Alpha's Auctioned Mate

Gaia’s POV.

I jumped down from the only oak tree in our territory, inhaling the humid forest air – the air that I had known for the past 17 years.

Nestled deep in the woods, our pack, the Nightfall Crescent Pack, was hidden from the world with its different flora and fauna, all of which everyone had maintained over the past centuries. Here, we were safe and free to do what we wanted. Ranks didn’t even matter much, as members treated everyone equally and anyone could marry or mate who they wanted to be with for the rest of their lives. Most importantly, we were far from the war brewing in the far distance.

I had always believed it was the product of my father’s ruling. He had always been a strong and wise leader. As the alpha, he always made sure everyone was fed, clothed, sheltered, and protected. He led thousands of hunts and was always one step ahead when anomalies came. The elders in our pack always praised him for being a wise alpha.

I glanced over at Alpha Darian, my father, standing tall at the edge of our house. He was talking to a few pack members about the pack’s internal affairs as usual. His broad frame was always a comforting sight, a reminder of his strength. Beside him, my mother, Luna Selene, stood with her usual grace and beauty. She was the pack’s greatest healer, and not just for our pack. Many people, within and outside our pack, sought her out for help. They trusted her. She seemed to have that magic in her that when at one conversation or one touch, she could easily make you feel heard and understood.

I watched them both with pride, knowing how much they valued every life. Today, there was a rogue who got lost and accidentally trespassed our territory. The pack usually drives rogues away but today was different. Father chose to let the rogue stay because he was injured.

“Some people are just lost souls, Gaia,” my father said, referring to rogues – outsiders who didn’t have any pack. Both he and my mother believed that everyone, even rogues, or those wolves without a pack, deserved compassion.

“There are bad rogues but there are also good rogues,” my mother added. “Just like in a pack, there are also bad people and good people.”

I liked the times they taught me things like these. I believed I couldn’t learn them from anywhere else, and knowing how they had led the pack for almost five decades and maintained its order and peace, I knew their words always carried wisdom.

But not everyone shared their belief.

As I made my way toward the main pack house garden, I could hear our pack members whispering about my parents’ decision to heal the nameless rogue. It had been a week since it happened and that rogue had left, but it seemed people were still having doubts about my parents’ decision.

Near the training grounds, a group of elders huddled together, their sharp glances in my father’s direction impossible to miss.

“You’d think Alpha Darian would be more careful,” one elder muttered. “Rogues are a threat! Just bringing one into our pack endangers us all!”

I clenched my fists at my sides, forcing myself to keep walking. They didn’t know what they were talking about. Fear was clearly making them paranoid. My parents had done nothing wrong. They only helped a rogue who was injured and in desperate need. What’s wrong with that?

As I knelt down to tend to the herbs in the garden for my next healing training session with my mother, I sensed a presence behind me.

“Hey, Gaia, I think we need to talk,” Liam said.

Did he come here to scold me like the elders did? Well, I’d hate it if he did.

I sighed and straightened up, turning to face him.

“What do you want, Liam?” I asked.

Liam was my childhood friend and he was the son of beta Galerick. We were too young to be engaged but the elders had already arranged for us to be mates. When I learned about it, I was overjoyed, because, even if I tried to hide it most times, Liam had always been by my side. I had liked him since we were kids. He was kind, dedicated, and had those two beautiful, oceanic eyes that always pulled me to a dreamy state.

But now, those same eyes were filled with nothing but suspicion and irritation, his expression as hard as stone.

“We’re not kids anymore, Gaia,” Liam said. “In a few weeks, you’ll be reaching 18 and we–”

“Just get straight to the point,” I demanded. “Is this about my father?”

He let out a long sigh. “You already know.”

“My father hasn’t done anything wrong, Liam,” I shot back, my words sharp. “He was just helping someone who needed us.”

“You mean someone who could destroy us all,” Liam snapped. “Don’t you get it, Gaia? What your parents did was too much. Now the elders are already pushing for action. If your father doesn’t stop defending rogues, the pack will turn on him.”

His words made my stomach churn with unease. Of course I heard the rumors, but I refused to believe that our own pack would betray us like that.

“They wouldn’t dare,” I whispered, more to myself than to Liam.

Liam sighed, running a hand through his hair, clearly torn. “Look, Gaia, I’m trying to protect you. You have to understand, if this keeps going, you’ll be dragged down with them. I don’t want to see that happen. Right now, you can make a choice–”

“What the hell are you saying, Liam? Those are my parents!” I snapped. I couldn’t believe it. Was he trying to make me choose between my parents and the pack?

Liam stared hard at me, “Yeah. I expected this reaction from you, too.”

I clenched my hands and was about to speak when he suddenly said something that made me freeze and my heart sank.

