Auction

They were speaking amongst themselves when we arrived. It looked like a serious conversation. Something about land, territory, and order. When I come into the room, not a single one of them seems to care about the map anymore. They all turn to me. Look at me. I feel their hunger emanating from them in waves of masculine desire.

I am naked, a lamb brought before wolves, and there is nothing I can do to escape my fate.

Tore is the first one to notice the condition of my rear. He walks around us, looks at my ass, and then looks at me, his blue eyes piercing my soul. I squirm, and just barely resist the urge to hide behind Elias.

"She needed a lesson in manners. She got one."

My face flares into heat. Oh, my god, why is he telling them?

"Brat." Silver winks at me.

I make a little groaning sound and lower my gaze. There are nine pairs of eyes on me. Nine men judging me, seeing my shame. Nine men who hold my fate in their hands, and my flesh at their disposal.

"She has a lot to learn," Tattoo Face says. "She will learn more today. We have been working out what to do with you, girl."

He's not wearing a shirt. Neither are Pharaoh, Gladiator, or Tore. The other three seem to have managed to fully dress themselves, but there's something deliberate about the semi-nudity.

I think about making a crack about them being in a dance troupe in order to alleviate the nervousness charging through my system, but my eyes are too busy ranging over four perfect male torsos, muscular and fit and rippling.

"Good to know not one of you thinks I'm capable of working out what to do with myself." I aim for sass, but my voice is a little too hoarse to truly pull it off.

"Oh, we know that," Cowboy drawls. "What you do is cause chaos and occasionally kill a guy. We're going to keep that to a minimum."

"You are beautiful," Pharaoh says. The compliment catches me off-guard.

"But you are trouble," Silver adds. I smirk at him. He smirks back. There is something more than a little chaotic about him too. I can sense, out of all the men who came to buy me, he is the one I might have been willing to be sold to.

"Me, Tore, Pharaoh, and Gladiator are going to start training you today," Keanau says, using the names I picked out for them in a way that almost makes me smile.

"And what are Silver, Cowboy, and Zen going to do?"

That question goes unanswered.

"Come with us."

"Go," he says, gently peeling my digits off. "They won't hurt you, unless you need it."

"What does that mean?" I half-hiss, half-whimper the question.

"It means go and be a good girl." Mattias swats me lightly toward the group of four massive men waiting for me.

I take a step and stop. Yesterday, I felt big, riding the wave of cockiness that comes from dispatching one of the most powerful men in the world.

But now I feel small.

They seem so much bigger than me. Bigger than I could have imagined as they come toward me, four men to claim me.

"I want Mattias and Elias to come too!" I don't know why I say that. Maybe because they're fast becoming the human equivalent of security blankets.

"No," Keanau says firmly. "You will come with us. Now."

I am scared. These are big, frightening men, and I know what will happen when I am alone with them will change me forever. There is no way I am going with them of my own free will. There is no way I can overcome the girlish fear of this much male flesh, let alone the feeling that I am in deep, deep trouble.

Pharaoh takes the matter of obedience out of the equation. He scoops me up over his shoulder and he carries me out of the library, and into a big bedroom a few doors away.

"Mattias!" I call out, but he does not come. I hear male chuckling as I am drawn away to what must surely be the ravaging that has been coming for a long time. After all I have been through, the market, the sheriff, in the end, this was always coming. My resistance has only managed to get me as far as a man I could not avoid, hurt, or kill.

The bed is huge and expansive and... round. I am confused by it enough that when Pharaoh puts me dead in the middle of it, on my knees. The others stand around the bed, forcing me to turn to look at them when they speak.

It is Tore who begins laying down the law. His ice blue eyes lock on me. I instinctively want to look at the muscular wall of male flesh, but I can't, because this big Norse beast demands I give him all of my attention.

"Do you know why we chose the four of us to have you first?"

"Drew straws?"

My attempt at flippancy falls flat.

"We are the four most equipped to tame a mouthy little girl and show her how to be a woman. You are unbroken, Trissa. You are wild and you are untamed. And that will not do. When we are done with you, you will know how to behave."

I bite my lower lip.

"First of all, you will call each of us sir," Tattoo Face says.

"Nope."

There's no amusement in any of their faces at my bold defiance.