Page 5 of Fangs

“Very spirited. You know… a frail old man won’t last a month in the quarries. He’ll cough up blood and die before he clears a fraction of a percent.”

His thumb presses firm against my jawline, tilting my face to the light.

“A girl like you, though… the Order is always looking for fresh stock. High society pays well for fiery things.”

My stomach drops into a cold, bottomless pit. No.

“Here is the offer,” he continues softly. “We take your father, he dies in a ditch, and we sell this house tomorrow. Or… you step into his place. You clear his debt. He gets to keep his house, his freedom, and his miserable life.”

‘Don’t do it’, a voice screams inside my skull, so loud it deafens me. ‘He did this to us. He ruined everything. Let him suffer his own consequences.’

I close my eyes. I picture my father. His frail chest, his weak hands, his pale, frightened eyes. He would die within days. He wouldn’t survive a single night in a cell. If I walk away, I kill him just as surely as if I shoved him off a cliff.

The future that waits for me as Joe Tallow’s wife sounds like another kind of slavery cage. What a bitter choice. My last act of freedom is to decide who will own my destiny.

At least by choosing the Order I can give my father a chance. If I don’t take his place, we are both doomed.

The moment my eyes snap open, the enforcer is watching me, waiting for the break.

“Cross his name out,” I whisper, my voice raw and scraped thin. “Give me the paper. Prove he stays free. And that he keeps the cottage.”

The leader smirks. He pulls a brass pen from his pocket, scratches a dark, heavy line through an entry in his ledger, and tears a scrap of parchment from the corner, tossing it onto the table.

“The trade is made,” he says, stepping back toward the broken door and pointing out into the pouring rain. “Welcome to your new life, Miss Lucy.”

Bloodgrove

The blindfold smells like death.

I know the scent already. Iron and rot, the particular sweetness of old blood soaked into fabric used too many times. I have been breathing it for hours, wrists bound behind my back, body swaying with the rhythm of the carriage that carries me toward the unknown.

I never said goodbye to my father. That thought circles like a vulture. I will never see him again. The only comfort I can find is the knowledge that I chose correctly. He keeps the cottage. He stays free. He will be all right.

The carriage lurches hard. My shoulder cracks against the wooden wall. I bite down on my tongue until the pain steadies me. They’ll hear weakness and use it against me.

“You’re quiet.”

The voice comes from my left. One of the men who dragged me from my home and watched while I sold myself for my father’s life.

I give him nothing.

“Feisty one, aren’t you?” Another voice, this time from the right. “They like that at the manor. Makes the breaking more entertaining.”

“Who are they?” My voice barely rises above a whisper.

“You shouldn’t ask questions.”

“At least I deserve to know who owns me!”

Silence stretches for a beat. Then the first man answers, bored. “The four Masters of the estate. Lord Peter Ashford. Lord Thomas Lewis. Lord Francis McAllister. Lord Julian Cain.”

Four. The number settles in my gut like spoiled meat.

“And me? What are they going to do with me?”

“You’re a candidate. One of many. They’ll train you. Shape you. Make you perfect. Then you’ll be auctioned.”

Auctioned.