“It’s better if we don’t become mates, after all,” he said, eyes serious and cold. For a moment, he just stared at me, but then the words came out like a punch to the gut. “I’m breaking up with you. Our mateship is canceled.”

I stared at him in disbelief, feeling the world spin, the ground slipping out from under me.

“You’re tainted by your family’s choices. I can’t be with someone whose father is putting the entire pack in danger. We’re not mates yet so this will not have any effect on you but I can’t be your mate once you turn 18.”

Tears stung at the corners of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.

“I see... So you’re a coward,” I said. “You’d rather follow the pack’s fear than stand by me.”

“It’s not fear, Gaia. It’s survival,” he said, looking at me coldly. “I have a responsibility to this pack. I can’t let your father’s decisions ruin everything.”

My throat tightened, feeling the weight of his words that crushed my heart. Without another word, I turned away from him and walked off, carrying the pieces left of my heart.

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That evening, the air was thick with tension. My mom had prepared dinner, but none of us could eat. There was too much unease, too much uncertainty hanging in the air.

Sitting at the table, my father looked tired, more tired than I’d ever seen him.

“They’ve been talking again,” he said, breaking the heavy silence.

“They’re scared,” my mom replied softly, resting a hand on his arm. “They don’t understand that helping that rogue was the right thing to do.”

“Fear doesn’t need logic,” I muttered under my breath.

Before anyone could respond, a loud knock echoed through the house. My father stood, his brow furrowed, and moved toward the door. When he opened it, my heart stopped.

The elders stood there, carrying weapons. Some had even shifted in their wolf forms. All of their faces were cold, eyes empty of mercy, not even a flicker of guilt.

“Alpha Darian,” one of them began, stepping forward, “you have put this pack at risk for the last time.”

“What is the meaning of this?” My father’s voice was calm but firm.

“We are here to relieve you of your position as Alpha,” one of the elders said, his tone merciless. “You’ve betrayed the pack by harboring a rogue.”

Harboring a rogue? Didn’t the rogue leave already? I turned to my parents but they remained silent.

“You need to come with us, Alpha Darian. It’s time to face punishment,” the elder said.

“No!” I screamed, running toward my father, but mother grabbed me, holding me back.

“Selene, take Gaia and go to the spring,” my father ordered, fear lacing his voice, something I’d never heard from him before.

The next moments blurred together. My father tried to reason with them, but their anger drowned out his words. The elders didn’t listen… and they started to attack my father.

My father shifted to his wolf form but the pack had too many of them. The strongest soldiers sided with the elders and they too, started to attack my father.

“Stop!” I screamed while my mother tried to protect me.

“Gaia!” she called and faced me, face full of worry, “Listen carefully. I want you to make a run for it. Go to the woods and hide.”

“No, I won’t do that, I’m not leaving you and father,” I told her, shaking my head and trying to stop the trembling of my body.

Tears fell down my mother’s eyes before she pulled me to a hug, “Just listen to me for once. Your father and I will see you before the sun rises. I promise.”

I wiped my tears and looked at her face, her eyes full of fear and pain but also strength. She pushed me to the woods. “Hurry!”

I stood up, but before I could even make a run for it, a large wolf sprinted towards us, attacking my mother down. She fell and before I or my father could even move towards her, one of the soldiers carrying a sword slashed it on my mother’s chest. As though it wasn’t enough, they stabbed her right into her stomach until the sword went through to the other side.

My head turned to my father’s direction and there I saw him drop everything and ran towards my mother. But five wolves attacked him all at the same time, tackling him down to the ground.

“Gaia!” I heard his guttural scream before the tearing of flesh from claws, teeth, and weapons, resonated in the air.

My world stopped. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, the sound around me turned muffled as I stood frozen, my eyes only following my parents’ bodies falling to the ground, blood soaking into the earth beneath them as they struggled to move, hands trying to reach me with their bloodied hands, their eyes begging, their lips silently uttering, urging me to run.

Then slowly, returning to their human forms, their bodies stopped moving.

Light faded from their eyes and their bodies completely went still.

“No…” I whispered as I fell to my knees. “Mother… Father…”

I wasn’t given the time to process everything as my pack members launched to me next, holding me and preventing me from going after my parents. My heart shattered, breaking in ways I hadn’t thought possible.

“Do what you have to do with her,” I heard one of the elders mutter coldly on the side.

Fear crept inside me as I looked at my parents’ bodies getting dragged away, with my own body being pulled and dragged away.

“No… Mother! Father!” I screamed but no one listened to my pleas, all of them turned deaf and I watched, with my heart breaking and air escaping my lungs entirely, how they took my parents to the massive fire.

