My Pet Sold Me novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Fifty-One Thousand

The room turns Lara into an auction, Dane outbids the fox Elder, a clerk stamps the bond, the same silver mark rises on both their wrists, and Dane tells her to get in his truck.

"I'm not for sale," I said.

"Everyone in this room is for sale, child," said the Elder. "That's why we come."

She did not raise her voice.

The foxes behind her moved up into a half circle, and Tobin stood and went to stand with them.

He did not look at me.

"Ten thousand," a man by the door called out.

"Twelve," said the woman who had said I bit.

"I said I'm not for sale."

"You don't get a say in a bond," said the heavy man in the hunting vest, and half the room nodded.

I turned to Tobin.

"Tell them to stop."

"It's the quickest way," he said. "You'll go to a good place. The clan has a whole farm out past Estacada."

"Whose idea was this?"

"Mine."

"Whose?"

His eyes went to the Elder and came back.

"Mine," he said again.

I had known him seven years, and that was the first time I had ever known he was lying.

"Fifteen," the Elder said.

A clerk in a gray suit had appeared at the end of the ring with a leather ledger and a brass stamp.

No one had let him in.

He was just there, and he wrote down each number with a steel pen.

I took out my phone to call the police, and then I stood there looking at it.

What would I tell them?

My pet is selling me to a fox.

The woman beside me leaned over. "Honey, nobody calls anybody. That's the whole point of the floor."

"Seventeen," said the hunting vest.

"Eighteen," said the Elder.

Dane Urquhart hadn't moved from the corner.

He was watching me, and not the bidding.

"Sir," I said across the ring, loud enough for everyone. "You said you wanted to see what the owner looked like."

"I did."

"Take a good look. Then tell me what you think a person is worth."

For the first time, something moved in his face.

"Not eighteen," he said.

The Elder laughed.

"Boy, your pack has a fine truck business. It does not have this much cash."

"Twenty thousand," Dane said.

The room went quiet.

Even the clerk stopped writing.

"Twenty-five," the Elder said.

"Forty."

"Forty!" Tobin said. "What are you doing?"

"Buying," said Dane.

"You can't. She's mine to sell."

"You listed her," Dane said. "You said, who wants her."

"I meant for four thousand!"

"I know what you meant."

The Elder's cane tapped once, twice, three times.

"Fifty," she said, and her voice had gone flat. "Last bid, whelp."

"Fifty-one," Dane said, "and I'll pay it now."

He took a folded check from his coat, signed it against his forearm and held it out without looking at it.

The clerk walked over, took the check, and read it.

He turned a page in the ledger.

"Witnessed," he said. "The bond of Lara Aldrin, keeper of Tobin Kauffman, passes to Dane Urquhart of the Urquhart pack."

"No," I said.

"The bid is valid."

"I didn't agree."

"The bid does not require your agreement." The clerk raised the brass stamp. "It requires only his."

He brought it down.

The sound went right through the floor.

My left wrist caught fire.

I grabbed it, and the pale scar under my cuff was glowing silver, lit from the inside, the way I had seen it glow once before, seven years ago, and never since.

Across the ring, Dane pushed back his own sleeve.

The same mark was rising on his skin, in the same place.

He stared at it.

Then he looked up at me, and the steadiness had gone out of his face.

Nobody else seemed to notice.

They were too busy watching Tobin.

He stood in the middle of the half circle of foxes with his arms flung wide.

"Free!" he shouted. "I'm free!"

A few of them clapped.

The Elder turned her back and walked out without a word.

I couldn't make my feet move.

Tobin came over, grinning, and for one second he looked eighteen again.

"Lara, it's better this way. You'll see. He's a rich guy, he'll treat you right."

"You sold me for fifty-one thousand dollars."

"The seller's cut goes to the clan. Sable's family handles it. I never see a cent."

"You got your freedom."

"Yeah." His grin wavered. "Yeah, I did."

I walked past him.

I did not slap him, because something in me was still counting.

Outside, the night air was cold, and Penny was out of the car with a tire iron in one hand.

"Lara! What happened? Who's that?"

Dane had come out behind me.

He stopped a few feet away, with a hand loose at his side.

"Miss Aldrin," he said. "Get in my truck."

"No."

"Get in, or I tell him what you signed."

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