Chapter 58: Terms Of Sale May Vary

The elders were tapping on their tablets with the coordinated panic of men who had been tossed a lit bomb.

Derek knew exactly which equations were loading behind those screens because he had already solved them: a clusterfuck inside of a shitstorm, gift-wrapped by Satan.

OPTION ONE:

Lottery assignment for the slave. Piss off two very powerful Alphas. Rob a third Alpha of one hundred and twenty million.

Next.

Derek watched as one by one, they mentally crumpled that option and tossed it into their mental trash cans.

OPTION TWO:

Keep the original assignment of the princess to Emberclaw. Risk Starborne taking Thunderfang’s deal. That would be the smart move to keep two packs by alliance. His daughter in one. The slave in the other. Slave takes the crown.

No can do.

OPTION THREE:

Reassign the princess to the Thunderfang Alpha. Same risk: Starborne takes Emberclaw’s deal to ensure two alliances. His daughter in one. The slave is sold to the other. That would be the smart move that any good Alpha would make. Slave takes the crown.

Still a problem.

OPTION FOUR:

Assign slave to bastard Thunderfang. No crown. Problem solved. Issue? Only draftees got assigned. That would make the slave a draftee again. They just announced she was eliminated. And they already told Starborne she was his property to sell.

Making her a draftee didn’t make her free. She’d still be Starborne property until somebody bought her.

Sales were "illegal." Draftees had paperwork. But none of them were going to rob Starborne of one hundred twenty million. Solution? Bend a rule and practice selective blindness. That was the only way through that.

After a good two minutes of holy silence, they all seemed to arrive at that conclusion. Then the elders began furiously typing on their tablets in a group chat that no one else was part of but literally everyone could see them doing.

Across the clearing, Maverick decided he had watched them long enough to know he didn’t like where it was headed. The same math Derek had run was visible to a man who had been playing this game since birth and the answer it was pointing to was the one where Nova ended up in Thunderfang and Maverick ended up holding air.

"Starborne." His voice cut across the clearing clean enough to stop the tablets mid-tap. "Two hundred million."

Starborne’s eyes found him immediately. That caught his attention.

"Thunderfang matches that," Derek called with zero hesitation.

Nova grunted against Maverick’s chest, her muscles spasming again. Maverick absorbed the weight shift without moving, keeping her vertical. Derek and Landon’s eyes both went to her at the same time, wearing identical expressions that would have been funny if either of them had noticed the other doing it.

"Gentlemen, the bidding is finished. This is sacred ground," one of the elders called, standing from the panel with the desperate authority of a man who had lost control of the evening approximately four hours ago.

"Two fifty," Landon called to Starborne.

Jaws dropped. Somewhere in the Wavecrest section, someone said "shit."

"The next man who bids on her will forfeit his claim to the princess," the head elder announced loudly in the voice he usually reserved for addressing slaves.

Everyone in the crowd understood exactly what he meant by "princess" with that statement.

That quieted the three Alpha-blooded men. A ceasefire where everyone was still holding loaded weapons.

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Every wolf in the stands was soaked to the bone and having the best night of their lives. Even the priestesses watched with faces that said holy shit.

The elders were now on phase two of the group chat.

The argument?

THE PRINCESS DILEMMA:

KEEP CELESTE WITH EMBERCLAW:

Keep princess with Emberclaw Alpha, her original assignment. Assign slave to bastard. Risk the Thunderfang Alpha taking the slave from his brother and crowning her. No one would be sitting in that seat as a blocker.

MOVE CELESTE TO THUNDERFANG:

Reassign princess to Thunderfang Alpha. Assign slave to bastard. The only way to bypass the reassignment process is if a fated mate surfaces at the ceremony. He was already paired with Maria Emberclaw, which meant they would be honoring the fated matebond of the Thunderfang Beta and Maria Emberclaw to voice that. A contradiction of their earlier statement.

The other matebonds were not going to be acknowledged. Just this one because it solved a problem. As far as they were concerned, Registration #7709 had tampered with the Moonfire and that was that.

Protocols died today. They got dragged out back, shot twice, and buried in a ditch. And every son of a bitch on a tablet knew it.

The head elder stood from the panel with the posture of a man who had aged fifteen years in the last five minutes.

"The council has reached a decision."

The clearing went quiet. The rain kept falling because the rain didn’t care about dramatic timing and was the only honest participant in this ceremony.

"Registration 7709 is reconsidered as an active draftee under the Helix Repopulation Mandate and is assigned to Derek Thunderfang."

The words entered Nova’s ears and her brain returned them stamped with a red question mark. The elders assigned her a mate. She didn’t know what to do with that information so she did nothing with it. Her body was still contracting in waves of pain and her brain was running at approximately twelve percent capacity and the twelve percent that was functioning was dedicated entirely to the task of remaining vertical.

The head elder paused just long enough for the first ruling to settle before dropping the second one on top of it.

"Due to the fated matebond between Maria Emberclaw and Tavian Voltcrest, the council recognizes a fated-mate exception to the original assignments. Celeste Starborne is therefore reassigned to Landon Thunderfang without the fourteen-day reassignment period. The council has already ruled that Alpha Starborne may sell his property as he sees fit. We will honor that ruling. This pairing is dependent upon the successful sale of Registration 7709 to Derek Thunderfang and contingent upon the slave’s status remaining a slave in Thunderfang, serving under Celeste Starborne."

CRACK.

Lightning split the sky. Thunder followed. Nova jumped. It was very loud again. Third time that night.

"Should Alpha Starborne choose to sell his property to another bidder," the elder continued, speaking over the thunder. "The council will no longer consider 7709 a draftee and the assignment to Derek Thunderfang will be voided. In that case, Celeste Starborne will revert to her prior assignment: Derek Thunderfang. The council will withdraw the fated-mate exception granted on the basis of Maria Emberclaw and Tavian Voltcrest’s bond, which was used to bypass Celeste Starborne’s fourteen-day reassignment period. If Celeste chooses to appeal, then she will go through the fourteen-day reassignment protocols."

Derek listened to the ruling. Basically the same fucking thing he’d proposed ten minutes ago. Nova went to him. No crown. Celeste plugged Landon’s vacant Luna seat. Starborne kept his sale. And if Starborne took Maverick’s money instead, Celeste snapped right back to him, the bastard. No rug-pulling allowed.

Crooked as fuck. But on brand for this crew and airtight enough to work.

The smirk on Celeste’s face immediately vanished at that last part, replaced by a look of ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT in red.

Maverick’s arms tightened around Nova and his breathing stopped. The exhale that had been steady against the top of her head since he’d pulled her into his chest vanished in a vacuum, replaced by the stillness.

That’s when Nova clocked that every Emberclaw pack member was standing at full attention and all the draftees had been evacuated. They had left so quietly that she hadn’t noticed until right now.

They weren’t the only ones. Nova had apparently missed the universal "get the fuck out" signal because the elder panel was empty and packs were silently draining out.

Across the clearing, the Thunderfang pack stood at attention, but their draftees were evacuated.

All except for one. Maria stood at the front, furious and cemented to the ground like rage had replaced her skeletal system. The Thunderfang Beta was trying to talk to her softly and she wouldn’t look at him.

Zero eye contact. Full freeze-out. Their matebond was less than an hour old and she was already winning their first argument. Derek glanced at them and gave a nod to his Beta, who picked Maria up and vacated with her over his shoulder.

Maria didn’t get a vote apparently. She didn’t struggle against him but the expression on her face and the tears falling made it clear this was betrayal and heartbreak wearing anger’s uniform.