Tears flowed down like waterfalls. I kept kicking and fighting, even tried shifting, but my mind was a mess and I became helpless and powerless with about three strong men holding me down. They kicked me, scratched me, punched me, all to their hearts’ content. Pain ripped through me but the physical pain was nothing compared to the pain inside my heart.

“Please… let me see them…” I whispered between sobs as my vision began to blur, the last thing I tasted was the bitter tang of blood before everything turned black.

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When I woke up, everything hurt. My wrists were bound, the sharp sting of chains cutting into my skin. I tried to move, but the pain was too much. The smell of damp wood and cold iron filled my nose, and when my eyes finally adjusted, I realized I wasn’t in our pack territory anymore. I was in a cage.

My heart sank at the realization.

More so when a voice sneered from the shadows.

“You’re finally awake, little one. Welcome to the rogue auction house.”

Gaia’s POV.

The cold, damp air of the auction house wrapped around me, clinging to my skin like it was trying to seep into my bones. I had gotten used to the chill, the way it made everything feel even heavier. Five years. It had been five years since I lost everything–my family, my pack, myself. Five years since I became this... shell of who I used to be. At twenty-three years old, I could barely remember what life felt like outside this cage.

I didn’t know if it was hunger or just exhaustion, but everything felt distant and muted. I pulled my knees tighter to my chest, feeling the sharpness of my bones under my skin. I didn’t care about my body, just being alive was enough.

It was safe to say I had turned numb.

The daily jeers from the other captives barely registered anymore. They had gotten used to me being here, and I had gotten used to them.

"Look at her, the 'princess' in a cage,” one of the female servants of this rogue house scoffed, circling around my cage like she was on a victory lap. “Bet she thought she was better than all of us.”

I didn’t flinch. I learned a long time ago that reacting only gave them what they wanted. I just stared at the dirty floor, feeling the cold iron bars pressing against my back. The hunger gnawed at me, but food wasn’t something I thought about much anymore. It came when it came, and even then, it was barely enough to matter.

"Still a virgin, huh?" another voice cut in. "That’s all you're good for now–selling that precious purity to the highest bidder.”

“Still can’t figure out what Santi thought. Of all the rogues here, he said to keep this one here and pick the rest first,” another man said, giving me a look of curiosity.

His companion scoffed, “He’s probably saving this girl for himself. But now that he’s gone, we can finally bring this girl to the auction hall, right?”

The words landed like stones, but I didn’t let them show on my face. They didn’t understand that after all this time, words meant nothing to me. I had been stripped of my pack, my name, my dignity–what was left for them to take?

“Make sure that one stays untouched,” I overheard one of the auctioneers say, a man with a big belly and a thick mustache they all called Headmaster. He gave me a quick glance before saying, “A virgin like her will fetch a high price. With a face like that, the bidders will go mad.”

I sat in silence. Once, I had tried to speak, but that earned me days without food and more beatings than I could count. I had learned the hard way how to survive here. And I wouldn’t lie—I had thought about ending it. More than once. There were moments when it seemed easier than enduring this endless cycle of torment.

But every time I tried, memories from another life would surface. Images of running through the woods, free as the wind, my father’s deep laugh echoing in the trees, and my mother’s gentle hands wiping away my tears. They stopped me. Kept me from going through with it.

But even those memories had begun to fade. Faces blurred, voices softened until they felt like echoes from a life that wasn’t mine anymore. Maybe I was letting go of them on purpose. Holding on felt like gripping the edge of a knife, the pain too much to bear.

“Gaia.”

My name, whispered from the cage next to mine, yanked me from my thoughts. It had been so long since I’d heard it from anyone in this place. Ilana, the girl who’d been captured a few months ago, looked at me with wide eyes full of pity. I hated that look.

“They’re going to sell you soon,” she whispered. “I overheard them talking. They’ve been saving you for something... special.”

Even though I knew it was coming, her words twisted my insides. I had always known it was only a matter of time.

“I’m sorry,” Ilana added. “I wish I could help.”

I glanced at her, offering a small, hollow smile. “It’s fine. No one could anyway.”

And that was the truth. Outside of this cage, I was already dead. No one knew where I was. No one cared.

But as much as I told myself that, there was a tiny, stubborn part of me that refused to die. A whisper deep inside that maybe, just maybe, there was still a way out of this.

It wasn’t hope—I wasn’t foolish enough to call it that. It was my wolf. She was still there, buried under the numbness, hanging on by a thread. She wouldn’t let me give up, no matter how much I wanted to.

Apparently, it was all that she and I both had left.

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Ragnar’s POV.

The training grounds were quiet, save for the steady thud of my fists against the leather target. Sweat rolled down my neck but I didn’t slow down. Each punch, each kick – every movement had to be perfect. No room for error. Not for me.

