Chapter Two

Heart beating wildly against her chest, Saffron fought against her captors, thrashing and kicking at them, trying to make a run for it.

The half-moon tattoo dripping with blood denoted them as members of the Blood Moon gang. And she knew deep in her heart that whatever her father had done, it couldn’t be good.

The bag they had over her head was too thick to make out where they were taking her, as one of the men scooped her up and onto his shoulders, holding her firmly by the waist.

“Let me go!” she screamed, when her hands were freed as she pulled the bag off of her head. “Let me go, please! I didn’t do anything.”

“Yeah, but your father did.” The man holding her snickered, as she thrashed against him.

“Let. Me. Go,” she growled every word, thumping her curled fists against the back of her captor.

When she got no reaction from him, in a moment of panic, Saffron decided to bite him, which she later came to realize was the worst decision ever.

“You bitch!” he growled, as he dropped her on the floor, directly on top of the forgotten shards of broken bottle.

Adrenaline coursing through her, Saffron didn’t feel the pain of the cuts, neither did she care about the blood oozing from her open wounds. All that mattered now was saving herself from whatever trouble her father had brought to their door tonight.

She tried to scramble to her feet, but one of the men was on her in a flash. One moment he was standing by the door, and the next, he had her by the throat.

“Please…” she gasped.

Now truly terrified and panicked as she fought for her next breath, Saffron clawed at his hand, gasping for air like a fish out of water.

The edges of her vision began to bleed black as darkness began to envelop her.

“You will behave and let us carry on with business or so help you…” he trailed off, but Saffron heard the threat in his voice and the promise there.

No, she wanted to growl back at him, the voice in her head urging her to fight back.

But she knew it was a losing battle. It was five against one, and she knew even armed, she wouldn’t be able to take out one of them. They were lethal and trained against her untrained self.

Without hesitation, she nodded her head weakly, accepting her inferior position for today.

Her gaze found her father’s as she was once again unceremoniously dropped on the floor—this time, not on the broken shards of bottle—intense hatred burning through her brown eyes, even as fear of the unknown clouded her mind.

She rubbed a hand against her sore throat, not daring to move a muscle, even as every instinct in her body told her to run.

Saffron knew that she had a chance to run right now, as the men’s attention was no longer on her but on her father. The man who gave the order for her capture earlier brought out a file from his bag.

But she also knew that with the various cuts on her feet and knees, she wouldn’t be able to get far. And, she knew that whatever punishment they were going to dole out to her was going to be much worse than being strangled.

“This document will transfer all rights you have over your daughter to Blood Moon, and…”

“What are you talking about?” Saffron asked, interrupting them.

Pain exploded through her right cheek, as one of the men cocked back his fist and punched her, a ringing sound echoing through her right ear as she became momentarily stunned by the force of the blow.

“Behave!” he growled in her ear as he clutched her hair in a tight hold. “Interrupt us once again, and you won’t like the consequences.”

A whimper of pain escaped her lips, as he released her hair.

“That’s enough, Oscar!” the male who seemed to be the leader called out, an empathic frown on his lips.

Oscar, the voice in her head repeated.

The name circled in her head, as she wheezed against the pain, half-listening to the conversation around her.

A part of her was livid at the harsh treatment she got from these men who have infiltrated her home when she had done nothing to deserve it. Yet, another part of her was more outraged at her father for all the decisions he had made which led them to this particular moment.

The man she had bitten earlier came back to her side holding a tie, which he used to gag her mouth, and a zip tie, which he wrapped around her wrists, binding her hands tightly together behind her back.

The look of absolute loathing she sent him had him cackling as he brushed away a lock of her silver blonde hair away from her forehead.

“Such a shame,” he uttered, a predatory gleam in his eyes. “A great beauty gone to waste.”

“Ivan!” the leader warned, as the man now identified as Ivan gripped her chin in a bruising hold. “Let her go. We’re done here.”

“Hael, take her,” he ordered as he stuffed the file back into his bag, his eyes still on her.

“Is that really necessary, Kane?” Hael asked, as he gazed at her with pity in his eyes.

Kane bristled as if he wasn’t used to having his authority questioned. “Her father sold her to pay off his debts. So, unless you want to explain to the Alpha why the payment hasn’t been collected, then you shut your mouth and do as you’re told.”

Hael picked her up, without a fight on her side.

Hearing the reality of her situation had drained the fight out of her and shocked her into a strange sense of compliance.

Sold. The word sounded even more disturbing to the voice inside her head than it did her.

She was sold by her father to pay off his debts. That was what he had reduced her to—a possession to be traded off for his addiction and gambling problems.

‘You are going to pay for this.’ She promised her father with her eyes when their gazes met.

Outside, the storm had finally let on, heavy sheets of rain beating against the roof, as if it too was mourning Saffron’s fate.

Heaviness settled in her limbs as she got injected by a shot of an unknown substance. She tried to fight against it, but her vision had darkened, everything inside of her becoming numb.

Fear and panic battled against the numbness that overwhelmed her, as thoughts of what was going to become of her thundered through her mind.

She had no idea if they were going to kill her when she woke up from her forced slumber, or if they were going to abuse her body first before killing her.

As her vision doubled, her gaze once again found the man who had betrayed her, the one who had failed her at every turn.

And then everything around her began to blur, before blinking into nothing, as Hael dropped her in their truck, the bag from earlier once again covering her head.