lips.
The tongue that could not speak, the scarred flesh inside her mouth — those fingers slowly rummaged through it. An act viciously sensual, and overwhelmingly dominant.
Ella swallowed Cayen's fingers in a pleasure and fear that stole her breath. Her saliva, wetting the man's fingers, and her tears ran down her cheeks.
When Cayen withdrew the fingers that had been exploring her mouth, a thin strand of clear saliva stretched from between Ella's lips.
Cayen brought those fingers to his own lips and licked them as if it were nothing. At that utterly casual yet horrifically stimulating sight, something hot burst from the bottom of Ella's chest.
This man has not come to destroy me.
He is a god who has come to wholly possess me.