“Faster, Ragnar!” Torin’s voice cut through the air. He stood off to the side, arms crossed, watching my every move.

I didn’t respond. Talking was a waste of breath. I spun and delivered a sharp kick to the training dummy, sending it crashing down.

“Better,” Torin said with a smirk. “But don’t get cocky. The enemy won’t wait for you to get comfortable.”

“I’m not getting comfortable,” I muttered, wiping the sweat from my brow. “I’m preparing.”

Torin nodded, fairly satisfied, but I could see the unspoken expectation in his eyes. They all had it. The pack, the elders, the entire damn region–they always looked at me with expectation. I couldn’t blame them, though. With no Alpha left in our pack, I was all they had. I was their only hope if the war reached our territory. And that war – led by the notorious Alpha of the East’s biggest pack – was something everyone feared, except me.

I was waiting for it. I wanted to lead my people to safety, let them know they could all rely on me, their future Alpha. And that was why I couldn’t show any weakness, even in training sessions.

“Keep pushing him, Torin,” Jarek, one of the older generals, said as he approached. “Can’t afford to slip up now. Not when the enemy’s breathing down our necks.”

I gave him a curt nod. Jarek meant well, but I knew what he wasn’t saying out loud. We were teetering on the edge of war and everyone was waiting for me to be the one to lead them through it. The weight of it pressed on my shoulders every day but I’d learned to carry it.

“I won’t slip,” I said. “The fighters we’ve trained are ready. We’ll fight when the time comes.”

“They’ll follow you to the end,” Torin said, slapping my back. “You know that.”

I didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything to say. They were loyal, sure. But loyalty wasn’t enough when you were fighting for survival. It wasn’t enough when your enemies were stronger and better resourced. at the thought, my mind couldn’t help but flicker back to the prophecy—one of our elders told me about it when I reached 18.

She said she saw a vision – that in the future, I’d unite the packs, that I was destined to lead them to victory. That kind of expectation wasn’t something you could shake off, but then again, I was far from the person she described.

“The neighboring pack said rogues were seen by their borders a few nights ago,” Jarek added as if we weren’t all thinking the same thing. “We need to be ready just in case they reach ours.”

“We will be.” I clenched my fists. “We don’t have a choice.”

Before I could think too much, Torin’s mischievous grin returned. “Speaking of rogues, there’s a black market gathering tonight. We should go.”

“Why?” I frowned.

“There’s an auction. We could pick up on some useful information. You know the kind of things that go down at these places.”

I hesitated. I had enough on my plate without running off to a black market auction. But Torin wasn’t wrong. The underground was where whispers traveled, and in our situation, we couldn’t afford to miss anything.

“Fine,” I muttered. “We’ll go.”

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The black market reeked of desperation. Cloaked figures drifted between the stalls, trading stolen goods and black market wares. I kept my hood pulled low, blending into the shadows with Torin and two others beside me. The less attention we drew, the better.

“Keep your head down,” I told them, scanning the crowd. “We’re here to observe, not to get involved.”

We slipped through the crowd, past booths selling weapons, strange herbs, and trinkets I couldn’t identify. But it wasn’t the stalls that caught my attention–it was the auction house ahead. It was tall, grim, with barred windows and guards stationed at the door.

“This is it,” Torin whispered, glancing at me. “Let’s see what they’ve got.”

Inside, the room was packed. Buyers murmured amongst themselves as the auctioneer called out prices, selling off the poor souls lined up on stage like livestock. My eyes swept over the scene, but my focus was distant. I’d seen this kind of place before, and it always left a bad taste in my mouth.

“Nothing new,” I muttered, preparing to leave. “Let’s head out, Torin.”

I turned around and was about to head out when my eyes landed on her.

At the far end of the room, caged and frail, was a girl. Her long, tangled hair fell around her dirtied face, but even through the dirt and pain, one could still see the beauty in her – she carried that something, an aura, a scent – something that made my chest tighten.

My steps slowed, and I found myself unable to tear my gaze away, my body moving slowly towards her.

“Ragnar?” Torin said but I ignored him.

I approached the girl. Her eyes were downcast, but the moment she looked up, the air shifted and I froze.

Our eyes met.

For a second, everything else disappeared–the noise, the auctioneer’s voice, the crowd. There was just her. And a pull I’d never felt before, like something deep inside me had snapped into place.

“Please don’t tell me it’s what I think,” Torin uttered, oblivious to the storm in my chest.

“I’ll take her,” I said before I even realized the words had left my mouth, keeping to myself another word that boomed right from my chest, making my blood throb the moment I looked at her once more.

Mine.